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The Long Sunset

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The Long Sunset

By: Jack McDevitt
Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
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About this listen

From Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt comes the eighth installment in the popular The Academy series

Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins discovers an interstellar message from a highly advanced race that could be her last chance for a mission before the program is shut down for good. Hutch has been the academy’s best pilot for decades. She’s had numerous first contact encounters and even became a minor celebrity. But world politics have shifted from exploration to a growing fear that the program will run into an extraterrestrial race more advanced than humanity and war.

Despite taking part in the recent scientific breakthrough that rejuvenates the human body and expands one’s life span, Hutch finds herself as a famous interstellar pilot with little to do, until a message from an alien race arrives. The message is a piece of music from an unexplored area. Despite the fact that this alien race could pose a great danger and that this message could have taken several thousand years to travel, the program prepares the last interstellar ship for the journey. As the paranoia grows, Hutch and her crew make an early escape - but what they find at the other end of the galaxy is completely unexpected.

©2018 Cryptic, Inc. (P)2018 Recorded Books Adventure First Contact Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera

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NOT AS GOOD AS SOME OF HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THIS SERIES.SOME OF THE IDEAS WERE NOT DEVELOPED ENOUGH AND OTHER PARTS WERE DRAGGED OUT TOO LONG.OVERALL STILL A GOOD READ,COULD BE READ AS A STAND ALONE NOVEL.END SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN LEFT OPEN FOR A FOLLOW ON.

GOOD NEXT PART TO SERIES

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In the whole series the story never went the way I thought it would. That's a good thing:)

Never goes where I thought it would.

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Compared to some sci fi's I've listened to recently this is slow and wonderful. Mcdevitt is a mature storyteller and puts more depth into his minor subplots than others have in their main plotline. But it helps if you've read the previous novels in the series to get the context. One difficulty is the characters which are not as cleanly defined as they could be, and tend to do rather stupid things. That's part of the 'world', with humanity dumbing down and spending much of their time indulging in entertainments, rather than knowledge, so its in keeping, but difficult none the less.

Grown up sci fi

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I've enjoyed all the other books in this series, but I have to say that this is not of the same standard. Plodding, Pedestrian. Poor.
Lots of angst.

Really padded out the initial story line, then skated over everything else.

I gave up with two hours left to listen to, the pain wasn't worth it.

I never leave reviews - but this is an exception

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