The Outlaw Audiobook By Andrei Livadny cover art

The Outlaw

Phantom Server Trilogy Series, Book 2

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

The Outlaw

By: Andrei Livadny
Narrated by: Todd McLaren
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.47

Buy for $15.47

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

The Eurasia fleet has entered the Darg star system. The unsuspecting players look forward to the adventure of their lifetimes. Zander alone is now facing a harsh and unpredictable "alternative storyline". The girl he loved is gone. His nervous system is impregnated with artificial neurons that contain fragments of ancient AIs and their identities. Zander's body is implanted with alien artifacts that allow him to survive in the deadly cyberspace of Phantom Server. But his unique development branch pushes him toward the edge of the precipice where his every step may become his last - where the future itself is vague and uncertain.

©2016 Andrei Livadny. English translation copyright 2016 by Irene Woodhead and Neil P. Mayhew (P)2016 Tantor Cyberpunk Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera
Unpredictable Plotlines • Exciting Action • Excellent Narration • Refreshing Direction • Immersive Worldbuilding
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
very hard to put down. has a very good story line BUT start with book 1 for sure.

need 3rd series

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The Outlaw is the second book in the Phantom Server Trilogy. This book begins immediately following a cliff-hanger from book one. However the plot takes an immediate sharp turn in which Zander finds himself alone with no safe respawn point and no logout ability. The new Update introduces all new gamers ignorant of the danger to be found in 100% authenticity and who are wary of Zanders ever growing abilities and seeming mysterious knowledge even while they have to rely on him for survival.
The author does a great job of defining incredible obstacles as each hard won discovery brings more questions as Zander strives to survive in a game he cannot afford to loose! The action keeps building and building all throughout the book. This is an exciting and fun book!

The BEST LitRPG I have ever listened to!!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

What made the experience of listening to The Outlaw the most enjoyable?

The second book is more fleshed-out wrt main plot line and didn't focus too much on the crippling potholes in the previous book. With the focus of this book changing to character development and interactions with the virtual world becoming his reality, the new direction is refreshing and a great encapsulation of how it would feel to live in a MMOFPS. The ignoring of the previous plot is perfect by changing it to rather people staying in the game until death (virtual better than real life or less boring), is a better use of the technology rather than an evil corporation unable to develop AI so they kill people they are developing the game for to get the data they already had without having to kill them through neural scanning.

Have you listened to any of Todd McLaren’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

The narrator's performance had been excellent and handling of female characters had improved in this audio-book compared to his previous performance.

More Focused & Entertaining Sequel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
this book absolutely captured my imagination and kept me entertained cannot wait until the next book comes out.

mind blowing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Enjoyed the story and the narration immensely, particularly with no familiarity to tech RPGs

Character skills development and pacing in LitRPG is fun. It can be greatly accelerated or explained by 'level up' avoiding the some-months-later gaps in other stories.

That said, I think LitRPG is already in a rut regarding the link between real and virtual worlds. Every author has a major plot element involving a magic link and eventual merge of real and virtual worlds, and the level of interaction between the two is the only variable. A trope I'm not sure LitRPG can avoid.

I'd like to see other commenters list Authors in the genre

Enjoying LitRPG, but

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Been thouroughly enjoying this series, the narrator is great, the plot arcs are pretty tidy.

gripping story, great narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Oh god, I am so over it. The main character is only there to allow his tech to improve on its own (seriously no help from him).

I cannot finish the book let alone the series.

His tech just keeps improving to fix all problems

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The central plot continues to confuse in book 2 and perhaps adds even more to the disjointed nature of the overall storyline. This series would be so much better if the author chose a clear definition - are the characters entirely in a game or entirely in the real world. He seems to be content flipping back and forth on a whim, consequently only providing half of what listeners enjoy from a space opera or a litRPG. Unfortunately, half of each doesn’t even come close to most other true litRPG or space operas that have chosen one clear path and one niche done well.

Confusing storyline

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
if you're a huge gamer this book could be for you. I was at one time a huge gamer but I'm kinda at a point at my life I don't have much time for online multi-player. when I do play I play something for the story. So this book didn't peak my I interest as much as I hoped. It's still not an awful book.

it was alright.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I generally like the premise of this series and greatly enjoyed the first book. I wanted to like this second book, but it lacks the character depth that drew me into the series to start with.

SPOILERRRRRRR!

Okay. Now, due to the fact that the main character finds himself reincarnated in a whole new location of the phantom server, all of the old characters that filled the pages of the first book are gone (mostly). None of the new characters are really developed and the story now reads like an instruction manual.

The author doesn't do a great job of writing women either, and he spends too much time assessing whether or not a non-love-interest character, up until that point at least, is "beauty pageant pretty". Honestly, that kind of evaluation is not necessary to the plot at all, and the mention of such an irrelevant real-world event broke my suspension of disbelief. A useless distraction. He was bad at writing his female character, Liore, in book one, turning her from a badass pilot who saved protag's life into some whimpering damsel in distress waiting for rescue. Not congruent at all.

SPOILER OVERRR!

The lackof protag's morally gray companions drin book one, and no real development of the new characters, followed by mechanical writing of the type of space action that we are all by now very familiar with, if you read sci-fi often like me, make this particular book feel devoid of any stakes that feel real and new. This book is a let-down for me. Not sure if I can bother with the last one.

Lacks heart of first book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.