The Hercules Text Audiobook By Jack McDevitt cover art

The Hercules Text

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The Hercules Text

By: Jack McDevitt
Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
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The classic first-contact science fiction novel that launched the career of Jack McDevitt, the nationally best-selling author of Coming Home - now revised from the original edition, and featuring a new foreword.

From a remote corner of the galaxy, a message is being sent. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular...artificial. It can only be a code.

Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the alien communication. And what the scientists discover is destined to shake the foundations of empires around this world - from Wall Street to the Vatican....

©2015 Cryptic, Inc. (P)2018 Tantor Adventure First Contact Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction
Fresh Approach • Interesting Concept • Good Performance • Light Reading • Curious Ideas
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new concepts and ideas spring forth in this fresh approach to life amongst the stars.

original and gripping

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To start with, if you are looking for some sort of adventure with aliens, space battles, etc - this is not the book. The alien signal is received and decoded and that's it with them aliens. The rest is about humans. I quite liked it. It's thoughtful.

a thoughtful contemplation

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I enjoyed the story and the characters. This plays out like one would realistically expect should such information ever arrive here from an advanced alien species. Lots of issues and different stakeholders to consider in this story.

Intellectual Analysis of 1st Contact

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This smart story holds up a mirror to the reader and invites them to bravely walk through into the transcendental. Bravo!

Classic sci-fi that inspires and entertains

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A good story for light reading. Flawed in that the author dabbles in Christian theology with which he obviously has only a surface understanding. I have enjoyed many of his other books.

Entertaining

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eExpected a lot more story regarding the text besides that last hour. Too much drama over Harry's relationship omg. is this scfi?

Long drawn out story

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Jack McDevitt’s The Hercules Text is a first contact tale, although there is no real contact. A recognized pulsar known for its regularity suddenly becomes irregular. Interpreted as a code, deciphering initially yields mathematics, but gradually evolves to encompass a wide range of subjects including poetry and philosophy as well as the senders’ DNA. The bulk of the story consists of various groups reactions to the text, including religious, scientists, and the US president who becomes overly concerned with na-tional security.

Devitt offers a fascinating perspective on potential reactions not only to the revelations derived from the text, but both valid as well as misplaced concerns about the impact of the text on humanity overall all set against a backdrop of a late 20th century cold war mentality.

The narration is good with solid character distinction and moderate pacing.

First contact without contact

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super chill reading of a slower but still very interesting sci-fi. lots of food for thought

what curious ideas may be lost to bureaucracy

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I loved this novel. I'm a big fan of Jack McDevitt to begin with but several of his novels were subpar. So, I'm a fan but not one who will say everything is fantastic.

This novel was great because McDevitt put so much thought into the ramifications of receiving a signal from ET. His conclusion is basically that receiving such a signal would not be a good thing. And that runs counter to my initial thinking. However, McDevitt provides so much thought on the issue from various perspectives including: the government, national defense, religion, stock market, medical issues and global concerns that I can see his viewpoint. He also shows how aliens might be alien in ways that we can't fathom, particularly through a radio message traveling such extreme distances.

As with many of McDevitt's novels, there's not a lot of action, but this one has even less than usual. It's often various characters talking about the issues, ramifications, and deciding what to do. Read this novel to gain a well reasoned perspective on what could happen if we were to receive a message ET. That's the main takeaway from this novel. Go in knowing what to expect. No alien space battles or confrontations. It's all Earth bound considerations and trying to figure out alien beings. But it's extremely well thought out.

I happened to love the ending. It involved courage and bravery from one of the characters in a very thoughtful way. However, some reviewers thought it was anti-climatic. If you understand the nature of the main character and his weaknesses, I think you'll find that the resolution was beautiful.

Extremely thoughtful story!

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An update on the debut novel by Jack McDevitt. Granted, he misses some updates, and some references are a bit off putting. Also, there were some rather explicit editing issues, esp. later in the book. That all said, the concept, and Kevin Collins' performance put this on the recommended list. Enjoy it as much as I did!

Lots to recommend here!

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