Earthside Audiobook By Dennis E. Taylor cover art

Earthside

Quantum Earth, Book 2

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Earthside

By: Dennis E. Taylor
Narrated by: Ray Porter
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About this listen

The fate of mankind is in the hands of a group of 20-something science nerds in the sequel to Outland, by the Audible #1 best-selling author of the “Bobiverse” series.

The Yellowstone super-eruption has put an end to modern civilization. As cities and countries continue to fall, the colony of Rivendell in the alternate Earth known as Outland looks more and more like the only real hope for humanity. But life in Rivendell isn’t getting any simpler, either. Bill and Kevin continue to discover new worlds; the population continues to rise; winter is approaching; and everyone has their own opinion about how things should be run.

Then, a garbled plea for help from Omaha sends most of the security forces back Earthside to investigate, leaving Monica’s police force understaffed just as a large group of refugees arrive with its own ideas and power structure. With threats from both inside and outside, will the colony even survive until spring?

©2023 Dennis E. Taylor (P)2022 Audible Originals, LLC.
Science Fiction Fiction
About the Creator - Dennis E. Taylor

About the Creator

Dennis E. Taylor: Meet the Dennis behind all the Bobs—and the Bobiverse trilogy. Dennis E. Taylor describes himself as a computer programmer by day, a writer by night, and a snowboarder in season. With the phenomenal success of We Are Legion (We Are Bob), he can now devote himself full-time to writing science fiction.
About the Performer - Ray Porter

About the Performer

Ray Porter has over 400 narrated titles available on Audible.com. He has won several Audiofile Earphones awards, a Voice Arts award, and has been nominated multiple times for an Audie award. In addition to narration, he has been in multiple theatrical productions and appeared in various films and TV shows, including Zack Snyder’s Justice League as Darkseid. A Dennis Taylor fan, he’s very excited about the release of Earthside.

What listeners say about Earthside

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Why all the politics?

Why take a fun story and make the second half about politics? Noble liberal/socialists versus the negative stereotype conservative and religious people? Nearly ruined this more me. That is not why I listen to light sci-fi.
I don’t think I’ll be looking for the third book.
Very disappointing! 3 stars overall for the memory of what the first book was like.

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120 people found this helpful

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Politics ruins everything...

This has the potential to be an interesting series, hence my decision to buy book 2.

But the amount of political bashing, as well as introducing age biases and straw man characters almost made this unfinishable.

There could be lots of discussion about potential political designs for the colony and such without the "older, conservatives are racist idiots who ruined the world" trope the book descended into. Frankly, Greta Thunberg deployed more nuance than was used in writing most of the characters in this book.

I'm curious about where the universe this book creates is going, but after this book it's clear that the 1632-Ring of Fire universe and others written with intelligence have nothing to fear.

This is a really poorly written follow-up to Outland, and one which may - deservedly, even - kill off a series that could have been really good.

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69 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Another Amazing Story; However…

I’d like to start by saying that I have listened to every single English recording of Dennis E. Taylor’s books. Even almost bought a German book before I realized it was in German. I listened to the bobiverse series 2-3 times through and loved it every time. Taylor is my favorite near-future sci-fi author hands down.

Earthside as a sequel in the Outlands series was definitely a stellar story with an awesome narrator. Taylor’s engineering/practical approach to any kind of problem is an engineer’s wet dream and I adore it. The different earths they explore open up infinite exciting possibilities, and I can’t wait to see where the story goes from here.

Ray Porter’s narration continues to impress. He uses the same basic voices for all the characters while still somehow creating slight differences enough to be able to recognize a character without naming. Second only to Kyle McCarly who I’m fairly certain is actually 5 different people pretending to be 1.

There are really only two complaints I have with this book: One, not a ton actually happens in the story. It picks up where the first one left off, but Taylor’s books tend to have explosive discovery and advancement in situations in each book. This one, they discover/figure out a few things, but the majority of the story surrounds a trip, contact with refugees, and a formation of a government for the colony. Important stuff to be sure, but slow, in my opinion, compared to the first book and to Taylor’s stories in general. Second, Taylor unfortunately has fallen to the same tired trope of all near-future authors. The only two major attacks by groups in the books are preppers, who we can all make fun of for the most part, and conservatives. The only people to oppose the type of government settled on are religious, anarchists, or conservatives. I feel obligated to remind Taylor that the last “conservative” presidential election shut down entire colleges and universities. Antifa, identified as left-wing/progressive in nature, lead riots around the country that quite literally burned cities. But, personal biases will unfortunately always exist, and somehow, despite the fathers of numerous scientific fields of study being some form of Judeo-Christian in nature, sci-fi authors can’t seem to justify religion in a future society.

If you enjoy solid near-future scifi, Taylor is top tier. I’m disappointed in the use of such overly-used and tired tropes, but even the best of us fall prey to our own worldviews and ideals for society. I will continue to read Taylor’s books and enjoy them thoroughly, simply with more of a grain of salt now than before.

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7 people found this helpful

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Bravo!

Dennis E. Taylor has delivered another great story. I was thrilled with how the story unfolded. The description sounded a bit scattered but the story works and was a delightful evolution of the characters. Ray Porter is excellent as always at the narration.

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Meh

Kinda predictable and somewhat unimaginative. Story seems to go in circles without any real progression from first book. The main group is so cerebral and pragmatic, while the antihero’s are so cartoonish it is an unconvincing tale. Oh well.

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3 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars

There's not that much Politics...

For some reason all the reviews here are complaining about the amount of politics are in this book. I honestly didn't find it to be that much, and if you think about a post-apocalyptic setting, you'd eventually have to figure out a set of rules for everyone to follow. I can count two chapters that have politics, and those are really minimum. Now the comments about the excessive amount of coffee references I slightly agree with, but keep in mind this story is about college kids.. I lived off coffee in college, so it makes total sense to me. That said, this book is actually pretty good; it's not something I'm running out screaming for my friends to read, but it's a solid read and a good continuation of the first book. Ultimately I can see myself listening to this again down the road. My only gripe is how it seems through every conflict, they find just the perfect solution. Otherwise, this a solid read and I do recommend it.

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Outstanding second book would be really good if there was a third😁

Both the writing, and the narration of this book, very very good. I like the way Dennis Taylor can run concurrent story arcs that hang together as well as snippets, looking at other parts of the world. Thoroughly enjoyable.

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great story

loved the story. it was a good mix of action and drama. I think the people who are angry with the politics are just angry because they challenge their own views, and they find their views lacking.

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Feel free to look past the politics naysayers

I honestly felt the first book was a lot weaker than this one on delivery. By all means I still enjoyed it, the setting, the catastrophe, the conflicts and the outcomes, but it all felt very convenient too. All of the human antagonists in the first book were pretty straightforward problems to be dealt with, not redeeming at all and so the most extreme response was easy to follow through on. The protagonists could essentially do no wrong in regards to handling people, there was pretty much only one option if everyone wanted to survive the initial collapse of society.

It is in fact the politics that make this book so much more enjoyable, do not be put off by those who can't handle even a fictional portrayal of ideas they disagree with. There are genuinely difficult decisions to be made, and the actions of the main cast and colony are entirely believable given the demographics. I think Dennis has done a fine job of capturing the exact kind of social conflicts and concerns that would need to be dealt with as the colony tries to find stability while incorporating additional survivors with different demographics and beliefs. Dealing with serious individual crimes and deciding what the boundaries of the social contract are before violent retaliation is required to enforce it are not things that can be taken lightly or ignored if the colony wants to retain it's newfound independence.

And by no means is it a continuous show of standing on soapboxes and preaching politics, There's plenty of Earthside exploration to satisfy your curiosity about what's happening to society in the aftermath. More lives will be saved, and much more exploration of parallel worlds will be done, setting the stage for what could be some serious consequences if gate technology falls into the wrong hands.

This is a fantastic continuation of the story the first book started and I'm genuinely excited to see what happens in the books that come.

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Politics!!??

I agree with other reviewers, this was just way too political for me. When I listen to a book I like to escape all the far right and far left political rhetoric. It felt like watching the news. It wasn’t enjoyable for me.

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1 person found this helpful