Normally, a book series has a set reading order. Readers start with book one and move to book two, book three, etc. That’s not the case with the First Contact series.
The First Contact series is thematic rather than character driven. In other words, instead of following the same characters across dozens of books, the First Contact series follows one idea or theme over dozens of books. And this makes it quite unique. It’s the Black Mirror of book series as each story stands alone and can be read independently of any other book in the series. Think of it like The Twilight Zone or something like American Horror Story where each story is self-contained.
The advantage of this approach is we get to explore the concept of First Contact from multiple angles as though each was from a different timeline or a parallel world. Each is an experiment in what could happen.
Another benefit of this approach is you, as the reader, can pick and choose the subjects that interest you. You can read the synopsis for the different novels within the First Contact series and decide what you’d like to read—without missing anything in the overarching series. This gives you the freedom to be selective.
I often get asked if there is a recommended reading order, so I’ll post one here, but it’s only a guide. You can start and stop wherever you like within the series. The point of my reading guide is simply to give you some ideas. If anything, this is a reflection on the stories I enjoy most within the series.
- Anomaly — is the first novel I wrote, and it’s a consistent favorite with readers.
- Cold Eyes — is a tribute to Larry Niven’s classic The Mote in God’s Eye and explores some really interesting themes
- 3zekiel — if you’re looking for action, look no further than First Contact with gorillas in the African jungle
- The Tempest — is a tribute to both Shakespeare’s play and the classic scifi 50s movie Forbidden Planet
- Wherever Seeds May Fall — a chilling look at how First Contact may be more complex than we’ve dared to imagine
- Apothecary — if you’re looking for a story with heart and insights into medieval life
- Starship Mine — you’ll need a box of tissues. This book explores what it means for each of us to be human, navigating the cosmos in bodies which are, after all, our own personal starships
- Clowns — looks at what aliens would think of our political and economic systems
- Jury Duty — what happens when First Contact goes wrong?
- Welcome to the Occupied States of America — Bullets and bombs have failed; now it’s time for a teenage girl in a wheelchair to save the day!
It pains me to leave novels like Losing Mars and Galactic Exploration out of the top ten, but there are only ten slots to fill. There are a lot of wonderful concepts to explore in the First Contact series.
Thank you for supporting independent science fiction. It’s readers like you that make these books possible. Without you, they wouldn’t exist as I’d still be working in web design—so, from the depths of my heart, thank you!
THINKING SCI-FI 
Keep up the good work Peter!
Thanks. I’m still going strong, with The Art of War coming out next month
I have enjoyed the many First Contact by Peter Cawdron. Each is unique and don’t need to be read in any particular. Thoughtful, fun and creative are just a few insufficient adjectives I’d choose to describe his stories. I envy anyone reading them for the first time!
Thank you 🙂
After reading the Art of War, which I enjoyed immensely by the way (read it twice already), I wanted to let you know about a few inaccuracies I noted and pick a bone with you about the Navy UAP videos.
First – the F-35A, flown by the USAF, does not have VTOL capability. Only the F-35B, flown by the US Marine Corps has the lift fan. Also, the F-35 does not have a the M-61 20mm Vulcan cannon. It has a 25 mm 4-barrel cannon.
The Zumwalt class ships do not carry a missile called the “sparrow”. The actual missile is the Evolved Sea Sparrow missile or ESSM. It’s quite different than the original Sea Sparrow missile, derived from the old USAF/USN Sparrow missile, which was retired in the 1990s.
Sea King helicopters were retired from USN service in 2006. They would not be around to pick up Mark’s brother from the Atlantic ocean.
Regarding the debunking of the Pentagon UAP videos by Mick West, I am far from convinced that these videos are standard output from a FLIR pod thrown over the wall by the Pentagon without explanation.
Let me start out by saying that I have no idea what these objects were or who was flying them. It could have been little green men, creatures from another dimension, or citizens from Atlantis for all I know, or no one. I don’t care.
What Mick West presents are AN explanation for what these objects could have been, not THE explanation. His explanations leave out certain things, such as the recorded reactions of the pilots who were flying the planes. Why would those pilots and WSOs say what they were saying if in fact, they were looking at other F-18s or distant airliners? The other thing is that F-18s or distant airliners have radar transponders. The pilots would know exactly what they were looking at and if not, the AEGIS-equipped destroyers would know.
Remember that the F-18s did not stumble upon these UAPs. They were vectored to them by ships who saw them on AEGIS radars. West’s evaluation does not explain the eyewitness observations of the pilots and WSOs of the fighter jets who encountered them. The pilots have been interviewed by reputable news organizations. They are not drooling mouth-breathing conspiracy-spouting idiots (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-ufo-sighting-60-minutes-2021-08-29/).
If these sightings are nonsense – why does the Navy now have a formal process for pilots to report them?
Hi. First, thank you for taking a chance on independent science fiction and for reading The Art of War twice! In regards to the points you raised, I’m always happy to correct technical errors.
When it came to the F-35, I deliberately described the variant as the F-35C (which doesn’t exist… yet) to get around any potential technical shortcomings as I couldn’t find a lot of detail on the Internet and knew things like the fans or the type of guns might be problematic, so think of this as a new variant that combines the best of the previous two.
I’ve left the crew of the Zumwalt talking about sparrows, but in the narration included your more accurate description of Evolved Sea Sparrow missile, as it’s plausible they’d simplify this to sparrow in their discussions.
I’ve changed Sea King to Seahawk.
When it comes to UAP/UFO sightings, these are GROSSLY misrepresented in the media because “sensation sells.” As a science fiction writer, you’d expect me to be the FIRST to jump on this bandwagon, particularly in a novel about an alien attack using UAPs/UFOs, but I feel there’s a need to balance the discussion. I’m not calling the pilots “drooling mouth-breathing conspiracy-spouting idiots” (although there are a fair few of those in the general population). I am making a very valid point that the general public is ill-equipped to understand what they’re looking at (as Mick West shows so well). And the analogy I use is Michael pointing out that he can understand every word used in a legal contract and yet still not know what he’s looking at because he doesn’t have that depth of legal experience. So I’m trying to get the general public to think critically about this subject rather than jumping to the conclusions the media is selling. West’s evaluation may “not explain all the eyewitness observations of the pilots.” It doesn’t need to. The onus is on them, not him. What he does show is that this is NOT clear-cut and often easily debunked. At the moment, UAP/UFOs sightings are still firmly in the category of Nessie photos (which, by the way, Loch Ness has been shown to allow for standing waves to form on the water, creating the illusion of something underwater, so this is NOT a criticism of anyone taking a photo of something that’s unexplained). Unexplained is simply that. Unexplained and requiring more information to explain. We can’t jump to aliens.
I have NO doubt there is life in outer space. Earth is in outer space and Earth has life. We’ve already proven life can exist in outer space because that’s precisely where we are! Is there any OTHER life in outer space? I suspect the answer is yes. And I suspect we’ll find proof for that eventually. The sheer distances involved, though, make the idea of tiny spacecraft snooping in our atmosphere extremely unlikely. We can track nuts and bolts in orbit, but UAP/UFOs sneak through, apparently. I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it. Give me evidence and I’ll believe it. If you’re interested, I wrote an article about this several years ago.
I think my point on the 2004 Nimitz sightings is that there was more than one source of information (AEGIS radar, multiple pilot witnesses, lack of IFF/transponder) to just dismiss the incident. As I said, I do not for a moment attribute this incident to aliens. There is no evidence to that effect. Regardless, I do hope that if/when aliens show up, an event about which I am not holding my breath, that the situation is more benign than what you depicted in here. I’d rather it be more like Feedback or The Tempest. BTW – there is an F-35C, the version built for the USN, which has larger wings and reinforced landing gear for carrier operations. Neither here nor there I guess. There were 19 versions of the F-4 Phantom by the time production ended. I am very much looking forward to your next novel.
Arghhhh…. okay, I’ll update the book to the F-35D or E (here’s hoping it’s some time before that comes out).
I’m not dismissive of things like the 2004 sighting, but human nature is to pounce on things and jump to conclusions, and the media does not help. As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I’m no fan of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics as the idea of particle/wave duality and collapse is soooo counterintuitive and doesn’t appear to describe the macro world at all, but it has been tested to an extraordinary degree. Its predictions are what allow us to have computers. It meets Carl Sagan’s test of being an extraordinary claim backed by extraordinary evidence. For me, UFO/UAPs don’t come close. It’s still in the Big Foot photo category as Mick West shows so well. I’d like to see a balanced discussion. For every video that’s released, let’s see the counterpoint from someone like Mick, but that doesn’t happen, it’s all about sensational unfounded claims in the media.
This video by Cool Worlds (a scientific team that’s part of SETI) came out just this week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXZWV6NOuF8&ab_channel=CoolWorlds
Thank you for sharing the link. The video is excellent.
On another subject, if you haven’t read it already, I finished a great novel called Quantum Space by Douglas Phillips. It provides an imaginative explanation about why SETI doesn’t work.
Thanks so much for taking the time to correspond with me. I suspect you are a busy person and truly appreciate it.
Oh, thank you for supporting independent science fiction (like my work and Doug’s)
My wife’s ex-stepfather is an avid book reviewer. His review of “Art of War” is here:
https://malwarwickonbooks.com/new-alien-invasion-novel/
That’s awesome. Your wife’s ex-stepfather is a legend in the science fiction community! I count it a privilege to have had him read roughly a dozen of my novels. I’m glad he enjoyed The Art of War. He’s one of the few established old-school science fiction reviewers that will give an independent author like me a chance to prove themselves. Thank you for also being a fan. Without readers like you, none of these books would see the light of day as the traditional publishers ignore my work. They’ve got it in their heads that indie books are low-value. They couldn’t be more wrong 🙂
I have read six so far and i think 3zekiel and Anomaly are at the top. 3zekiel explains the elephant in the room of how long it takes to travel from one of the nearest planetary systems to here (and the round trip) – and why the aliens encounter what the do on the return.
Anomaly is similar in a way that the scientists and government people make poor assumptions but the [average] grade school teacher seems to understand more – with a ‘little’ nudge
My Sweet Satan was amazing. It speaks volumes on assumptions and misinterpretations of others based on your filtered perceptions. We had court cases on this issue here on Earth. It will be plain to the reader. What a wonderful warning about jumping to conclusions without all (or at least many) facts
Maelstrom and Little Green Men – well, just read ’em
Enjoy!
I bought 3ziekiel on a recommendation — looked interesting, loved the cover
It sat in my Kindle for quite a while. Then i read it ! wow i was hooked.
I love the thought these stories provoke in myself. How we process and react – most times rashly and incorrectly – basing our actions on poorly based assumptions at best.
Honestly i have not been a huge alien contact fan because they are usually invasion and battle stories. The only one of that type that i can say i liked was “V” because it has a much deeper story to tell than alien invasion and rebellion.
But Peter Cawdron – wow – these are an entirely new perspective and a am just devouring them and they are worth EVERY single penny! I have them on Kindle myself but have recommended others to try them and even my brother purchased a paper copy of 3zekiel. He hasnt gotten to it yet but i really hope he gets hooked as i did. He believe that he will appreciate it as i have.
my sincere thanks to Peter Cawdron. You have yet another fan
I have read six so far and still going !
3zekiel
Maelstrom
My Sweet Satan
Little Green Men
Anomaly
Cold Eyes
read ’em / Enjoy!
Thank you for your kind support and enthusiasm for these stories. I love exploring the concept of First Contact and expanding on the various possibilities. Ghosts comes out later this month, and delves into the difficulty of communication between ANY species on Earth, let alone an extraterrestrial species, so there’s some really interesting material to explore. Thanks again. Cheers, Peter
Ghosts is already on pre-order — though i am a few behind.
Still, i am very excited. I know i dont have to read in order
Stay Well !
Ghosts is a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendevous with Rama—and it’s a lot of fun, exploring a lot of really interesting concepts. Thank you for your kind support of independent science fiction.
Rama is a favorite of mine and actually planning on another read
Perhaps “Ghosts” first
and after seeing your comment on the theme of Clowns .. i need to read that one soon
You’ll definitely see the influence of Rama on Ghosts. There’s still plenty of original content, but the Rama chapters will sing to you!