A big story on a well traveled theme

There have been hundreds - possibly thousands of stories written on the theme of first alien contact. This is another. An slightly unusual take in some respects and a little cliched on others. Some of the sub-plots had certainly been borrowed from other well known books/films, but none the worse for that.
An enjoyable listen although what is it with Americans and English accents? Most just cannot do them. They either sound like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins or a drunk Australian. In this case it was a combination of the two I think!
The story though is well paced and well thought out with some decent research done although the ending (no spoilers) was a little rushed and fell into the old formula and one particular plot twist spoiled it for me a bit but I think I am just being picky. If you like earth based sci-fi in the current era then it is well worth a listen.

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2 people found this helpful

A good story but to long

a good story very well narrated but to long it would benefit from being abridged

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Good story - clunky writing

An awful lot of stuff not germane to the real story - like a Tom Clancy book on steroids. Could have lost a hundred pages easy without detracting from the plot.

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A good yarn

The variable accents are much criticised in the comments but I didn't find them too objectionable. OK, the narrator hasn't a clue what a Yorkshire accent sounds like but if you ignore that, the others didn't grate too much on my delicate sensibilities. I have heard worse from both American and UK narrators. It didn't spoil the story for me at all and I was quite happy to suspend belief about where the British people came from, just as I was able to suspend belief about the story as a light Sci Fi yarn.

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Not your ordinary Alien Book

The book concentrates more on the sociopolitical aspect of what would happen if aliens were proven to exist.
A number of twists in the book made it compelling listening and a great deal of the narrative was very plausible.

I for one, did not think that the narrators accents detracted from the reading one iota - and I am English :)

Just downloaded book two, even though I have a raft of other titles to listen to

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Interesting story, with some hurdles

This book overall was a good listen, however, enjoyment depends entirely on how patient you are with long listens. The books focuses far too much on literally watching news, PR campaigns and political hacks being taken somewhat seriously.

There was an interesting twist later in the book, followed by some exciting and unexpected scenes.

One thing that is hard to get past is the main character Dan. He seems to be so well loved by the people around him, yet he is nothing but a ten year old in a 6 foot 3 man's body. He has countless character flaws which only get worse throughout the book. It would be better it people actually acknowledged his flaws, but instead, all the other characters practically worship him for most of the book.

Beside from this, most of this book tries to critique modern media culture and the decline of politics. This critique comes mostly as cheap jabs throughout.

Despite this, it is still somewhat enjoyable, and I finished the entire book very quickly.

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Good story, slow at times

Really liked some of the characters. A couple of twist and turns make the story interesting. Looking forward to listening to the next audiobook in this series.

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really enjoyed it,

hood listening with a few twists, a typical conspiracy theorist story with corruption and miss information

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Excellent first contact book

A really great first contact book for once starring an average kind of guy as the lead character. Brilliantly narrated save for some dodgy British accents! I have read a lot of books of this genre and this is one of the best. I'm straight on to the sequel just as soon as I've submitted thus review.

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What a treat!

What did you like most about Not Alone?

So original, gripping and well worked..fabulous characterisations. I normally listen/read non fiction, but this was one of the most brilliant audiobooks - and narrator is so talented - perfect production all round - what a movie this would make!

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