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Contact #1
Invasion
For millennia, an intelligence drifted in the dark. The last remnant of some long-lost race, it might have been lost forever. We might have been saved. But we were not alone, after all. The universe teemed with life. And the intelligence was found. Studied. Awoken. And the stars burned. Civilization after civilization fell to its irresistible, bloodthirsty might. Others ran, and it followed relentlessly into the abyss. Toward fresh prey. Now it's our turn. Our ships are old, politicians corrupt, citizens divided. And yet we must succeed where no other race ever has. We will stand. We will fight. And we will never surrender. Invasion is the first book in the Contact saga. The first three books will be released by September 25th!
391 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 21, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
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August 7, 2019Just not working for me. It seems well-written, I'm just not engaged with the story. Moving on.
February 24, 2019
Disjointed and with too much politics. A Really boring book. Too much politics.
Perspectives switch back and forth in every chapter. The politicians and this Fletcher guy are really stupid and are inserting dialogue and arguing with the main characters all the time. Well, I know real life politicians can be stupid ... but I'm reading The Expeditionary Force right now and the combat, inventiveness of humans, etc. is written much better in that series.
Perspectives switch back and forth in every chapter. The politicians and this Fletcher guy are really stupid and are inserting dialogue and arguing with the main characters all the time. Well, I know real life politicians can be stupid ... but I'm reading The Expeditionary Force right now and the combat, inventiveness of humans, etc. is written much better in that series.
August 28, 2018
What I will say is that Invasion:Contact is a masterpiece of military action and political intrigue. There is a lot that would go into fending off an alien invasion and Ryker nails it. There is always something going on. Someone is always up to something and it's not always helpful. Then again sometimes it is, or at least the character thinks it is.
Ryker seems to have a really good grasp of human nature. When the end of the world comes knocking and we all need to work together to preserve ourselves as a species there are those who look to their own personal benefit. That's realistic. Whether it's a US President known to "never let a crisis go to waste" or Winston Churchill using a war with the Nazis to gain the office of Prime Minister, that's how some people will always act. In a lot of cases, they're powerful people, because they've found and/or manufactured so many opportunities in the past and it's become habit.
Oh, and factionalism still seems to be a thing too. That also is human nature and it works. Something that has kind of bothered me in the past is that a lot of Science Fictional work assumes that something will happen and humanity will start all working together and it will instantly be all hunky-dory. With Star Trek it's the arrival of the Vulcans. With Robotech it's the crash landing of the SDF-1. It's like one alien shows up and we all join hands and start singing Kumbaya (or Internationale if you prefer, I guess). It wouldn't work that way. Groups will still have their agendas and will be working for their own benefit, even if they're working together in public. Ryker gets that.
But there's the other side of the equation too. Sometimes a Commanding Officer makes the wrong call. Sometimes he makes the right one. Regardless, there are times when an officer's decisions are going to result in the death of his subordinates. It's not pretty but it's the way the world works. The good ones will not the losses and keep fighting. They'll mourn when they can but they'll understand that the job requires them to keep fighting until then. That's a pretty good description of Red Hand Loreto, commander of the human fleet. He's hard but fair and he gets the job done. I like this guy.
Invasion: Contact is called Book One for a reason. There are at least two sequels planned to be released in very short order. In watching some of these characters develop, I'm wondering if Ryker isn't already showing us some future villains. I'm thinking of one character in particular who appears to be more than just a little disgruntled. I know we've all blamed the boss for something that went wrong before. I just think that some cases are worse than others and that sometimes people are in a better spot to do something about their anger than others. Time, and the next two books, will tell if I'm right or wrong, but I know which way I'm betting.
The battles in this book are mesmerizing. Ryker does a damn fine job of not only keeping it interesting, but also making it believable. Yes, things blow up. Yes, troops are lost on all side because that's how things work in real wars. Sometimes shots hit. Sometimes they miss. It all makes sense. And if I got a chuckle out of one ship's weakness well, hey, that just makes the story better.
The aliens in this book actually don't think like human beings. That's awesome. I mean, I mentioned Robotech earlier, right? Who can ever forget Exedore appearing and saying "Take me to your leader"? but I find it hard to believe that a species that evolved on another planet under separate conditions and with a totally different biology would think like human beings. I mean, look at the planet we live on. There are so many differences here and biologically we're all compatible. Why would something with a completely different brain structure think like us? They wouldn't. That's one thing that really works in Invasion: Contact. The motivations of one of the two alien species can be figured out, but their mode of communication is just not what any human being would consider normal.
That leads into my only really complaint about the novel. One of the alien races is pretty cardboard. We know that they're the attackers. We know that they're to be feared. We just don't know why. I mean, it's possible that they're just xenophobic and out to destroy all other life as a threat. If so though, it would be great to know that. As of right now, they're just targets with better tech than humanity has. I hope that changes further into the series. A mysterious villain works well but a truly evil one would be even better. So here's hoping. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy because Invasion: Contact is an absolute blast. David Ryker has hit it out of the park in his first book.
Ryker seems to have a really good grasp of human nature. When the end of the world comes knocking and we all need to work together to preserve ourselves as a species there are those who look to their own personal benefit. That's realistic. Whether it's a US President known to "never let a crisis go to waste" or Winston Churchill using a war with the Nazis to gain the office of Prime Minister, that's how some people will always act. In a lot of cases, they're powerful people, because they've found and/or manufactured so many opportunities in the past and it's become habit.
Oh, and factionalism still seems to be a thing too. That also is human nature and it works. Something that has kind of bothered me in the past is that a lot of Science Fictional work assumes that something will happen and humanity will start all working together and it will instantly be all hunky-dory. With Star Trek it's the arrival of the Vulcans. With Robotech it's the crash landing of the SDF-1. It's like one alien shows up and we all join hands and start singing Kumbaya (or Internationale if you prefer, I guess). It wouldn't work that way. Groups will still have their agendas and will be working for their own benefit, even if they're working together in public. Ryker gets that.
But there's the other side of the equation too. Sometimes a Commanding Officer makes the wrong call. Sometimes he makes the right one. Regardless, there are times when an officer's decisions are going to result in the death of his subordinates. It's not pretty but it's the way the world works. The good ones will not the losses and keep fighting. They'll mourn when they can but they'll understand that the job requires them to keep fighting until then. That's a pretty good description of Red Hand Loreto, commander of the human fleet. He's hard but fair and he gets the job done. I like this guy.
Invasion: Contact is called Book One for a reason. There are at least two sequels planned to be released in very short order. In watching some of these characters develop, I'm wondering if Ryker isn't already showing us some future villains. I'm thinking of one character in particular who appears to be more than just a little disgruntled. I know we've all blamed the boss for something that went wrong before. I just think that some cases are worse than others and that sometimes people are in a better spot to do something about their anger than others. Time, and the next two books, will tell if I'm right or wrong, but I know which way I'm betting.
The battles in this book are mesmerizing. Ryker does a damn fine job of not only keeping it interesting, but also making it believable. Yes, things blow up. Yes, troops are lost on all side because that's how things work in real wars. Sometimes shots hit. Sometimes they miss. It all makes sense. And if I got a chuckle out of one ship's weakness well, hey, that just makes the story better.
The aliens in this book actually don't think like human beings. That's awesome. I mean, I mentioned Robotech earlier, right? Who can ever forget Exedore appearing and saying "Take me to your leader"? but I find it hard to believe that a species that evolved on another planet under separate conditions and with a totally different biology would think like human beings. I mean, look at the planet we live on. There are so many differences here and biologically we're all compatible. Why would something with a completely different brain structure think like us? They wouldn't. That's one thing that really works in Invasion: Contact. The motivations of one of the two alien species can be figured out, but their mode of communication is just not what any human being would consider normal.
That leads into my only really complaint about the novel. One of the alien races is pretty cardboard. We know that they're the attackers. We know that they're to be feared. We just don't know why. I mean, it's possible that they're just xenophobic and out to destroy all other life as a threat. If so though, it would be great to know that. As of right now, they're just targets with better tech than humanity has. I hope that changes further into the series. A mysterious villain works well but a truly evil one would be even better. So here's hoping. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy because Invasion: Contact is an absolute blast. David Ryker has hit it out of the park in his first book.
August 25, 2018
Guilty
I don’t know nor understand why I read a 1-2 star story to the end. This story had the popular recurring plot of old ship with old CO waiting to retire that authors have been using. I generally like this theme but would like to understand what’s going on.
There were essentially 2 POV’s throughout, one political and the other military. I confess that after awhile, I was skimming the political POV. The author created an absolutely corrupt political background with mostly despicable characters. After a short while, I didn’t really want to read about it. Basically anyone could have skipped that POV, and 40% of story, without missing anything.
The story was confusing, disorganized for over two thirds of its length. Then, author finally relented and provided several pages of background to make sense of what was going on. The ending was typical desperate good guys in a lost cause shoot out. Good guys won.
Unfortunately, no characters to cheer on, engage with. Confused for most of the story and generally the run of the mill PC themes that are popular nowadays. And IMO, not well done at all.
I don’t know nor understand why I read a 1-2 star story to the end. This story had the popular recurring plot of old ship with old CO waiting to retire that authors have been using. I generally like this theme but would like to understand what’s going on.
There were essentially 2 POV’s throughout, one political and the other military. I confess that after awhile, I was skimming the political POV. The author created an absolutely corrupt political background with mostly despicable characters. After a short while, I didn’t really want to read about it. Basically anyone could have skipped that POV, and 40% of story, without missing anything.
The story was confusing, disorganized for over two thirds of its length. Then, author finally relented and provided several pages of background to make sense of what was going on. The ending was typical desperate good guys in a lost cause shoot out. Good guys won.
Unfortunately, no characters to cheer on, engage with. Confused for most of the story and generally the run of the mill PC themes that are popular nowadays. And IMO, not well done at all.
November 20, 2018
War IS Hell
It's not often you will read a book about war where you can feel the desperation that comes about in battle. Always needing more, a little bit more. A hundred percent doesn't get there, to succeed you must pull it from the marrow of your bones. Succeed you will, or perish.
This novel does that.
The fight, the battle, is the honest side of war. Gory, grimy, bleeding and filthy, but it's still the honest side of war. David Ryker gives you this.
Mr. Ryker has also captured the seamy side of war. Politics, politicians looking to advance their career or their fortune; manipulation, hero's never win but they are exploited. The rubble hasn't even been swept aside before riches and influence are aportioned by the politically powerful, while the wannabe politically powerful scuttle around like crabs grabbing pieces pinched off the previous body politic.
I really enjoyed this novel, and I'm anxious to start the next in this universe. I've marked a few characters I think will come forward ... but I won't know until it gets here.
If y'all will excuse me, I'll submit this and head for the library.
It's not often you will read a book about war where you can feel the desperation that comes about in battle. Always needing more, a little bit more. A hundred percent doesn't get there, to succeed you must pull it from the marrow of your bones. Succeed you will, or perish.
This novel does that.
The fight, the battle, is the honest side of war. Gory, grimy, bleeding and filthy, but it's still the honest side of war. David Ryker gives you this.
Mr. Ryker has also captured the seamy side of war. Politics, politicians looking to advance their career or their fortune; manipulation, hero's never win but they are exploited. The rubble hasn't even been swept aside before riches and influence are aportioned by the politically powerful, while the wannabe politically powerful scuttle around like crabs grabbing pieces pinched off the previous body politic.
I really enjoyed this novel, and I'm anxious to start the next in this universe. I've marked a few characters I think will come forward ... but I won't know until it gets here.
If y'all will excuse me, I'll submit this and head for the library.
November 12, 2018
A DR SYFY NOvel About a Group of Marines Sentenced to 100 Years in Prison
DR has penned the first novel of in the Contact series. The Marines have been in prison for almost five years when an Alien voice begins to converse with the Marines about needing a revolution so they can be to against the ruling monarchy of Earth or the top ten percent. This is an excellent beginning for a new SYFY series. This is an excellent read for the genre.,
DR has penned the first novel of in the Contact series. The Marines have been in prison for almost five years when an Alien voice begins to converse with the Marines about needing a revolution so they can be to against the ruling monarchy of Earth or the top ten percent. This is an excellent beginning for a new SYFY series. This is an excellent read for the genre.,
November 9, 2018
A bit to space opera formulaic for my tastes. I was expecting more exploration of the Exiles or at least more of a reveal. They seem to be variation of Deus Ex Machina just showing up earlier in the book than as a deus ex machina normally would. I won't read the second book. I do like the cover art and typeface.
August 26, 2018
Very good!! First pages draw you in and then pull on the heart strings. Ryker did great showing how one deals with loss, even during war. It was non stop action the whole way through the book. Definitely reccomend it.
January 14, 2019
Whoavserious action right off
The author really brings a serious amount of action and intriguing characters. Really glad the second book was available as well. Let's see where this goes. Going to be a will ride I feel.
The author really brings a serious amount of action and intriguing characters. Really glad the second book was available as well. Let's see where this goes. Going to be a will ride I feel.
October 24, 2019
Honestly, the author got right idea but seriously lack in finesse of storytelling! He need to fire his editor...
January 7, 2020
Enjoyed it very much. However, there was just too much self-doubt, guilt, and fear of failure at the Admiral’s level. It was getting annoying.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews