Out of the Black

Odyssey One, Book 4

By: Evan Currie

Narrated by: David deVries

Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Deep in blackest space, the Drasin have watched humanity's journey to the stars—and determined that a species as barbaric as ours has no place in the cosmos.

The wreckage of the starship Odyssey, once Earth's greatest guardian, lies strewn across New York City. Abandoned by all but its captain, Odyssey's sacrifice covered the withdrawal of countless troops as the Drasin assault ravaged the planet. When Captain Eric Weston finally emerges from the rubble, impossibly alive thanks to the mysterious "Gaia", he knows with the Drasin it's kill or be killed.

But not all of the heavens have proven hostile. The Priminae have felt the full brunt of Drasin aggression on their own home world, and they won't leave humanity to face annihilation alone. Together with what's left of the crews of the Odyssey and other starships, they race to join Weston and his group of Earth-bound survivors for a desperate last stand.

The final battle of the Drasin War brings bestselling author Evan Currie's Odyssey One series to its shattering conclusion.

©2014 Evan Currie (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Currie is hitting his Stride

I said after book 2 that Mr Currie was getting better with each book.. I think he's hitting his stride now! I know I enjoyed it more than I may have normally, since I just came off a LONG spree of "Fantasy Books" (Which I normally don't like), and so the "Space Warfare and Powered Battle Armor" was JUST what I needed to get back into enjoying Sci-Fi!

I guess I could pick apart some technical details, but Hey, if I'm willing to believe in Monstrous Space Ships and Interplanetary Warfare, I think I can accept a few far-fetch technical details ;)

I have to admire David deVries for taking on the Narration of this book after Benjamin Darcie did the other 3 books. That HAS to be a daunting task to take over narration after another narrator is already established. I have to also give him credit for not trying to imitate Darcie's Narration Style, and sticking to his own style.. that HAS to be a hard thing to do, knowing that fans of the book are going to compare his narration to the previous Narrator everyone has gotten used to. Cudos for doing a good job reading the book, and for having the guts to take over the Narration.. a LOT of Professional Narrators simply WON'T take over Narrating an established series.

WELL Worth the Credit, and I'll be waiting for a "Book 5"!!!!!

Heady

If you like technical jargon, weapons, war, action, you will love this story. It was all that and not my favorite thing to listen to for 10 hours. How can one stop though when the fate of the earth is at stake?

Great but for the change in accents

The Priminae are supposed to have accents yet the only one with an accent is Milla.

The terrans are back

It was good for the most part, and most of the familiar story arches are continued. GIA features more in this book than in the prior ones. However there were some areas of the story that had me scratching my head about the ship-minds actions and I sincerely hope it is clarified in the next book.

Overall I enjoyed it though.

Good but the reader kind of ruined it for me

I really enjoy this series but the switch to David deVries is...disappointing. The whole tenor of the story and the characters changed so dramatically that it seemed more comic book than thoughtful sci-fi.

Weston pulls it off, Again!

great listening and almost spell binding, looking forward to the continuation of the hunt !

Narrators choices

Maybe I’m just used to DeVries, but Benjamin Darcy’s narration grated on me some. Some of his characterizations of characters I had already come to know didn’t fit very well. And some were just downright silly. Sean Bermont is a good example. Darcy‘s, narration turned him into a cartoon character. That’s really sad, because a lot of work had gone into developing this character. Many of the characters spent a lot of time screaming at the other people around them. Their main purpose seemed to be angry all the time. Too much shouting. This may have been because the narrator changed, pronounced words, differently, and messed with the characters.

much prefer Mr. Darcie as narrator.

narrator change lost established character voices started by Benjamin Darcie. story is maintained, but word prefer one narrator

Let down by the narrator

Where does Out of the Black rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This series is very strong - each of the four books so far has carried the plot and characters along in a very consistent manner. Often with series we see ups and downs, start out strong and then get lazy or struggle for ideas with the later volumes. Each of these stands on it's own merits and keeps my interest and excitement level high.

What didn’t you like about David deVries’s performance?

Change of narrator is always a risk, and usually a bad thing. DeVries took too many of the character voices that we have learned to listen for and went overboard in trying to make them stronger with accent and character. Good examples of this are with Stephanos, Mila and Vermont. It was not as noticeable at the beginning but about half way through it got very annoying. Strong story saved the day and kept me powering through the interference of the narrator's voices and accents.

Any additional comments?

Excellent series. I listen to a lot of different authors who write series in this genre, and this is one of the best. Well worth the listen!!

Great Series!

This is a great series, developed with significant thought, strategy and believable science. it has been challenging to listen to this chapter in the series as deVries has with his arrival given new voices and as a result somewhat new personalities to the characters we've become invested in. Also noted as a challenge is that deVries has difficulty in times of intense action keeping his character vocals separated. These challenges should not deter any listener from continuing their journey along with Currie's charaters, but perhaps serve as feedback to those involved in the production of the audiobooks.