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Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Written and set in the 1980’s, Footfall is a science fiction novel about the Earth being attacked by aliens from Space. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle do an amazing job of story telling, character development, and language.

A big part of the story is the language used by the aliens; which is something I generally do not like in science fiction books. A bit of foreign language or difficult slang is ok for flavor, but a lot of it just makes a story very hard to read and follow. If I had bought this book as a paperback and tried to read it, there is a good chance I would not have made it all the way through, but as an audiobook it was fantastic.

MacLeod Andrews does an amazing job narrating the story and bringing both the earthlings and aliens to life. He gives them all unique voices and really brings their emotions to life.

I enjoyed this book immensely and look forward to listening to more Niven/Pournelle books.

I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

From the publisher:

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.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to any science fiction fan.

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