Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Colonization: Second Contact
    Colonization: Second Contact
    Colonization: Second Contact
    Audiobook28 hours

    Colonization: Second Contact

    Written by Harry Turtledove

    Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In the extraordinary Worldwar tetralogy, set against the backdrop of World War II, Harry Turtledove, whom Publishers Weekly has called the "Hugo-winning master of alternate SF," wove an explosive saga of world powers locked in conflict against an enemy from the stars. Now he expands his magnificent epic into the volatile 1960s, when the space race is in its infancy and humanity must face its greatest challenge: alien colonization of planet Earth.

    Yet even in the shadow of this inexorable foe, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany are unable to relinquish their hostilities and unite against a massive new wave of extraterrestrials. For all the countries of the world, this is the greatest threat of all. This time, the terrible price of defeat will be the conquest of our world and perhaps the extinction of the human race itself.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 3, 2010
    ISBN9781400183982
    Colonization: Second Contact
    Author

    Harry Turtledove

    Harry Turtledove is an American novelist of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy. Publishers Weekly has called him the “master of alternate history,” and he is best known for his work in that genre. Some of his most popular titles include The Guns of the South, the novels of the Worldwar series, and the books in the Great War trilogy. In addition to many other honors and nominations, Turtledove has received the Hugo Award, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and the Prometheus Award. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a PhD in Byzantine history. Turtledove is married to mystery writer Laura Frankos, and together they have three daughters. The family lives in Southern California.

    More audiobooks from Harry Turtledove

    Related to Colonization

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    War & Military Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Mar 3, 2021

      1) On what musical instrument would a nocturne typically be played? 2) Who was the last monarch before The Queen to have a Diamond Jubilee? 3) Complete the title of the 1990 British film starring Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson: Truly, Madly… wha

      1 min read

    • Article

      Fairies, Folklore And Forteana

      Mar 23, 2023

      I wrote last month about the way that rooks are supposed to abandon rookeries before the death of the human owner (FT429:29). Another chapter in corvid forteana is the notion of the ‘court’. A human witness watches as a group of corvids (usually rook

      2 min read

    • Article

      Hook, Line And Sinker

      Oct 18, 2018

      Hook, Line And Sinker
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      May 18, 2023

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS With reference to his article on Nazi UFOs [FT430:44-49], I would be curious to know what evidence SDTucker has for s

      12 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Dec 29, 2021

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Oct 1, 2020

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Sep 8, 2022

      An account of the Angels of Mons appears in Great British Ghosts by Aidan Chambers in the chapter “Ghosts at war”, along with the following account by a (unnamed) British lieutenant-colonel: “On the night of 27 August 1914, I was riding along in the

      7 min read

    • Article

      Just A Song At Twilight

      Apr 13, 2022

      IT dawned on me too, in the toilets of The Gallery pub on Lupus Street, that if I didn’t hear a nightingale, a turtledove or a capercaillie soon, I probably never would.’ This type of random epiphany probably occurs to most people, although few of us

      5 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Hopeless Place

      May 14, 2019

      A Hopeless Place
      11 min read

    • Article

      All Hail The Quail

      Mar 25, 2020

      All Hail The Quail
      4 min read

    • Article

      At War In nelson’s Navy

      Jun 9, 2022

      At War In nelson’s Navy
      10 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Mar 24, 2022

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS The very interesting report on ‘Man Of Russia’ and his outlandish claims about giant trees [FT415:9] got me thinking

      14 min read

    • Article

      Voyages Of A Simple Sailor Are Over

      Feb 27, 2020

      Suddenly the sea seems a bigger place. That’s because the greatest exponent of shrink-wrapping it for the rest of us, between the covers of his books, has retired from the ocean. Well, almost. ‘I’d never say never, but firstly I feel too much of an a

      3 min read

    • Article

      From Wrecks To Riches 2013

      Nov 19, 2020

      From Wrecks To Riches 2013
      1 min read

    • Article

      Poem Of The Week: Clock A Clay By John Clare

      Jul 4, 2022

      1In the cowslips peeps I lye Hidden from the buzzing fly While green grass beneath me lies Pearled wi’ dew like fishes eyes Here I lye a Clock a clay Waiting for the time o’day2 While grassy forests quake surpriseAnd the wild wind sobs and sighs My

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Miraculous Last Stand

      Dec 15, 2021

      A Miraculous Last Stand
      3 min read

    • Article

      Woke The Plank! Were Pirate Ships Actually Beacons Of Diversity And Democracy?

      Apr 4, 2023

      In September 1695, the Plymouth-born “king of pirates”, Henry Avery, seized treasure worth £600,000 (in today’s terms, nearly £100m) from the Grand Mughal fleet in the Red Sea. What happened next is uncertain. The most boring legend has Avery – AKA H

      6 min read

    • Article

      Weird World Ahoy there!

      Jul 13, 2023

      Weird World Ahoy there!
      3 min read

    • Article

      Good Things Come To Those Who Wait

      May 20, 2020

      Good Things Come To Those Who Wait
      5 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Sep 1, 2021

      If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied. —Rudyard Kipling, “Epitaphs of the War,” The Years Between, 1919 She consulted me, a glance, and said: “I think not anything off the wagon. It arrives too quickly. Let’s have somethi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Hurrah For The Wavy Navy

      Mar 9, 2022

      Hurrah For The Wavy Navy
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Colonization

    4/5

    14 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      Sometimes you can determine, after the first paragraph, that you're not going to like the next 27 hours of the book. You give up and go on to something that you will enjoy. That's what I did with this book and the other 28 hour books of the series.
    • 4/5
      A continuation of the World at War series. Several years after reaching a ceasefire the Race's colonization fleet arrives and the war threatens to restart.
    • 2/5
      Second Contact resumes the conflict between lizards and humans some 18 years after the first clash of races (the Worldwar series). The same characters are followed, with some new ones, as the lizards engage in a Cold War of sorts upon the arrival of the Colonisation Fleet. There is very little action in this tome and with the myriad of characters it can be tough going to keep up. Whereas the original series was fresh and original, Second Contact creates a few new ideas and pulls them in to a drawn out first novel, with most of the content feeling rehashed. It misses the mark of the original series in terms of engagement, character development and entertainment. There is still the epic scale and although the conflict is almost glacial, the sci-fi elements are just enough to pull the reader through. Worth a look for fans of the original - just.
    • 4/5
      My reactions to reading this book in 1999. Spoilers follow.This series takes place about 20 years after the end of the Worldwar series. Like that series, a major theme is racial tensions and tolerance. American space pilot Glen Johnson discusses, with a black bartender, why some blacks sided with the Lizards during the war. Exiled Shiplord Straha acknowledges friendship with Sam Yeager. Mordechai Anielewicz (suffering periodically from exposure to Nazi nerve gas in the last Worldwar series) becomes friends with Nesseref, a Lizard from the colonization fleet. The Jews, of course, operate in a Lizard controlled Palestine, their best chance for survival outside of the U.S. David Goldfarb, from the Worldwar series, finds himself living in a Britain increasingly tainted by the lethal anti-Semitism of the Nazi Reich, Britain’s de facto protector against the Lizards. Other characters appearing from the first series are Rance Auerbach and Penny Summers, ex-lovers reunited and involved in the ginger trade; Johannes Drucker, former Nazi tank driver who saved Heinrich Jäger from the SS in the last Worldwar book and now a spaceship pilot whose wife is suspected of Nazi blood (and thus ruining his future promotions even though he manages to saves his wife from a camp); Ludmila, Jäger’s wife, makes a brief appearance as a cripple widowed by Jäger years ago (an eventual victim of Otto Skorzeny’s nerve gas); Ttomalss is here with Kassgutt, a new character who is a human girl raised from birth by him. Her tribulations with the Lizard culture that doesn’t accept her claim or desire to be a spiritual and psychological member of the Lizard Empire provides a lot interest of the book, particularly Ttomalss and her’s coming to grips with human sexual demands and needs. Fleetlord Atvar is here, hoping to retire to Australia, the continent most like Home and to be cleared of most humans; Lin Han, commie leader, is here with daughter, Liu Mei – there is a touching scene when, on a trip to beg for US arms, Sam Yeager tells her of her father Bobby Fiore, his old friend and colleague; Molotov is here and survives a coup by NDVD head Beria (Molotov assumed leadership of the USSR after Stalin died); born collaborator David Nussboym is back with plans for vengeance against Anielewicz whom he blames for his capture by the Russians; Mossie Russie is back advising the Lizard administrator of Palestine.The book begins with the Lizard colonization fleet arriving. The Lizards’ problems in the book mount. Ginger is discovered to instantly put female Lizards (there were none in the conquest fleet) in mating mode. Their sexual pheromones instantly put male Lizards in a semi-rational state of lust where they immediately and repeatedly mate with the male in question. (Not all female Lizards are enamored with ginger. Though liking ginger, Nesseref refuses to descend to the near animal level of mating just to get a fix.) Humans, of course, exploit this new factor and part of the novel’s plot involves the intrigue around international ginger smuggling.Humans have infiltrated, with the help of Lizard defectors, the Lizard data network (an internet system that is partially open to humans). In fact, computer, space, and military technology of the humans has all advanced due to the Lizard presence (partly from stolen and copied tech). Both sides must live with nukes all about. The US, USSR, and the Reich all have nukes on land and in space and watch each other warily (of course, the Lizards have nukes too). Britain, Japan, and Canada have retained their independent states though having no nukes. (A collection of South Pacific islands dubbed Free France is also independent and a haven of smugglers.) Another problem the Lizards have is tension between the colonization fleet, who can’t understand why the conquest fleet failed, and the veterans of the Earth-Lizard struggle. Fotsev and Gorppet are this series' hapless Lizard soldiers though they don’t last out the book, killed in an ambush by Moslems (the Moslems give the lizards all kinds of trouble in the Lizard-occupied Middle East and are led by Khomeni as well as other mullahs). The analogy between Vietnam and the Lizard troops that were in the Worldwar series is maintained here. Fotsev and Gorppet, when they visit the new Lizard cities while on leave, discover that they don’t really belong to Lizard culture anymore, that the miserable battlefield is there only home. (Both fought in the conquest of half of Earth.) The level of intrigue here is perhaps slightly higher than the Worldwar series. Not only is there ginger smuggling but also assassination attempts and coups, and computer espionage. An element of mystery is present with an early nuke attack that destroys two lizard colonization vessels in space. Much of the book covers Lizard and human attempts to see who launched the attack since none of Earth’s nuclear governments seems to have done it. (At book’s end, we still don’t know.) Another mystery plot involves the exact purpose of an American space station. At novel’s end, it’s revealed to be an exploratory vessel headed towards the asteroid belt maybe. The cover story seems a bit shaky. Turtledove’s style is the same here as many of his recent alternate history novels – short passages alternating between many characters with puns, rhetorical plays on common phrases ,and a general concern (and accurate rendering of foreigners attempts at English) with linguistical matters. Unfortunately, this book, unlike the Worldwar series, doesn’t have a cast of characters listed. The other historical characters I spotted were Curtis LeMay, Zhukov, Kruschev, and Himmler (leader of the Reich). The bit with the Yeagers’ son – and other teenagers – being infatuated with all matter of Lizard stuff and not thinking of them as enemies was sometimes amusing and always plausible given that they have no recollection of earth before the invasion. I liked this book, though, because of its lack of a military conflict and more concentration on alien culture (aliens are not one of my prime interests in sf) less than any of the Worldwar books. It was good to have some old familiar characters back with the possible exception of the brutal Commies though Lin Han may, eventually, reappraise her feelings about capitalists after visiting the US).
    • 4/5
      This is the first of the follow up trilogy to the author's great Worldwar saga, set in an alternate historical timeline where a race of lizards ("The Race") invade Earth during the Second World War. I enjoyed the four Worldwar novels and thought it would not be long before I tackled the follow ups, but in fact it has been nearly seven years. This novel is set in 1962, at a time when the Race has conquered central and south America, Africa, southern Asia including India and China, and Australia; while Russia and the United States remain independent, most of Europe is part of the Greater German Reich, with Britain still independent but gradually falling under the Nazi yoke. The strengths and weaknesses of this novel exactly mirror those of the Worldwar tetralogy; on the positive side, a range of interesting characters, both human and Lizard, and a vivid sense of the different cultures and assumptions of the two worlds; on the negative side, the relentless hammering of the same plot points, particularly on ginger (though it has some new and interesting effects here). Basically, if you like the Worldwar series, you will like this; if you are looking for an evolving series with new ideas, this is not it.
    • 3/5
      as sequels go, this just feels like the next chapter, some time passed, some people is different, some things are the same
    • 4/5
      this seems to be my favourite in the World War series. The characters and the larger picture seem to mesh better than usual in this one.