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The Visitor
- First Contact Hard Science Fiction
- Narrated by: Marni Penning
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction
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Summary
The Visitor - hard, near-future science fiction for the listener who likes realism.
Specialist astronaut Evelyn Slater encounters a small, badly damaged, ancient alien artifact on the first ever space junk elimination mission.
Where was it from? Who sent it?
International governments impose a security clampdown. Evelyn leads a team of handpicked scientists who make amazing discoveries within the alien device. Secrecy becomes impossible to maintain. When the news is finally released, she becomes embroiled in international politics, worldwide xenophobic hatred, and violence.
This is the first book in the Tony Harmsworth’s First Contact series of novels. If you like realistic near-future stories which compel you to imagine yourself as the protagonist, The Visitor is the book for you. The Visitor is a science fiction for the "thinking" listener and with a wicked twist. Buy it now and be transported into orbit.
What listeners say about The Visitor
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Paul Thompson
- 11-12-19
A well crafted classic - Deserves a movie deal.
Just finished listening to this on Audible.
Americans, Christian's and Republicans are going to hate this book. Well, maybe half of all Americans.
I loved it.
Great plot progression and escalation.
A strong female lead.
Plausible and clever technology.
Reasonably accurate orbital physics.
Totally brutal towards right wing politics and religion.
Good narration.
A loud and clear definition of the stupidity of man.
Well done Tony. I loved it to bits.
My only complaint is that you've left no wiggle room for a sequel.
It's a book just crying out for a movie deal.
5 people found this helpful
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- James Burkill
- 22-07-20
Finally someone gets hard sci fi
Most hard sci fi novels go down the road of pausing the story for long periods of time to deliver science lessons full of technical detail. Harmsworth doesn't make that mistake here. He has done his research, but rather than relaying it all back to the reader literally, he uses it to describe a realistic environment, giving the reader a taste of what it is like to be there.
That's what I want from my sci fi. I want to experience what it would really be like to travel in outer space, explore nearby star systems or be alive when first contact is made with extraterrestrial beings.
Most sci fi is either pure fantasy or pure science lesson. This book is one of the few that gets the balance right.
2 people found this helpful
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- elaine
- 20-07-21
Narrator
I couldn’t listen to the book, entirely down to the narrator’s grating and affected accent. Unlistenable production of a good book.
1 person found this helpful
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- Ronster
- 22-03-21
What was Harmsworth thinking?
Nauseatingly woke. Dreadfully condescending. Primary protagonist is entirely off-putting. Takes herself so seriously, she’s impossible to like.
It’s a pity, as the narrator is excellent and the premise is very interesting. The problem is that you know that if you actually met this character in real life, you’d run a mile. Yuck.
1 person found this helpful
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- kevin
- 13-01-20
Loved this!!
Great book, great concept, great narrator. Needless to say, i liked the book a bit too much
1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 13-06-22
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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- VJ
- 23-05-22
Brilliant!
A thoroughly captivating novel that should be read by all humans.
Great narration that brought the various characters to life.
Highly recommended thought provoking storyline.
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- Noel Marshall
- 21-04-22
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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- Amazon Customer
- 15-01-22
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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- mr s j wren
- 01-01-22
Not bad, could have been superb
I found this to a fairly good story and worth a listen. I could not help feeling the central charector needed to get over herself and felt she was arrogant and obsessed with power and status, just up herself really. This had the impact of making her annoying rather than relatable. The other charectors were a bit flat and not really explored very much. The build up was laboured and the last quarter felt rushed. The accents were laughable by the reader some of the settings at times felt a bit daft and the time line of the main narrative was unconvincing. The premise was good though with interesting predictions around tech and daily life, not bad.
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- brendan samples
- 26-01-20
wow what a train wreck of a book.
this book reeks of poshness and takes pc culture to the extreme. main character screams that a reporter is racist for saying a gross alien is gross. it is also very cliche. the main character discovers the alien in space, runs the research facility when it is brought to earth. gets shot in a mass shooting where hey fiance dies. recovers, goes back to space, gets cancer, dies, and then falls on love with the Alien. the whole time the author is preaching values to the reader and shitting on all of mankind. the voice actress did an amazing job though.
11 people found this helpful
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- William L.
- 10-08-20
huge disappointment
despite a decent narrator, I couldn't make it through chapter 22. The first part read like a junior high school adolescent girl's try at a short story. From there it was a constant diatribe of wokeness, leftwing radical environmentalism, anti-americanism, anti religion, and racism paranoia. read it or listen to it at your discretion. or don't.
9 people found this helpful
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- Edath A. Feston
- 16-11-19
The Visitor is all that!
I only have about 3 hours every morning to myself to drink my coffee and listen to a good book while I knit or crochet or do some other mostly brainless task. For me, the test of a great audiobook is whether or not I think about the story after I've stopped it for the day, if I look forward to starting it back up the next, and if I feel what the characters feel. This is a great story with fascinating characters as well as intriguing science. Very enjoyable.
7 people found this helpful
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- binxwalker
- 09-04-20
Pathetic
Don't waste a minute of your life listening to this. It is so bad in so many ways that I can't begin to list them. Most of all, this IS NOT hard science fiction. It reads like it was written by a teenager for elementary school children, and fails at that level! The only thing worse than the writing was the narrator. How does a story like this get published?
5 people found this helpful
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- Jackson Theofore Keys
- 02-12-19
Fantastic book with sci fi that is believable
it's rare to run across a science fiction book that is not of the space opera variety. This book is based on science, and the possibility of what we would think of an alien species and what an alien species would think about us. I really enjoyed the science of space and how the crew had to adjust to ever-channging circumstances. The book felt real, as though the author tapped into who we are as a species and what we are afraid of. I would recommend this book to those who love hard science fiction and those who love the science of space. You will not be disappointed.
5 people found this helpful
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- William Barna
- 15-05-20
awful!
very drawn out! also did not appreciate the push on atheism and the the demeaning of religious beliefs! do not recommend!
4 people found this helpful
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- Theo
- 26-03-20
Over the top liberal agenda crap
Two thirds of this book were decent but the last third was sickeningly political with a completely obvious and biased agenda. I can’t believe I suffered through the whole thing.
Don’t be fooled by the good reviews. This is 100% biased opinion. Yuck!!
3 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 20-10-21
Biased Liberal Garbage. Wasted $$
I listen to science fiction to get away from the crap in this book. All conservatives bad. Mass shooting in England by a Christian. I wonder what Drafting would give for odds on that ? I believe this book was written by Joy Behar and German Hillary Merckle.
2 people found this helpful
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- Stephanie Hola
- 15-10-21
Good until it became agenda driven
Nothing more disappointing than investing time in a story to only be smacked with the author’s repetitive soap boxing for the second half. Agree with the author’s position or not it was not entertaining. The second half of the book could have been condensed to 25 pages, made all the same points and saved everyone time.
2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 23-08-21
I already own Maos little red book.
The narration was good, but why would I pay for this woke trash. Let's figure out personal pronouns before even making contact. Let's make a mockery of religion and anything that isn't far left talking points. Why can't you just tell a story? In this case if you just used the sci-fi content it would be half as long.
2 people found this helpful