Wherever Seeds May Fall

First Contact

By: Peter Cawdron

Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann

The Prince of Darkness is coming.

Comet Anduru skimmed the clouds of Saturn. Rather than being drawn into the gas giant, it skipped back out into space. With the comet heading for Jupiter, speculation is mounting it’s an alien spacecraft making its way to Earth.

Lieutenant Colonel Nolan Landis and Dr. Kath McKenzie are caught between an angry public and an anxious President as they grapple with the scientific, social, and political implications of first contact.

First Contact is a series of standalone novels that explore humanity's first interactions with extraterrestrial life.

©2021 Peter Cawdron (P)2022 Podium Audio

'MERICA'S LITERATURE AT ITS FINEST 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS!!

Oh, where to begin...

First of all: it's not a bad book, it kept me hooked until the very (rushed) end. It is a sci-fi as in there's some science in it, even though it's only exclusively about kinetics and grade school thermodynamics. Someone mentions something about nuclear energy further into the book, but nothing deep.

This introduces us to the next point: the only science we meet is rocket science, in the most purely americacentric way imaginable. NASA science, the most noble and valued field of science there is. Nothing else matters, no one else needs to be part of the picture.

Also, the writer tries so hard to be "cool" and to keep in touch his young / contemporary audience. I wanted to drop the book every time I heard expressions like "trolls" or "fangirling". At some point I heard "welcome to the dark side, we've got cookies".

Oh, and of course it wouldn't be an American sci-fi book if there wasn't the omnipresent hurricane disaster story! Oh no, that one can't be missing. The writer decides to waste a big part of this sci-fi book about humanity's first alien encounter talking about a collateral hurricane disaster as seen through the eyes of a very sweet Mexican grandpa and his priest friend who are taking care of children in an orphanage, out of the pure kindness of their hearts. It was just so embarrassing to keep hearing "padre" and "papi" over and over again, from people who were otherwise speaking perfectly in English all the time. By the way, this tear inducing side story adds absolutely nothing to the book.

One of the main characters of the book, a young female scientist with a double doctorate in astrophysics and quantum physics (we never find out how the latter had any relevance to the story) spends the entirety of the book fighting against ignorance and trying to force her agenda on the world, convinced that we must should always trust in science and we must silence all the inferior people who, out of their atavistic barbarism, are afraid of the oncoming aliens and consider them as a threat,
At the end of the book (careful, major spoilers here) they finally realize that the aliens actually came to destroy the world. After coming back from a mission where she almost died, she's given a chance to address the world. She's completely oblivious to the irony of the situation, as she's now screaming to the cameras telling the audience that they have to stop believing in false myths and stop spreading lies about her expedition, because the aliens are indeed a threat to humanity, contrarily to what some trolls are saying on the internet. By the way, the aliens were destroyed using a weapon that she vehemently insisted was not necessary. Not one single word was uttered on the matter.

Anyway, I warmly recommend this book to all those who are not bothered by blatant American patriotism, cringy internet neologisms and soppy hurricane disaster stories. After all, it was quite a fun ride!

One last thing: yes, there's a car chase scene.

Interesting concept mostly well executed

It took me a while to work out that although this book was in a series, 'First Contact,' that was more of a category than a strict definition. The author has taken the idea of humanity's first contact with aliens and applied it to a variety of takes. I found nothing in this book that belied that, it was easily read without need for any of the author's other works.

That said, my only slight hesitation was that I found the ending abrupt. Not that there wasn't an ending, but it seemed to just suddenly happen. So that and a couple of other confusing (to me) items are why I'm giving the story four stars, not five, but still an overall five (the narrator was very good.)

The inconsistencies were in the main characters, For Lt. Colonel, then Brigadier General, Nolan Landis, his career trajectory was an ongoing question. An apparently throw-away line said he'd walked into a recruiting center, but that would make his reaching even Lt. Col. quite the story in itself, not having attended the Air Force Academy. For Cath McKenzie, I kept getting odd contradictions in her description (tall, not tall, etc.) as if the author wasn't sure.

But those are specific to me. The science was first rate (as I understand it, not being an astrophysicist, just an interested onlooker) and other characters were solid (Andy and the president, mainly). But the ending seemed to have been meant as a twist, but one thing I took from it was that it seemed to somewhat validate the 'crazy conspiracists' (led by Andy) who the author had had nothing positive to say prior to that. I'm not sure if it was intentional on the author's part. But there wasn't much in the book that set it up.

But it was an entertaining ride.

Preachy righteousness wrapped in Sci-Fi

At some points the cringe was too much, had to fast forward few times.

Truly excellent!

This was great. Good science, good characters, thrilling... I loved it. Thank you Cawdron!

Really interesting where it leads

Really enjoyed the story, and where it ends up. Performance was also great, and the reader did a great job bringing it to life.

Compelling and exciting all the way thru

Very captivating story and an excellent performance by the narrator. I got this after Listening to 3Zekeal and was not disappointed

First contact goes nuts

Whenever seeds may fall is another book in the First COntact series by Peter Cawdron. The story begins, as usual, with the detection of an unusual comet that approaches the inner solar system. After showing incredible space navigation capabilities, the comet reveals to be a humongus starship....Spaceship woith a crew of superinteligent astronauts are sent and Humans are about to meet their first outter space visitors....And here is where all similarities with Rendezvous with Rama by ARTHUR C. CLARKE end. The story is decorated with hard science that entertains and excites true Sci-fi connoisseurs. In particular, the part of the story when the spaceship goes through Earth´s atmosphere, is fast paced, well written and makes you believe this is the book you were waiting for since Rama.... However, right when you are ready and salivating for the conclusion of the story and to know who are our visitors and why have come to Earth, ..Cowdron´s book goes space monsters from outter space are here to eat you...Overall, the story is really suited for a B movie adaptation..It seems that, after 20 First Contacts books, Peter Cowdron has ran out of ideas (good ones) and should throw in the towel picking up a different topic for his next story. For those who gave this book more than 1 or 2 stars, I invite you to read any book by Arthur C. Clarke...Finally, I can´t end ths review without mentioning Gary Tiedemann narration. He does a superb job in bringing the characters to you...

You want to listen to this one

As a scientist, I grit my teeth when an SF book gets anything scientific wrong, but this one gets it all right and does it in a fascinating way. You won't regret listening to this .

Good start but pretty poor ending

The narrator was great here and that really helped. The story starts well and there is a growing sense of something big about to happen but then it goes a little wierd with people being launched into deep space with little or no training. I'm trying not to drop spoilers but the ending is too abrupt - right at the 'oh my god' moment, the story skips rapidly forward with no satisfactory ending. It was worth listening to but don't get your hopes up too much. I will not be listening to any more from the author.

Another great book by Peter Cawdron

I don't know how he does it but this is another great book in the first contact series. Excellent concept with just enough hard science to make the story believable.