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Anomaly (First Contact) by [Peter Cawdron]

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Peter Cawdron

Anomaly (First Contact) Kindle Edition

by Peter Cawdron (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

1,585 ratings

Part of: First Contact (19 books)

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FIRST CONTACT is a series of stand-alone novels that explore the concept of humanity's First Contact with extraterrestrial life. Like BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE, the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. These books can be read in any order. Technically, they're all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens from the perspective of science, society, politics and religion.

ANOMALY examines the prospect of an alien intelligence discovering life on Earth. The technological gulf between humanity and the alien species is measured in terms of millions of years. The only way to communicate is using science, but not everyone is so patient.

Humanity's first contact with an alien intelligence is far more radical than anyone has ever dared imagine. With a technological gap of millions of years, mankind is barely able to recognize the arrival of an alien space craft outside the gates of the United Nations in New York.

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Print length

287 pages
Language

English
Publication date

September 20, 2011
Reading age

14 - 18 years
Grade level

8 - 12
File size

2431 KB
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Leadership isn’t about building consensus, it is about getting things done.
118 Kindle readers highlighted this
“The most important thing in life is life itself. People always look for meaning in life, as though meaning is somehow missing, but it’s not, it’s all around us.
111 Kindle readers highlighted this

Editorial Reviews

Review

I loved that Anomaly was so different from other books I've read. It was truly original and fresh. The writing was tight and compact and I was especially intrigued by how the world as a whole reacted to the discovery of Earth by an alien intelligence that was patient enough to wait for us to learn about it. It was a smart book, rather than an action novel and I found it really difficult to put down. If you enjoy intelligent, fresh, speculative science fiction that makes you think, this book is for you!
Independent book review - TJ Hapney

★★★★★ - "Thoughtful Science Fiction At Its Best" Brian's Book Blog
★★★★★ - "Cawdron is like the Freddie Mercury of writing, his repertoire is broad and he appears equally at home, whether the subject being space, aliens, zombies, crime, love or humor" Claus Bernth
★★★★★ - "Cawdron is the master of first contact books." J. Lew
★★★★★ - "My science fiction reading history is based on the Clarke, Asimov and Sagan realism. No light sabers, no space ship battles or heroic military victories. Just plausible and realistic situations" John E. Larisch
★★★★★ - "You pretty much know, 'Oh, here goes an all-nighter' if you start any of Peter's books"Shawna Newton

From the Author

Anomaly is a return to the non-violent, intelligent heroes of yesteryear

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005OJF0ZC
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Peter Cawdron at Smashwords; 2nd edition (September 20, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 20, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2431 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 287 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #9,415 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #57 in Hard Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #100 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #160 in First Contact Science Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
1,585 ratings

About the author

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Peter Cawdron

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Peter is an Australian science fiction writer, specialising in making hard science fiction easy to understand and thoroughly enjoyable.

His FIRST CONTACT series is topical rather than character-based, meaning each book stands alone. These novels can be read in any order, but they all focus on the same topic of First Contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms. In this regard, the series is akin to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

Hard science fiction is a misnomer as far as categories of literature go, as it sounds harsh and difficult to understand, but that is far from reality. Hard science fiction is simply plausible science fiction, fiction that is written in such a way as it conforms to the known laws of science, and that makes it more interesting, as there's no magic wand the protagonist can wave to get out of trouble. Peter's forays into hard science fiction could best be described as informative science fiction or enjoyable science fiction.

Peter is a fan of such classic science fiction writers as Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Crichton and their influence on his style and story lines is readily apparent. You can follow Peter on Facebook or Twitter or find him posting some interesting tibit on his blog http://thinkingscifi.wordpress.com/

Customer reviews

5 star		55%
4 star		29%
3 star		10%
2 star		4%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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The Non-Hero Book

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2018

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In an afterward, the author explains his motive for this book: to create a non-violent cerebral science fiction work. He has succeeded in that goal. There is violence but as the author notes, it’s not started by the protagonist.

I found the premise appealing. What turns out to be aliens who are vastly superior in technology (and maybe more) to us discover Earth. This is the polar opposite of a typical space opera fare where they either are mostly English speaking comely females longing to mate with the captain or grotesque monsters bent on our destruction. These guys want to chat.

The majority of the book is not only the difficulties chatting with an alien and a side note business about the worldwide civil unrest the existence on Earth of an alien causes. Curiously, the author dismisses the John McClane character from movies such as Die Hard as a figure not to admire anymore due to his method of conflict resolution. However, there are two scenes in the book where John McClane would have saved the day but the protagonist does nothing of the sort.

The book starts out in a roar, maintains its pace for a bit and then wanders until the very end where a crisis creates an ending. The text is rampant with typos and word misuse. The thing which really bothers me is, at the very end, the protagonist gets a message which can be interpreted in many ways. He chooses a way that I doubt anybody would guess and in the end, there wasn’t any reason for the vagueness of the message anyway. It cratered the book for me.

My idea of a protagonist is not some cowering metrosexual who has to have his girlfriend bail him out of a major crisis. Give me John McClane.

52 people found this helpful

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Bananas Foster

Not my cup of tea.

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2018

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Ok, I too am baffled by the many favorable reviews. And I will be more negative than I would usually be, just as a warning for some like-minded readers. This books reads like the fantasy of an 11 year old male science nerd. There aren't' characters, only caricatures, cardboard cut-out figures. And sorry, but the representation of the main female figure is just plain sexist. Finally the "idea" behind the story--the first contact--was pretty banal as carried out. Didn't even bother to finish; my time is too valuable.

36 people found this helpful

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Brian

Thoughtful Science Fiction At Its Best

Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2017

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Thoughtful Science Fiction At Its Best

5 out of 5 stars

Sometimes a book will leave me speechless for good or bad reasons. Anomaly left me speechless for a couple days because I couldn’t find the words to describe how great of a story it really was. The end of the entire book Cawdron explains a little about what spurred him to write the story the way that it was written — and I love it even more. I had just finished the book. I was in that post-great-book-euphoria and then that part comes on and just solidifies my love for the story, characters, and overall way that the story was told.

I think the thing that I liked the most was that the person who was least qualified to make hypothesis was the one that they kept coming back to for answers. Sometimes you can have all the degrees in the world but it won’t help you see something that a school teacher would see.

I also felt that Cawdron did a great job going through the different reactions by different types of people. From religious to government types — everyone had a different feeling about it and Cawdron explained it in a way that both made sense and made the book feel incredibly realistic.

Cawdron is quickly becoming my go-to for Science Fiction stories because they remind me of some of the stories that got me into reading Sci-Fi in the first place. It just has that “old school” feel to it without feeling old (if that makes sense).

Overall, Anomaly will stick with me for a long time. The story was that memorable and well told. Cawdron is a master of his craft and I’m glad I have some other books of his to read soon.

The narration by PJ Ochlan really put the cherry on top of this. He was able to give voices to the character in such a way that they felt real. I love that about a good audiobook.

16 people found this helpful

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Duane Cox

A return to the non-violent, intelligent heroes of yesteryear? Yawn.

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2018

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Perhaps the Afterword for Anomaly by Peter Cawdron that explains the origin and purpose of the novel should be a Foreword to forewarn the reader what they are in for. Anomaly is an idealistic novel. It has lots and lots of exposition. Pages and pages of exposition on the electromagnetic spectrum, the evolution of the eye, physics and the hypocrisy of religion among other subjects. With all that exposition, one would think there would have been some attention to what lies beneath the surface. Literally. We’re told an awful lot, but not allowed to experience any of it. Anomaly has very little action, and what action there is, is compressed into a few paragraphs. The characters lack dimension: a dead girlfriend in the backstory that doesn’t seem to add to the plot or character development, a new girlfriend (plucky girl reporter!) that reminds the protagonist, creepily, of his sister, stereotypical speechmakers, convenient technical wizards, jack-in-the-box CRAZY TERRORISTS and multiple scientists all acting as pinball bumpers to bounce the plucky protagonist toward revelation of the Big Answer. With lots of little problems to be solved, coincidently, just in the nick of time along the Hero’s Journey. In my opinion, John McClane would have been an asset in dealing with the CRAZY TERRORIST problem and the storyline in general. Anomaly is a long slog for nothing new. I like hard sci-fi, space opera and speculative fiction. Anomaly is none of these. And doesn’t anyone do research or proof read anymore? I mean, come on, a 60mm machine gun? The straw that broke this camel’s back.

18 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Steve

3.5 stars really - Good first contact theme

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2019

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The books premise was interesting but it was a little slow. I didn't like the style of the writing and it was necessary to block this out to get into the story.
The characters were quite attractive and there was a naïve logic about the way they interacted, even if it was inconsistent from time to time. I have to say I struggled with 'visualising' the anomaly sometimes and the writer could go into some depths about flags hanging or blowing in the breeze. It also would benefit the reader if they were intimate with the layout of New York as there are some detailed references to roads, building, parks that made no sense at all.
This is a quite thought provoking story that takes a reasonable approach to dealing with alien first contact. There is a bit of shooting and massacring, that is required to make it believable for US readers (standard operating procedure in the US), but not much.
This was a story about assumptions and logic and that is what made it interesting.
This is a complete book and is not a trick to make you buy the ending in a 'sequel'.

3 people found this helpful

Vertigo

One of the better self-published books I have read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 5, 2018

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David Teller is an elementary school teacher but when an alien anomaly appears outside the United Nations in New York he unexpectedly finds himself recruited into the team investigating it. This is a good, solid first contact story with all the hard science being softened by presenting it through the scientifically naïve eyes of David Teller. And that almost justifies the utterly implausible inclusion of such an unqualified person in the investigation team of mainly NASA scientists. The reality is that it just never would have happened in real life but it does make presenting the science without going too deep into obscure details and terminally boring anyone without a degree in at least physics much easier and makes this short little book much more palatable.

Anomaly is self-published and I have to say it is one of the few self-published books that I have found both enjoyable and remarkably free of editing errors; there are a few but these days even the best traditionally published authors rarely get their books out without a few typos still floating around. His prose could have used a bit of additional gentle editing, however, it frequently felt clumsy and in places drifted off into inconsequential detail whilst in others omitted important detail. But this does appear to be one of Cawdron’s earliest works so I have hopes that this will improve as he gains experience.

The anomaly itself, the science of the investigation and communication attempts are all well-handled and maybe Cawdron should have confined the story to just these aspects but he also chooses to look at the religious, social and political aspects of first contact and here the book is altogether weaker; he raises these issues as a background to the main story but I found the events associated with them to be both unlikely and given so much less coverage than I felt they warranted. Ultimately the questions they raised were neither addressed nor concluded, feeling more like a rather scruffy wrapping around the main events of the story.

For the most part that story worked well and had a satisfyingly conclusion. The writing, though mediocre, has promise and is better than most of the other self-published writing I have so far read. The core ideas and science are generally well presented despite some of the peripheral aspects getting rather less attention than they deserved. All in all a good book, though, and I will be reading more of Cawdron’s work in the future.

4 people found this helpful

Dai Harrhy

First contact sci fi. Yet another book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 24, 2020

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Well I enjoyed the book. A totally different and plausible scenario. Only a few and welcome characters. Nicely paced, and assuming the public were almost the enemy, the disruptive and violent element. The religious element was for me a side show and unnecessary but in real life maybe it would be to the fore. Worth the read. Spoiler alert...No fifth star as there was no aliens, only robotic AI. The aliens, if any, were closer than expected.

One person found this helpful

sepeh

Starts well

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 25, 2018

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Having read Losing Mars which I enjoyed thought I would give this a go. It started well, a new take on first contact. However for me it became more a lecture on first contact ideas in the second half culminating in a disappointing contact scenario due to an implausible interruption that was nothing new. With a fresh look at the second half this novel would make for a good movie premise, but as a novel in its own right for me was flawed and seemed a little rushed at the end.

3 people found this helpful

Chris N

Really great plot, well written, the best, most readable sci fi I've read in ages.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2021

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The author has unpicked the first contact assumptions we have today and taken not only a completely new slant on them, but also the story has a very real feel to it. I don't know what I expected but this was a total surprise. His writing is innovative and exciting AND his concepts are really novel.
I'm just buying and reading the rest of this series - his take on this subject is really very new.

Finally - Give it a whirl - you won't be sorry - especially if like me, you've had enough of ray guns & drooling monster, militaristic soap operas in space.

Well done Mr Cawdron Sir I hope they make these into films for you !

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