Audiobook Review: ‘Outland’, by Dennis E. Taylor

Blurb

When the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, it’s up to six college students and their experimental physics project to prevent the end of civilization.

When an experiment to study quantum uncertainty goes spectacularly wrong, physics student Bill Rustad and his friends find that they have accidentally created an inter-dimensional portal. They connect to Outland – an alternate Earth with identical geology, but where humans never evolved. The group races to establish control of the portal before the government, the military, or evildoers can take it away.  

Then everything changes when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts in an explosion large enough to destroy civilization and kill half the planet. The team has just hours to get as many people as possible across to Outland before a lethal cloud of ash overwhelms them. 

Nothing has prepared the refugees for what they find – a world of few resources and unprecedented dangers. Somehow, they must learn to survive, because Outland may not just be a safe haven – it could be their new home.

My Review

I may have mentioned that I enjoy Dennis E Taylor’s Bobiverse novels; well Mr. Taylor has other books and I had to try them. The geologist in me loved the concept of a Yellowstone supervolcano eruption and the loner in me wants to disappear into a world where humans are rare, so I had to try Outland when I saw it on Audible.

Taylor brings us an adventure with a motley crew of physicists and engineers (there’s a theme developing in his work), assisted by a geologist and a zoologist/gun enthusiast. When the engineers and physicists bugger up an experiment it’s Erin and Monica (geologist and zoologist) who save them in multiple ways. Between them they discover a portal to other Earths, Earths where different events played out.

In one they find that humans hadn’t taken over, the Pleistocene creatures of North America were still alive and well, and Yellowstone had already emptied her guts. A plan is hatched to make some money, which gets them unwanted attention from some very unpleasant people.

Once the world ends, the gang save a few hundred students in Lincoln, Nebraska and take them through their portal, where they have to set up a new community. There are further troubles but the colony is in better shape than the rest of humanity.

I enjoyed this story, and the opening concept – multiple Earths with different trajectories depending on events – reminds me of that which inspires The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, but Taylor takes in an entirely different direction. Where Long Earth makes the technology simple and ‘stepping’ an every-day event, Taylor makes building and operating a ‘gate’ a complex task that the inventors decide to keep to themselves until forced by events to share.

I liked the by-play between the characters, and the complex backgrounds of them all, that becomes apparent throughout the narrative, adds to their interactions with others in the gang. The descriptions of the planet in it’s Pleistocene glory and the building of the new colony is very realistic. I felt like I was there, and to be honest I’d happily go. I enjoyed the plot twists and the struggles to survive in a difficult situation.

Ray Porter is a wonderful narrator, he has such a calming voice and he gives each character a unique voice and personality.

I have been in contact with the author, print copies of Outland will be available from September 2019 and the next installment will be written once he’s finished the next Bobiverse books.