The Visitor: First Contact SF by Tony Harmsworth

The Visitor: First Contact SF Reviews

• 
  Roy Helge

  The story itself isn't bad, but the writing suffers from two huge obstacles to reading enjoyment:
  
  1) A writing style that starts every new experience or situation with: "I couldn't believe that XXX was happening." Then goes on to briefly cover what is actually happening without going into evocative details ever. Case: Our protagonist Dr. Evelyn is arriving at the ISS for the first time. The author goes on and on about "I was finally here. I couldn't believe it! It is so amazing!" - without ever actually describing what is so amazing. Nothing about sounds, smells, details or actual emotions... only reiterating that those things are utterly amazing. I felt shut out of the experience reading this, kept at a distance. It feels like Tony Harmsworth is unable to describe a human experience in a way that lets me in on it.
  
  2) A protagonist that goes on and on about how she misses, or loves her husband, but NEVER describes how these feelings are. It is just like 1) - we're left out. There are now imagery, no similes, no actual human suspense, just the same thing over and over that does not drive the story, and does not give us any deeper understanding of the automaton protagonist.
  
  3) And there does not seem to be any point to the book. Cardboard cutouts behaving in a predetermined way without reflection. That would have been ok if the writing had given us some feeling of being in the story, but since that is missing, we would hope that the people actually were interesting, but that does not happen either.
  
  Save your money - this book is simply not good enough to pay for.
• 
  Jay

  As a reader with a long standing interest in first contact science fiction, I was excited when an ad for this novel popped up on Facebook. Not only a new book, but an author who specialized in the kind of hard science fiction I like! Alas, I found this book to half wonderful, and half horrible.
  
  First, the wonderful: This book reminded me in places, of the old John W. Campbell books. The pace of discovery, and the amount of pure luck, had the story moving quickly. This is not to say that real science was glossed over. This book is at it's absolute best with it's descriptions of flight in a Soyuz capsule, and living aboard the ISS, right down to the amount of time needed to confirm a hard dock, before astronauts can transfer between spacecraft and the station. The Visitor is set about 15 years into my future, and I found the descriptions of technological advancement on Earth to be realistic and plausible, not overdone at all.
  
  Now the terrible: Our author Mr. Harmsworth chose to use this novel as a soapbox from which to browbeat the readers with his social and political views. This was at a minimum for almost a third of the book and then Wham! an extended diatribe about the importance and goodness of political correctness, never once seeming to realize that the term is a pejorative to many, a euphemism for social censorship.
  
  The fatal flaw however, comes in the pages that follow. Having established the "importance" of political correctness, of treating everyone, even the most alien of strangers (or images of same) respectfully, our author goes out of his way to insult and demean all people of faith in general, and American conservatives in particular. In the end, the entire human race is condemned as stupid, the worst of the worst.
  
  The Visitor has a Eurocentric viewpoint which by itself is a good thing, but I cannot recommend this book to American readers, or anyone interested in a balanced, respectful exploration of science versus faith.
• 
  Melanie Underwood

  Tony Harmsworth has totally changed my view on science fiction novels. Written brilliantly his novels are almost impossible to put down and I've thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.
  
  Looking forward to reading Mindslip next!
• 
  Chad Woolley

  I'm busy. And only getting pickier about my fiction as I age.
  
  So, the only fiction genre I really like anymore is hard sci-fi.
  
  And I want my hard sci-fi without frills. I don't need chapters of character development or exposition; if I wanted that I'd read Pride and Prejudice or Anna Karenina.
  
  I just want interesting, thought-provoking, hard scienc-y stuff to start happening, soon, and non-stop.
  
  Tony's novels deliver on this, and this one is no exception. Can't wait to read the rest of his works.
• 
  Hel

  I dropped out at 25%, when there wasn't any chance left that the story would recover. Mr Harmsworth missed the opportunity to establish a mystery. All I had read so far, where trivialities, mostly logistics or cringey mushy Skype sessions with boyfriends. Not a single moment of suspense or focus on the premise. If you expect this book to be First Contact story, run away!
  
  I assume, the entire story was written to prepare the reader for Mr. Harmsworth's message about 'worldwide xenophobic hatred', but, God bless, I'll never find out.
• 
  Donald Mclean

  tldr: The book was exceptional, but the author has a philosophical/religious axe to grind that some people may find insulting or offensive.
  
  I'm of two minds about this book. The story itself is really quite interesting and engaging. The on-orbit parts come across so well that it didn't just seem realistic, it seemed *real*. I enjoyed the characters and characterization.
  
  However, the author does this thing that you sometimes see in SF. Heinlein did it and Rand did it, but that still doesn't make it any less annoying, even tiresome - the political/philosophical lecture. Rand never pretended to be anything but a philosopher who used fiction to illustrate her beliefs, so when you get John Galt's radio speech, or Howard Roark's trial, it isn't really a surprise. In Starship Troopers, they're thrown in as lectures in a history/philosophy class.
  
  One problem that I have with SF authors who have a particular political/philosophical axe to grind is when the author is blatantly hostile and insulting to anyone who disagrees with their viewpoint. David Weber is sometimes guilty of this. Rand often created antagonists as one-dimensional tropes that were stupid, evil, or both. This author is particularly guilty. Let us at least try to be civil about it, folks.
• 
  Santos

  This book is a great look on how the society of mankind reacts when something, out of the normal way of everyday life, happens and changes everything mankind thought they knew. The story its self is a little slow, however it does keep moving along. I could not help but to feel sorry for Cadma as he tried so hard to help and understand mankind and finally just gave up knowing that there was no help for mankind at all even after all the gifts he had to give.
• 
  James Maidment

  A very potent story
  
  I was really impressed with the vision Tony has of the possibilities available to us as inhabitants of the Earth. Hopefully we will learn the concept of cooperation with other inhabitants, one day, the sooner the better.
• 
  J. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  Fun and interesting at first, then slow, boring and overly dramatic.
  
  Most of my rants about this one are PC related.
  
  I'm confused why the author felt the MC should be an ass to her secretary, what was that about?
  
  Lame, woke bellyaching throughout the second half of the book. I do find it hysterical when woke people assume anyone takes them seriously.
  
  Manual car drivers bad. Religion really, really bad. Conservatives bad. Americans bad. Got it.
  
  I'm always intrigued when America gets to be the whipping boy for slavery when slavery began long before in other countries and still exists in many countries, including some African countries. But America bad.
  
  Rest assured that in this book the English did everything right, were extremely proper, resourceful and always spoke with the utmost care and respect for language. 🙄
  
  Solid narration. I REEALLLY could have done without the creaky voice. You can tell me a character is losing their voice and then I can use my imagination.
  
  "who was this man? An islamic extremist?" No, no, Eve, so much worse! A conservative!!! *gasping noises
• 
  David Kennedy

  Astoundingly good!
  
  This is one of the most visionary and well-crafted science fiction books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Additionally, it is a good novel as well, with interesting fully developed characters. Well done, Mr. Harmsworth. I will be buying your other books!
• 
  George Antoniadis

  Plot is interesting and fast paced. A pleasure to read even if the protagonist is a bit one dimensional. One thing that put me off was that for all the effort the characters put into being politically correct in the face of first contact, the author’s dislike of religion really bleeds through and ruins the mood.
• 
  Mal Warwick

  Dr. Evelyn (Eve) Slater is a newly-minted astronaut as The Visitor: First Contact Hard Science Fiction opens. She’s from Tenerife in the Canary Islands, thirty-three years old, and holds a doctorate in psychology and a masters in mathematics. Once she arrives at the International Space Station, she will move to a spaceship that’s been specially designed to locate and either salvage or destroy space junk in low orbit around the Earth. And that assignment makes her and her Russian pilot, cosmonaut Yuri Bulgakov, co-discoverers of the first alien spaceship ever encountered by the human race.
  
  The craft, a metal cylinder about four meters (thirteen feet) long, with a long, pointed snout, has been badly damaged by a meteor strike. Damaged, but not destroyed. As Evelyn’s fellow astronauts investigate the craft, they discover that it holds a wealth of data that’s eventually readable by hackers. They also learn that the builders of the craft employed a fuel that would dramatically improve the efficiency of human spaceships, and they’ve managed to polarize electricity in a way that permits dramatic new breakthroughs in electronics. And there are more and much greater surprises in store.
  
  A suspenseful hard science fiction tale about what happens after First Contact
  The Visitor is, indeed, First Contact hard science fiction, as its subtitle so unsubtly promises. Author Tony Harmsworth does a good job of conveying the reality of an astronaut’s experience getting to and from Earth orbit and living there for an extended period. As the story unfolds, moving from the realm of science into the world of politics and diplomacy, he becomes preachy. His writing style is workmanlike but unexciting. But he’s done a good job of plotting. The tale is suspenseful, and it offers insights into what (unfortunately) is likely to be the reaction on Earth if we ever discover irrefutable evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
• 
  Michael Harry

  I enjoyed the first section of the book, the discovery and the setting up of the slow examination of the artefact and the main characters personal growth, even though she was annoyingly wonderful at everything. I was intrigued by the alien thing and what possibilities it opened up for the story.
  
  But when the alien AI woke up it just went downhill. The author clearly used the alien as a voicebox to air his/her own opinions and tirades on religion and specifically America's religious right.
  
  I say as an atheist myself that I find the kind of soapbox grandstanding the alien did here to be extremely annoying and the author pinning all of humanities ills and selfishness upon our belief in religion to be so boringly simplistic it took me out of the story I was reading. When the religious nut shot a guy and screamed 'blasphemer' I thought we were cribbing from 'Contact' a little bit but it when on and on and the Alien even gave a speech to the US congress that would have been worthy of Terry Goodkind's 'Richard Rahl' at his most preachiest (I hope you haven't had that displeasure).
  
  Author ruined a good book in the Rendezvous with Rama style by injecting modern politics and author inserted opinions.
• 
  Kimmy C

  3.5 for the slow boil. An interesting take on our first contact with an alien being, with the added bonus that it holds a mirror up to humans and finds us wanting. As we’re likely aware, but choose to ignore. The ending was a surprise, nice to see the author steered away from the predictable alien saves human (in the traditional sense) - she is saved, but not in the way we know. Did enjoy it, although to my downfall, I’m still not a iPad reader. Probably too many other distractions on it, whereas a book...
• 
  Joshua

  Have you ever wondered what life on Earth would be like if we made contact with an advanced alien being, but that all the people involved and the entire plot line were... boring?
  
  This book suffers from having a great, interesting premise because the execution was not so great.
  
  At no point did I feel like the characters did anything for any reason other than the plot told them to do it. You can't even claim that the narrator is a Mary Sue because her individual impact on the events in the story stops once she has discovered the alien spacecraft. From that point forward, Dame Dr. Evelyn Slater is simply brought along by the plot. There are no consequences to anyone's actions. There are no people who act like HUMANS. Honestly, the only character given any motivation is a religious zealot who shoots a bunch of people. Beyond that, none of the characters seems truly motivated to DO anything.
  
  And the author seems unaware of how fast governments work, the speed of technological innovation, or the way people communicate. Things happen because the plot needs them to happen, not because they actually make sense realistically. This book is billed as hard sci-fi, meaning there are no wizards making things happen, and yet I wonder.
  
  But what is most egregious is that no one faces any consequences for their actions. Treason? "Oh, we knew you had done that and ignored it." Nuclear weapon? "Oh, I disabled that."
  
  Other reviewers have written about the lack of detail, so I won't mention it beyond this, but it, too, needs mentioning because it is so obvious that the world being painted is incomplete.
  
  Finally, this book takes place mostly in the late 2030s, but it was very obviously written during the whole Brexit ordeal. How do I know that? Because the narrator talks about Brexit like it's a current phenomenon, instead of something that would have happened 20 years previously. It would be like someone writing a book set today, but having the characters act like 9/11 was only last week.
  
  So, basically, I just can't find much nice to say about this book, unfortunately.
• 
  Jerry Mount

  I enjoyed most of the book, especially the practical day-to-day details of space operations and managing a major scientific facility. The philosophical discussions of technology versus religion were interesting to me, even if I had some disagreements. The major twist at the end was also a pretty good read. I was even OK with the various moralizing by humans and others. My problem with this book, as it is with many other sci-fi stories and techno-thrillers, is in the setups and plot devices used to move the story forward (and make it Anglicized). SPOILERS: A mid-30 year old, very specialized astronaut with a doctorate in Psychology, is one of two people to first contact an alien item, and is then almost instantly placed in charge of a major scientific facility, with a title of nobility and contact with world leaders. Extremely unbelievable. Then, after a major tragedy and terrible injuries, she is then placed in a dominant position in a massive international program, at a level with world leaders. Rubbish. The geopolitical aspects of the story (UN authority, military non-involvement) are very implausible, in order to push UK equality or superiority over the US, Russia, Europe, China, etc. Another nitpick for me, as an Engineer, are the ridiculously fast timeframes for the construction of space structures and spacecraft, and to incorporate new alien technologies into earthly endeavors. This is all too common in much of sci-fi and adventure literature, but it bugs me. Other readers may be able to get into the larger issues presented here, and ignore some of the more mundane unbelievable events.
• 
  Christopher Browne

  The story is pretty good albeit fantastical and daft in places. The lead character seems to have no limit, no hardship and discoverer of all things in 5 minutes. Also the harping on about political correctness and bigotry etc is wholly unrealistic as is the general feeling of her motives. The main character comes across fascistic in her quest to control people's thoughts and feelings instead of constructive. I find some of it to be absolutely too much. Especially in the manner she interacts with others. A bit spoilt brat. Now all that aside and the nonsense of silly technologies that have "eradicated petty crime" (all in under 2 decades!?) The story does pull you in and does entertain with lots of things to ponder. No spoilers here as you should just read for yourself..lol.
  
  Edit: Sorry to go on but the politics of the writer do seem way too evident as to many of their views. I found this to be a nagging nonsense throughout and ruined the experience for an otherwise good story. The dismissive nature of the book and the need to throw in "white supremacists", ""racists", as characters just seems very social justice and this is in no way entertainment. For an example, if a protagonist is against alien life for one reason or another why would white supremacist need to be a descriptor or why would humans who fear alien life be racists or bigots? Very nonsensical. We read to escape. Not be hammered with your beliefs.
• 
  Carol Palmer

  Excellent "hard science fiction"
  
  My experience with reading science fiction , books ( remember those?) goes back to antiquity. While in college in the 1960's,
  I cut my teeth on Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke & Robert Heinlein. It shaped my thinking . This author has captured the excitement of space exploration for me, once again.
  The story begins with a dream I've had, cleaning up all of the junk in space. If you haven't taken a look at some of the recent pictures of the earth with it's space junk "ring around the collar" it's worth a look.
  Then the find of an orbiting unknown object , not from around this galaxy, is a thrill. Unfortunately, as is pointed out n this book, people can be really twitchy, stupid, creatures. Government even more so.
  The story demonstrates how much bureaucracy has gotten in the way of discovery and wonder. Imagine our president greeting an alien and then - you'll have to read the book.
  Fear rules and this continues into a dark hole. The end is plausible and could lead to other adventures . I give this book high praise as an enjoyable read.
• 
  Bobby

  Original
  
  Clever is too soft a word to describe The Visitor. It is truly top-shelf SF and should be read by any true fan. The religious references are perfect and the observations of our world through the eyes of an alien are spot on. Really enjoyed the "videos" taken by Cadma of Earth millions of years ago and replayed for modern man. Settle in for a future look at history!