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The Hercules Text

By: Jack McDevitt
Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
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Publisher's summary

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
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What listeners say about The Hercules Text

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original and gripping

new concepts and ideas spring forth in this fresh approach to life amongst the stars.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

a thoughtful contemplation

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.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining

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.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Long drawn out story

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

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

what curious ideas may be lost to bureaucracy

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

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Lots to recommend here!

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!

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The Hercules Text

Jack is my favourite sci-fi author. However he lost me completely with this book. For me, it's not character driven, it's situation propelled and way beyond anything I can find interesting. I say, sorry Jack, even though I know you are no longer living.
I've tried twice, but have only read halfway through. I love hard scifi, but this is hard-hard sci-fi, and continues to be beyond me. I must quit now, but I will probably try it again, 07/04/20.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Ehhhh

Not a terrible book, but it didn’t seem to really go anywhere. Idk that I would recommend it.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Love McDevitt… but not here

Oh man…. I loved McDevitt’s academy series. This however is slow, almost no alien stuff. Mostly drama about personal relationships and fake political setups and religious debates.
I only made it 6 hours in before I had to bail.
stay away

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Bleh... super preachy

This story doesn't really make much sense. Nothing about it is logical or realistic.

Look, I don't mind heavy politics or some deep philosophical discussions, but every thing about this story feels like a forced excuse to discuss god and Harry's repressed sexual desires.

Even all the nonsensical politics exists just to preach and endlessly ask the same question over and over.

If Earth received a signal, everyone would have access to it. Not just NASA.

I'm frustrated on finishing this book that absolutely nothing happened and no real epiphanies happened about the question we were repeatedly beaten with the entire story.

It's essentially a retelling of Contact that literally goes no where.

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