Earthsearch

Earthsearch : Series I & II: The Complete Radio Series / James Follett.— [Bath] : BBC Audiobooks, 2006.
Downloadable audio file (9 hr., 39 min.) (138873 KB)
Unabridged
Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1981 and 1982.
Contents: Series I: Planetfall -- First Footprint City -- Sands of Kyros -- The Solaric Empire -- The Pools of Time -- Across the Abyss -- New Blood – Marooned -- Star Cluster: Tersus Nine – Earthfall – Series II: Return – Flood – Surrender – Solaria – Sundeath – Supermass – Deathship – Megalomania – Earth – Earthvoice.
Cast: Commander Telson, Sean Arnold; Sharna, Amanda Murray; Darv, Haydn Wood; Astra, Kathryn Hurlbutt; Angel One, Sonia Fraser; Angel Two, Gordon Reid; Elka, Jill Lidstone; Bran, Michael Maloney; Tidy, David Gooderson; George, Stephen Garlick.
ISBN: 9781405698740

1. Interplanetary voyages– Drama. 2. Interstellar travel – Drama. 3. Interstellar travel – Humor. 4. Science fiction radio programs.

791.4472

One-hundred-fifteen years after it left earth, the ten-mile long starship Challenger and its crew of four returns to its home world to find that it’s gone. The moon remains alone orbiting Sol. The Sentinel on the moon tells the crew that it was dragged away by its inhabitants half-a-million years ago. In their search for the missing planet the grandchildren of the original crew encounter the mishaps of many interstellar travelers: manic robots bent on destruction, grumpy androids, galactic emperors who rule a few small asteroids, another massive starship the mirror image of their own, shortage of oxygen, hostile humans who take them for aliens, worshipful humans that take them for gods, black hole gravity wells, time dilation, the temptation to eat forbidden fruit, starship computers who want to rule the world, androids that want to rule the universe, and ten-mile high pyramids filled with mysterious secrets, planet engulfing floods, in short, just about every science fiction cliché imaginable, and played absolutely straight faced with tongue firmly in cheek. This is a marvelously fun space opera.