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Footfall

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Footfall

By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
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About this listen

They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world's frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods. Now the conquerors are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender - or death for all humans.

©1986 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2010 Audible, Inc. Adventure Science Fiction Space Opera Space Fiction Solar System Military

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Critic reviews

“Nobody does it better than Niven and Pournelle. I loved it!” (Tom Clancy)
"Rousing – the best of the genre.” ( The New York Times Book Review)
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The great storyline was let down by the narrators terrible accents. Consequently I only managed to listen to half of the book before I could stand the accents no mor!

Poor quality narration

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I really liked MacLeod Andrews' reading of this classic space-war story, which is one of my favourite books.
I bought and read (and then lost) two copies of it, so I was glad to find it on Audible.
I didn't have any problem with the Russian, American or fithp accents.
I wish that Niven and Pournelle would write a sequel to Footfall so I could listen to that too.

Excellent reading of this classic space-war story

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One of the best first contact stories with a very realistic depiction of an alien society. The female characters are a bit wimpy (which is sexist by today's standards), but was fairly common at the time the original book was written - at about the time when women's lib was beginning to take off. I am old enough to remember the bad old times. Excellent narration.

A Classic SF masterwork

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Ok so it’s a VERY long book and I can’t help but believe that being shorter would not have distracted from the overall experience

Also there are a couple of lose ends which I was expecting to get answered but unless I missed them left me with gaps - without giving anything away for example, the question of the origins and relationship to humans was raised several times but not addressed.

The ending was pretty abrupt too, almost as if the authors had run out of steam and had to wrap it up quickly.

I liked the narration which some have criticised, but why oh why were these aggressive aliens based on baby elephants!!! A scarier creature would have been more in line with the story- I struggled with this element.

However, all that said, if you can overcome these issues an entertaining listen if you have loads of time

Great and irritating at the same time.

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The story was good, some characterisation was a little dated but the narration was amazing!

Amazing Narration

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Worth a listen but maybe a little long. Characters well written maybe some of the audible abit over top regards aliens speak but get used to it. 4/5

Great storytelling

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A dated backdrop, but still an excellent space yarn. A very good speaker too. recommended.

Loved it. Took me back to my youth.

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Interesting book. Very well performed. I enjoyed it but it didn't have to be as long

Good story

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I was recommended this book to read but decided to get it from Audible, as I was doing some long road journeys and it would be most convenient to listen to it on my iPhone, however the narrator has used a very heavy accent, which makes listening in a car very hard work - I frequently had to rewind to understand the story.

An effort to understand!

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This is one of the best alien invasion stories I have ever read or listened to.

Footfall - invasion

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