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.

Changed narrator not good

Shame that they changed the narrator for the fourth book. He is ok, but just not the same.
Over a good read

Great story

The story is again fantastic. The narrator, however mispronounced many things. One in particular is Milla's name. He pronounced it as "ll" instead of the "y" it should be pronounced with.

Huge turn of the tables

This is the fourth in the series about the crew of the odyssey though since that starship has been destroyed perhaps a different name is appropriate for the ongoing series.

If you don't know the series then you shouldn't listen to this book (until you listen to the earlier ones) because it won't make sense and is not intended as a stand alone book. What was really confusing in the third book [the battle of sol] was how the drasin who were formidable foes as single ships suddenly were destroyed en masse by the same ships that were lucky to take on or two - new weapons aside.

Anyhow the battlefield has moved to the earth and initially new york city. Strangely the drasin don't seem to be trying hard to win and the reason that is eventually given is not exactly convincing. Afterall if the goal of the drasin is to wipe out all non drasin life in the universe then it I for one don't get why they wouldn't just do that one star system at time starting with the one at hand. But then they're aliens and who knows how they think...

As you can guess fortunes wax and wane so that there are ever increasing difficulties for the terrans to counter and overcome - and that's the whole plot. At the end there is some more space battles and like previous books in this series those battles are lacking realism. In space travelling at relativistic speed (significant fractions of the speed of light) it seems reasonable over the huge distances involved that some of the shots would miss. In fact it seems likely that in general most shots fired at distances measured in light seconds or minutes would miss unless you could aim and track your laser with a precision that could be measured in fractions of a degree to fifty or a hundred decimal places. Other flaws in the science part of the fiction include the fact that you can use tachyon cannons within a gravity well but not the transition drive... not sure why not since its the same technology. And the fighters seem to be able to arc and get back to the ship extraordinarily quickly when they've been travelling away for significant periods.

From a plot point of view it didn't really make sense that the ships returning knew that there were of the order of 1500 drasin ships in the system when they left and only come prepared to deal with about a third that number on return.

Despite these limitations I did enjoy the book. I didn't see the point of the gaia gestalt who played little or no part in the story of any significance. In fact the story would have been no different if she wasn't there at all. But I suppose the best commendation I can give the book is that I would buy the next one in the series so if you listened to the previous books in this series and liked them then this is more of the same with a focus on planet based skirmishes.

You should make this into a movie or tv shows.

This is the 3rd time I listen to

The books just keep them coming

th the books

book 4 in the series and it's fun.

this is book 4 in the series, and the author has lately lead character continue with his risky and genuinely fun Behavior. Some space combat, some hints of things to come, and just overall a good time.

great story, bad narration on book 4

The story is amazing! the entire series has been great. my only complaint is that the narrator was changed on book 4. the new narrator doesn't hold a candle to the performance of the original. every voice he does sounds like a drill seargent or 'my cousin vinny'. there's no consistently in the character voices either, as they will shift right in the middle of a conversation, which makes it difficult to follow. He's also pronouncing many of the names in the book very differently than the first narrator, this actually confused me on more than one occasion. it's bad enough that I considered not finishing the series. the least the new narrator could have done would have been to listen to the first books to keep some semblance of consistency. i will avoid purchasing any future audio book with this narrator.

Change of narrators frustrating.

What did you love best about Out of the Black?

I enjoyed what I felt was closure of this chapter of the story. While the story continued to center, mainly, around Captain Weston the majority of the book was centered around the fight ON Earth and not in the stars.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Out of the Black?

Answering this would be spoiler laden. Suffice to say the Captain is at his best when he's on the desk of a ship.

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

David deVries gave a great performance. If this were the 1st book in the series or a new set of characters I'd have given it 4 stars. The problem is this is a series, one that I binged on and read all 3 books back to back.

The previous two books were narrated by Benjamin L. Darcie. I enjoyed his style and his take on the characters and frankly I became accustomed to them. Each character's personality (in my imagination) was largely defined by the choices he made in his performance. I don't believe David deVries (or the producers) took this into account when they recorded the 3rd book. The characters are all swapped around in their tone and manner and it's just jarring. Mr. deVries is obviously capable of the same range of performance as Mr. Darcie he just made different choices for how each character would sound.

Very Entertaining

Good sci-fi book & series. Plenty of action. Looking forward to additional books in the series.

Narrator makes a difference

Story ok narration cartoonish..........sorry the series couldn't find and keep a good reader. Hope the next two books have done better

Another Good Book

Very good narration and story plot. Earth survives an onslaught, and rebuilds.
Rearms to bring the attack to them.
Waiting for book 5.