The Last Astronaut

By: David Wellington

Narrated by: Megan Tusing

Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020!

"A terrifying tour de force." (James Rollins)

"Readers will be riveted." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Sally Jansen was NASA's leading astronaut, until a mission to Mars ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet anonymity, convinced her days in space are over.

She's wrong.

A large alien object has entered the solar system on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate. Out of time and out of options, NASA turns to Jansen. But as the object reveals its secrets, Jansen and her crew find themselves in a desperate struggle for survival - against the cold vacuum of space and something far, far worse....

"Breathless, compulsive reading." (Christopher Golden)

"A suspenseful, fast-paced story of first contact." (Kirkus)

©2019 David Wellington (P)2019 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"A gripping story that reveals its horrors one inexorable, plausible detail at a time. Readers will be riveted - and will want to keep all the lights on." (Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The Last Astronaut bridges the worlds of science fiction and horror perfectly--Wellington melds the awe of discovery with the terror of the unknown to keep readers riveted to every page." (Fred Van Lente, New York Times best-selling author of The Con Artist)

"If Stephen King had written a haunted house story set in space, it would look very much like The Last Astronaut. Written with an uncompromising, white-knuckled pace, here is book that will leave you shaking and looking at the cold depths of space with equal parts horror and wonder." (James Rollins, number one New York Times best-selling author of Crucible)

Outstanding! Creative! A 6 for the narrator!!

Outstanding! Creative! A 6 for the narrator!! I wouldn't change a thing! Simply a thrilling listen from start to finish!

Good stuff.

Narration was great. I wanted something different and I got it. Damn good book

Interesting

Interesting story, but the characters all felt very flat and uninteresting, didn’t feel compelled by their stories at all. Also didn’t help that it felt like their was an extreme dislike for private space exploration, especially the k space astronauts, that felt far to attached to the company. Enjoyed the idea, but the characters made it hard to get through. Also the whole “author” wrote this in after the fact and was in the story was a little to meta and felt out of place especially when he basically admits it was written not according to how a character felt it actually went. Not a great way to close it out.

Nice production, excellent performance.

I'm writing this review to praise Megan Tusing's performance mainly. The story was decent enough to serve as a framework for the audio performance. If I'd read this book I wouldn't have had as enjoyable an experience, but listening was engaging and it moved at a good pace, was consistent, and kept my interest. I OFTEN lose interest in sci fi stories at about the 60% point where I realize the author is in over their head. The books I truly love to read Audible doesn't produce, or I prefer to read them to lengthen my time with them. This story however kept me coming back to find out what happened and I largely attribute that to the performance by the narrator.
Her ability to switch voices was quite impressive and I always knew who was talking, male or female. The interstitial elements (flashback type things) were nicely differentiated by tone and sound effects so they didn't confuse things. The overall production and quality was top notch, some of the best I've enjoyed on Audible. It's no Rendezvous with Rama (hint!), but gems like that are rare. I agree with an Amazon review saying it is made for the screen. This is a good story and a great performance which makes it recommended for the entertainment value. Killer for a long road trip!

Fantastic story and performance

I really enjoyed this novel. I love that it had so much real science! Although it's full of real astrophysics and biology, it still has a sci-fi and horror aspect. You will not ne disappointed by this book.

This is the first 5 star review I've given in at least 2 years.

Good enough to finish

Good story for what it was. The narrator did a fantastic job. The only gripe, I think that once you lose a sense the others heightened but perhaps wearing a suit and helmet cuts those heightened senses, or the reliance on lights in space suits provided reliance and terror. We definitely need to invest in built in echo location mapping to our suits.

Mediocre. with a very lame ending

Do your self a favor and read The Gone World by Tom Swetstead or Southern Reach Trilogy. this book is not bad it's just not that good.

Great concept but agree with others on the characters

Really enjoyed the concept and what the aliens are and how they're encountered etc. The characters didn't have much to them though. I enjoyed the book overall and do think it's worth a listen but a credit is kind of expensive. Buy it on sale instead. The author had great ideas but the characters were literally all very one dimensional and I mean that as literally as possible. Each character is assigned a specific personality and there is absolutely no depth to them. To me what made this book pretty good was the general story. If you go into this book purely for the story of this alien encounter you will probably enjoy it a lot.

I think if you go into this book while thinking about the original Alien movie you'll enjoy it more. That movie didn't have tons of character depth but it also wasn't about the characters so much as the situation they were in. Like the movie this book is also focused on the situation and encounter mostly which makes it a bit rough because in a book you want depth and character exploration. I mean, you're investing hours and hours and hours so it should offer more.

That said, make this into a movie and it's probably 10/10. I do recommend the book overall especially since there is very little in the space horror genre but go into it with the proper expectations. It's a story about an alien encounter, not individual people and who they really are even though it does *try* to explore them.



Overall: fantastic concept, great descriptions of this alien encounter, very good narration overall, very unique story, but not very good character development or even character exploration. I didn't dislike the ending like some others but that's going to be more subjective than the other criticisms.

Great Ideas That Take Too Long To Explore

This book has a lot going for it. It's atmospheric, smart, and the characters are three dimensional with distinct voices. However, the amount of time the author takes to send these characters through their journeys is far too long. the characters often say and do repetitive things that reveal nothing new about them and there are action sequences in it that go on and on and on.

Having finished the book, I'm glad I read it. it's truly an interesting premise and teaches a life lesson worth hearing. But if a great editor sucked 100 pages out of this book, it would be no less powerful and far more enjoyable.

Not what I was wanting it to be but good nonethele

The Last Astronaut description seemed close to what I was wanting to hear, which was something involving aliens, spaceships, horror, etc. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for but the narration was good. The story was well written for the most part and kept me interested enough to finish listening. There was a part near the 2/3 mark I think where there was a lot of introspection and self-pity that I just soldiered through but it got better. I have to admit, I like the way it was written to seem somewhat like a retrospective on a few people's experiences, unique.

Overall I'd recommend the story as a good solid Science Fiction read.