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No Kindness Too Soon

By: Sylvain Neuvel
Narrated by: Melanie Nicholls-King, Deepti Gupta, Neil Hellegers, Gabriel Vaughan, Kathy Searle, Imani Jade Powers, Nicolette Chin, Gopal Divan, Garrett Michael Brown
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Publisher's summary

From the author of the Themis Files and the Take Them to the Stars series comes a new, riveting story of first contact.

What kind of message would you have sent into space?

I wouldn’t have.

Why not?

Because they might hear it, and then they might come.

A mysterious radio signal is picked up from a neighboring star system. A group of experts is brought to the floor of the Grand Canyon to investigate its origin and its meaning as the planet suffers one natural disaster after another. Cut off from the rest of the world, they must question everything, including each other, if they hope to solve the mystery.

What they discover could be the difference between life as we know it—and the end of the world.

©2022 Sylvain Neuvel (P)2022 Audible Originals, LLC.

About the Creator

Sylvain Neuvel dropped out of high school at age 15. Along the way, he has been a journalist, worked in soil decontamination, sold ice cream in California, and furniture across Canada. He received a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Chicago. He taught linguistics in India, and worked as a software engineer in Montreal. He is also a certified translator, though he wishes he were an astronaut. He absolutely loves toys; his girlfriend would have him believe that he has too many, so he writes about aliens and giant robots as a blatant excuse to build action figures (for his son, of course). His debut, Sleeping Giants, was described by NPR as "one of the most promising series kickoffs in recent memory."

Featured Article: Best of the Year—The 12 Best Sci-Fi Listens of 2022


This year’s sci-fi didn’t shy away from heavy, timely topics like climate change, pandemics, and social justice, but even as the subject matter hit close to home, the listening reached to new heights. Several stunning multicast productions make up this list—as well as narrators we can’t hear enough of. In a world that seems increasingly science fictional by the year, the bar is only set higher for creators in this genre—and this year’s list inches it up a little more.

What listeners say about No Kindness Too Soon

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yet another cliche twist ending

I may be the only one, but I am getting weary of the closing chapter "I found love" cliche being magnified by more cliches...

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Really Good

This story doesn’t go where you expect it to and it gets there in a thought provoking way.

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It feels like watching a movie

Definitely want more audiobooks like this. The performance of the multi-cast narrators is superb. And the story itself is original and entertaining.

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    2 out of 5 stars

Meh…

Story was amusing for a road trip but man it was like it was written by a teenager. Cool idea but it was hard to get through the story and character quality.

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Cool idea; unbearable execution

I loved this author's Themis trilogy, even though it suffers from some of the same weaknesses. But here, the characters were even more overwrought and unbearable. The General alone, both in writing and performance, made me unable to enjoy this story. Please, I beg you - fewer lines dripping with sarcasm and disdain! It's unrealistic and very hard to listen to.

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Really really interesting and thought provoking

A fantastic listen. Take yiur time and really think about what they are saying about

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A pleseant surprise

I haven't had much luck with the "free" Audible novels in the past so this was a welcome change of pace. I won't spoil the plot but just say that this is very much worth a listen and the quote at the beginning struck a chord with me.

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Wonderfully WrittenStory

Wonderfully WrittenStory about human nature, the importance and impact of context. The ripples of kindness or meanness and the healing power of 💚 love

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A great short story!!!

Super fun listen and keeps you hooked!!! Go for a walk and give it a listen!

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Good Sci-fi!

Very well done. The story for a sci-fi fan was very brilliant. Thanks for sharing.

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