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Footfall cover art

Footfall

By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
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Summary

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.

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)

What listeners say about Footfall

Average customer ratings
Overall
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

An effort to understand!

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.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Not their best, by a long way.

Having written both individually and together, some of the best books and stories I have ever read, I was expecting the usual great things from this. Sadly though, it was difficult to believe Niven and Pournelle were actually responsible for this.
The stereotypical USA is amazing and the Russians can't be trusted was so overplayed it was nauseating. Could also have been half the length as so much of it served no purpose whatsoever. The main characters were all one dimensional or never developed at all and I would not have cared had they all been killed off in short order. I kept listening in the hope that as it was written by Niven & Pournelle it would get better. It turned out to be a wait in vain. Doesn't put me off either author though as I know whatever I haven't yet read from either of them is going to be excellent as they got all the bad stuff out in one go with this.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Amazing Narration

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

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of the better First Contact novels

Had the book, lost it. . found this. . Great story by these guys together with The Mote in God's eye they nailed it.
Apart from some dodgy Russian accents and the women all sounding a bit. . weak. . Its a great listen. .

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent reading of this classic space-war story

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.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great and irritating at the same time.

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

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

very good

enjoyed it, wished there was a follow up. would recommend it to sci-fi fans

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Classic SF masterwork

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.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Poor quality narration

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!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

always loved this

read it years ago and always found it memorable. the performance was good, the listing was a bit irritating, but that's aliens for you.

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