Marvellous concept, well written but lost its way

The Author creates a knowledgeable believable near future universe where first contact is made with a robotic probe orbiting Earth. But then sadly a third of the way through the book disappears into a rabbit warren of overt political correctness, anti BrExit and USA stances, lectures the audience and generally drives the listener insane with a conflict of deciding to plough through the diatribe to keep his inventive story going or give up. It doesn’t help that his narrator only uses cockney English for all of the secondary English characters, and comes over as preachy (I know she is just reading his words). I would have loved the story to have have had the world capitalise on the knowledge. Alas the ending just got even more weird.

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Good story

Strong story with enjoyable conclusion, however narrators plumby English accent was grating and difficult to find some sort of affinity with. Science was pretty plausible and easy enough to follow. I would say it was more suitable for young teen audience than adult.

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Relevant, thought-provoking and moving

Before buying this, I read a review that said "Americans and Christians won't like this" which intrigued me!

I haven't read a huge number of First Contact sci-fi, but I feel confident in saying that Harmsworth has managed to examine the idea from a new angle. There is, of course, some detail about the discovery of the alien device however most of the attention is focussed on how this discovery should be disseminated to the world's population. The autor touches on politics, in what I felt was a very pointed way! The religious impact of First Contact is also addressed fairly briefly. I think I would've enjoyed some more on that.

I think having "Hard Sci Fi" in the title may have made me listen more critically than usual. I can understand why the publishers may have required it but I found I was often questioning some of the writing. I think, at times, the author forgets their narrator is narrating to someone in the future, feeling the need to explain technologies of 2035 to an audience in 2020; that kind of broke the spell for me. There are some slightly clumsy moments too, where the cast of scientific characters explain some simple chemistry to each other that, surely, would be basic knowledge.

I did really enjoy the book - I just wish the editing had been just a little tighter.

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1 person found this helpful

Good start, mediocre 2nd half, mediocre narration

The story starts off quite compelling and I was interested to see how it developed. The first third of the story gave a few glimpses of barely believable plot twists, but as the story progresses it veers into the realm of laughable (and not in a good way).

For example (spoiler alert) the protagonist seems to magically bypass any and all government, corporate and military hierarchy and somehow becomes the sole decider of what happens to and with the most significant discovery in human history, simply because she was there when it was accidentally discovered.

However, if you can suspend reality and logic for a while, it is actually quite enjoyable.

The narration, however, is a real annoyance. Someone needs to tell this American narrator that there are more than two English accents. She only has 'extremely posh' aristocratic for the scientists, and 'artful dodger' cockney for everyone else (like receptionists). Someone needs to explain to her that the vast majority of English people speak with a neutral accent, not these idiotic stereotypes. It begs the question as to why a story about an English protagonist, and set largely in England would need an American narrator? Bonkers!

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engrossing.

The main character has been given Lady Penelope's voice, nice. The story was engaging and managed to avoid being woke.

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Good story.

I found it slow to get going but after a couple of chapters I was hooked.
It is a good story.
I would listen to it again.

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1 person found this helpful

Worth a listen and thought provoking if not a little biased.

Enjoyed the story and it was entertaining allbeit a little predictable and preachy in favour of science rather than belief. Tended to put forward a limited point of view as correct whilst at the same time being a tad condescending of alternatives points of view. Personally I wasn’t a massive fan of the narrators voice as rather posh and I didn’t like the leaning towards elitism, meritocracy and numerous references to certain brands and customs that elevate some above others. But that’s just my view and you had better judge it for yourself by having a listen

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A book of 2 halves.

Just listened to the visitor a real book of two halves!
The first is an excellent story, one of the best descriptions of space exploration I’ve read and it builds up a great storyline of ‘first contact’. Sadly the second half becomes a long political tirade against religion and any politics to the right of the late Carl Marx! Thankfully it has a good ending and is worth listening to just for the first half of the book.

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Loved this!!

Great book, great concept, great narrator. Needless to say, i liked the book a bit too much

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2 people found this helpful

Great first contact story.

Amazing , complete first contact story. However it should be continue... I like the ideas presented in the book, They make you think about our life on earth and giv/e some new, alien perspective.

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1 person found this helpful