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On the Beach

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On the Beach

By: Nevil Shute
Narrated by: James Smillie
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About this listen

Australia is one of the last places where life still exists after nuclear war starts in the Northern Hemisphere. A year on, an invisible cloak of radiation has spread almost completely around the world.

Darwin is a ghost town, and radiation levels at Ayres Rock are increasing. An American nuclear-powered submarine has found its way to Australia, where its captain has placed the boat under the command of the Australian Navy. Commander Dwight Towers and his Australian liaison officer are sent to the coast of North America to discover whether a stray radio signal originating from near Seattle is a sign of life.

©2009 The Trustees of the Estate of the late Nevil Shute Norway (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Submarine War
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Really creates a stark, dark but very human experience. Moving and eerie, very well read.

eerie and powerful

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Overall it was a good story and performed well. My only annoyance was the volume seemed to drop terribly in places when the reader was “whispering” in character, which is fine for the role except makes it hard to hear and was having to turn volume up and down numerous times.

On the Beach

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This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper. And all so very ordinary.

Topical yet again.

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On The Beach is a novel about folly on a grand scale and the inescapable consequences for humanity. Read it for the quietly stated themes or read it for the glimpses into life in another decade. Deeply moving.

Confronting and thought provoking

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The narrator was excellent and a chilling story of what is still possible today, if world leadership fails.

Sad Tale

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.