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Alicia Jones #1

First Contact

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Alicia Jones is a genius, and a little odd. At just twenty three years of age, she is close to finishing her doctoral dissertation. But when she tests her latest theory in the lab to generate a strong EM field, it has very unanticipated results. Results that lead to faster than light travel, and first contact with another race.

Her life just gets more complicated after that, when she finds out who she really is, and that the universe may not be as nice a place as she’d been told. Her determination to help keep Earth safe takes her to places more dangerous and strange than she’d ever envisioned.

145 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 9, 2016

123 people are currently reading
131 people want to read

About the author

D.L. Harrison

105 books197 followers
I've been an avid book reader since I was a teenager in the 1980's. My preferred genre's are science fiction and fantasy.

I wrote some short stories and was encouraged to try writing and self publishing by some friends. I work in computers and writing is an obsessive hobby I have been trying to hone for a couple of years now. I'll let you judge if I have succeeded or not.

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Community Reviews

5 stars
260 (37%)
4 stars
268 (38%)
3 stars
125 (18%)
2 stars
26 (3%)
1 star
12 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
73 reviews
October 7, 2016
Creative and fast moving

The brilliant mind of Alicia Jones moves faster than the missiles she invents. The action is fast and furious, sometimes too fast for the non genius that is reading it. Some of the tech talk completely baffles and tho I'm a trekkie, it can be a little much. I do however like the results of all that genius. I love Kristi as a counterpart for Alicia's serious demeanor and the battle scenes were great, with just enough detail to follow the different ships and directions. This is a good start to the series, gonna read the next one now! Let's kick some alien butt!!! Oh wait Alicia is the alien......... OK let's find some allies and kick everyone else's butt!!! Plan and done.! ;-)
6 reviews
February 12, 2016
Great start to a series

I personally really enjoy the author so I gave this a read when I would have bypassed it otherwise as not my cup o' tea. I'm glad I didn't though, I really enjoyed this first book and am looking forward to see where it goes.

There are a few words in it that did stand out as being homonyms though and repeated throughout the book. That's the only reason not to give it 5 stars overall. The story itself was very engaging.
88 reviews
March 11, 2016
Good space opera with a strong female lead, but short

I found this book to be quite enjoyable if somewhat predictable. The young female lead has the typical space opera trope of being "super" but she was still quite easy to like. There are multiple editing errors: wrong two/too/to and were vs. we're, and such mostly. There were enough to be noticeable but not so many that I found it overly annoying. A good line editor would be a help.
350 reviews2 followers
May 3, 2016
Interesting book

Enjoyed the premise and it didn't get too over loaded with tech jargon! Loved the occasional references to favorite scifi shows. All in all a good enjoyable read, will definitely read the next one.
Profile Image for Ruth M. Williams.
46 reviews
May 15, 2016
A great book I have just finished

The only real problems are few. There are too many typos, for which I gave it only 4 stars instead of the 5 I world have given if it had been cleaned up a bit more. BUT the book is WELL worth the read! I DO recommend it!
Profile Image for Duane.
32 reviews2 followers
January 1, 2017
Someone else wrote "Overly Simplistic" and that was being very generous.
Somewhere in the book's Online Description it needs to state that it was written for Teens, or Pre-Teens...
Profile Image for carlybanarly.
233 reviews
February 1, 2024
I have a pretty high tolerance for ridiculousness. I love reading sci-fi and I don’t need it to be technical or realistic. I love far fetched stories. But this book challenged me in how much ridiculousness I could handle. Even though she is obviously meant to be extremely intelligent, as an astrophysicist who is still studying in school, the things she does are beyond impossible. First, the FMC stumbles across how to make FTL travel. In the matter of hours, she has built a probe to explore space. It takes her a few hours to design a spacecraft able to carry humans as well as designing new weapons to put on it. A few days to build it. She goes into space a few days later and meets aliens and buys technology from them. And in the way home decides to design a few more ships and set up a factory on an asteroid. Not bad for a 3 hour flight. Seriously?!! It would take years of engineering to plan a spacecraft. She is not an engineer. It would take experts to design weapons and defense systems. Studying Astrophysics would not account for the things she is doing, in a crazy amount of time. She also instantly becomes a genius military strategists. Plus, she finds out she is an alien, meets the first alien of her kind, and it means nothing to her. Wouldn’t you be burning with questions? Wouldn’t you want to know about the planet your parents were from, their culture, their history etc? Nope, apparently not.

I continued reading despite my total annoyance at the plot, and eventually sort of enjoyed it. Didn’t like it but didn’t hate it. And despite my feelings about this book, now I am a bit curious about where the story will go.
3,071 reviews13 followers
March 12, 2025
“First Contact” is very much a YA read which treats science as if it were magic and any problem can be solved by pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Scientist Alicia Jones is working on her thesis when she accidentally discover Faster Than Light travel.
Within days she has a working prototype of an interstellar probe and sends it on its merry way.
It, of course, is noticed by an outpost of the Knomen Empire, which sends an emissary to Earth to see if we are eligible for membership.
Two things become clear almost immediately. Alicia is not human (she's Knomen, which didn't come as a surprise) and the Empire, while seemingly benign, is actually no friend to those it rules.
Within weeks Alicia and her friend Kristi are churning out battleship, space shuttles, superior shields and missiles, all the while hiding most of their work from the Knomens.
As is traditional in books of this ilk it all comes to a head with a gigantic space battle.
The writing isn't very and the editing is non-existent - 'your' and 'you're' may sound the same but they have different meanings.
However, I have a weakness for bad SF/Space Opera and that is what saved it from a single Star rating.
2 Stars.
79 reviews8 followers
May 26, 2017
I liked this book, but not loved it because of its many flaws.
I know my 2 star notation may seems harsh, but it reflect on the dizziness of the story. A young female scientist make the discovery of the century.... and go to a party !

The background story is quite well thought but the political, societal and personal consequences are glossed over by the writer. It is a fun read, but with so much more potential for greatest that the i was just frustrated at the end of the book.

I've much more appreciated books like Vaz (by Laurence E Dahners) or Kinsella that approach the same theme with much more intelligence and well thoughtfulness, even if they are less of a fun read.

All in all, the Alicia Jones series is science fiction for dizzy people (I'm sorry if i'm a bit stereotypical here). It is fun to read, but does not require thought.
Profile Image for Pierrette.
47 reviews1 follower
October 27, 2023
Characters not believable

Alicia not any of the other people feel real. They're either one dimensional or over the top. The building of ships is done in s few days! The designing not even tested. A general let's a civilian tell him what to do... Everything comes to pass in days. The earthlings do not fit over the discovery of other life forms in the universe? Impossible, they do it over a pandemic!!!
Profile Image for Wolfgarr.
342 reviews20 followers
June 8, 2024
This was a decent book.. And i mean that.. BOOK.. As in all of the installments come out to be ONE book. This author has a extremely bad habbit of taking ONE BOOK and chopping it up into multiple 100-200 pages partials.. And call it a series.

I don't believe in rewarding bad behavior. So i recommend not buying this book.. Get it free from amazon kindle unlimited...

Its not worth the 6 installments at 3$ a pop.. IE 18$ for a.. DIGITAL book.
Profile Image for Flea.
340 reviews6 followers
April 18, 2021
I read up to the 6th book before I finally ran out. The story is fast pace and has a lot of scientific languages as far as space travel and technology is concerned.
Romance is glossed over and hardly worth mentioning.
I liked the FMC (Alicia Jones) quite a bit. The series kept my attention even though I sometimes struggled with the sci-fi jargon from book to book. Definitely entertaining.
3.5 🌟
Profile Image for David Scoins.
21 reviews
October 29, 2024
I wish kindle unlimited used editors

Thoroughly enjoyable romp, but spoiled for me by the failure of the publisher to supply editing. Too many homophones- including to/too,and your/you’re at such frequency I gave up trying to report them. Finished in the same evening as I began it, which is evidence of the enjoyment.
Profile Image for Philip.
420 reviews4 followers
May 27, 2023
Crazy series starter

An orphan stranded in a new world, grow up to love her new planet and its people, living according to their values. Why do I feel like I'm reading Superman comic?
323 reviews5 followers
December 22, 2025
OH NO!

I swear I’ve read this series multiple times and just realized that I had never left a review. The story is fresh and new. The characters are relatable and fun to read. And talk about world building, totally awesome! I recommend this book to all readers.
Profile Image for Amba Jane.
267 reviews1 follower
January 5, 2018
Very good mindless entertainment. A very pleasant surprise to enjoy a new author as much as I did. She has a way of writing characters one instantly cares about. I am looking forward to more!
Profile Image for Mike Goodman.
1,587 reviews12 followers
July 2, 2020
Absolutely Fantastic

This story of a gal who invents Earth’s first FTL drive, and finds out Earth must join the Empire or risk going back to the stone age again. Great Short Story
892 reviews4 followers
September 7, 2020
Excellent story!!

But I'm a reader, not a writer. It was an entertaining story about an alien with Earth /American attitudes. Looking forward to the next one.
Profile Image for William.
450 reviews1 follower
February 9, 2021
Ok

Simple and light story. Superficial and short as can be expected from the others. If food, it would be a gas station snack.
Profile Image for Steven Evans.
19 reviews
April 27, 2024
Awesome!

Lots of fun, comedy, action and a little romance. First book read in 6 hours and time to read the rest of the series!
Profile Image for Philip Jones.
93 reviews
July 28, 2024
Really like this story

Enjoyed reading plan to buy whatever story comes next -- kindle unlimited Goodreads member one of my best reads of this year so far
Profile Image for CdnBookLover.
599 reviews2 followers
May 22, 2024
An excellent story that is in serious need of an editor. Lots of missing punctuation (mostly commas). Also, Alicia refers to her artificial intelligence (device?) as A.I. (as if it’s a name) or Al at random. She also references any other artificial intelligence as A.I., which can be confusing.
Profile Image for Heather Henkel.
1,404 reviews23 followers
August 10, 2016
Great story

I enjoy sci-fi stories and this is a great one about discovering new tech and getting off the planet. I can't wait fit the next one.
Profile Image for Stacy B.
662 reviews5 followers
April 20, 2024
Good start

This was a pretty good start to what looks like will be a very good space opera. There is as lot of information given in this book, but it is needed to build the world.
6 reviews
Read
July 30, 2016
Excellent story and he is right about the cliffhanger u should be ashamed lol
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews

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