I received an Advanced Copy of The Calling and therefore can only base my review on the story and not the puzzle.

When I first started reading this there were similarities to other books I have read that I won’t mention. 12 original lines, 12 players and 1 winner, there are no rules, and only one of these Players will survive which means the other 11 will die.

These players are all within a certain age, they are trained since birth.

12 meteors crash down on Earth, right where the said Players are which is their Calling, they all travel to the same destination where they will start the Endgame.

In this book all of the players are searching for the first key and they will be lead to it with a clue, each player has a different clue which is embedded in their head via kepler 22 an alien or god, whatever it was, it wasn’t human. They each have to decipher their clue to lead them to the key.

I am not going to tell you anymore as it is a great adventure and I did really enjoy the story even without the puzzle. The suspense was fantastic and obviously there was killings and maiming that were quite gory but all worked well within the story.

I felt I got to know most of the characters really well, their traits, their nature and what made them tick. I am hoping to get to know more about the others in the next book.

I do have a feeling that the player who activated the first key may not actually win though.

I am looking forward to reading the second book in the series. ( )

okay so I'm finished reading... I don't like the ending because my favorite player is dead... ugh... anyway... it's still good... ( )

I have two main issues with this book. The first is the way it treats violence. This book is almost gleefully graphic. Sure, if you’re into unnecessary violence, it might be your thing, but it certainly isn’t mine. I really liked the characters (except the sociopath ones), but I hate the innovative and horrible ways they come up with to kill each other.

Second off, this book is clearly a thinly veiled attempt to make money. This book has been out for less than five months and it already has two “companion novellas” for you to buy. Moreover, this book is almost 500 pages and it still needs a sequel somehow (just another thing for you to buy).

I’m not even gonna get into Hunger Games comparisons, because that’s already been done. Suffice to say, this book is basically the Hunger Games, set nowadays and (somehow) more violent. It certainly has its differences, but there are too many similarities for it to be a coincidence.

So just find a different book. This one is a waste of time.
( )

3.5 status
Rather difficult to get into the story but once I got to know the characters better I couldn't put the book down. ( )

I can see from the comments on Goodreads that this book draws some controversy, but I quite enjoyed it. It's a solid 3.5 stars from me. The author's name didn't really ring a bell for me, so I had no preconceptions going into it, and the comparisons to The Hunger Games are really way off base. Yes, there are points of superficial similarity in the premise, but the story is entirely different. *Entirely.* It's a fast-paced and quite gripping story in which you never know which characters will live or die, and the idea behind the plot is intriguing. It made me think back to books like Chariots of the Gods, which I read in my teens, and which probably shaped a lot of my ideas about life in the universe (take what you will from that). I listened to the audiobook and it was excellently narrated by Sunil Malhotra, who managed to give a diverse cast of characters very recognizable voices.

My only quibble was that some parts (long strings of words and/or numbers which the characters must decode) did not translate well for audio. Not sure how you'd fix that problem, but it serves to pull the reader out of the story, which you never want to do.

At any rate, I'd read the next one. ( )