Multitude

By: Dean M. Cole

Narrated by: R.C. Bray, Julia Whelan

Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's Summary

Sequel to Solitude, the ABR Listeners Choice: Best Sci-Fi of 2018 

Following the incredible events of Solitude, Vaughn and Angela must probe the depths of space and time to unravel and perhaps even reverse the enigma of humanity's disappearance. But first, they must get past themselves. 

If you enjoyed Solitude, you'll love the action and plot twists in this apocalyptic epic. 

Vaughn had visions of plying the seven seas with Angela at his side. Then she and fate crapped all over his plans. Bent on discovering the truth about what happened to humanity and the rest of the world's life, Angela drags a less-than-willing Vaughn across the Mediterranean and into central Europe. However, even the overhead presence of a line of levitating steel structures and ships couldn't prepare them for what lied ahead. The size and scale of what they find in Geneva rocks them to their cores. 

Angela and Vaughn fall into the center of a world-consuming machine. While struggling to survive, they wander through a looping chain of utterly alien lands. When they finally deduce the true nature of their situation, Angela discovers a potential way out, not just for her and Vaughn but all of Earth's life. 

Angela can bring back the whole of the human race! 

But only if she and Vaughn can survive the journey home.

©2018 Dean M. Cole (P)2019 Dean M. Cole

Great followup to the first book

Another great listen, wish the book kept going but I guess I'll just have to wait for the next one. The narrators really bring the story to life.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Cole Does It Again

Multitude was a book I didn’t even realize that I needed. It was the perfect book that hit me just at the right time. I went into it completely blind (no synopsis reading) and only had a memory of really enjoying the first book. I could barely remember what happened – other than I remember them potentially being 2 of the last people on Earth.

As I said in the review of Solitude – Cole can right. And I think he got even better with Multitude. There were scenes where if another author had written it – I think I would have been lost. But Cole was able to write it in a way that both made me feel confused but also understand at the same time. The purposeful confusion is really hard to pull off but can work extremely well in a book like this where even the main characters are confused.

I loved that even through all of the peril and issues that they were going through – they were still able to make me laugh. There was a scene where Angela is too loud and scares Vaughn and his reaction had me in stitches. And numerous other times the way that he reacted to her was just the right amount of comedic reprieve.

This was one of those books that has you on the edge of your seat for seemingly the entire book. Cole wrote Vaughn and Angela into crazy situations and after a while, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to them. Right as they started to feel like giving up I remember thinking to myself I couldn’t do it anymore and even I as a reader needed a break. Of course, they pushed on and Cole didn’t give me much time to take a breath, but it was for the better because it made me stay up to finish that next chapter.

I remember writing that it wasn’t even the halfway point when reading Solitude and I thought I’d found my book of the year – I feel that way 4 months into 2019. I’m sure there will be other books that’ll come out later this year to challenge this but the combination of Cole’s absolute blitzkrieg writing and Whelan and Bray’s dual narration – it’s going to be a hard one to beat.

I didn’t think the narration of this series could get any better (Whelan and Bray combo) but Cole listened and they know narrator their lines instead of just bouncing between chapters. It absolutely makes this book fly by since you’re completely entrenched in what is going on with the characters.

Overall, just a fantastic book that I can’t even get into why I liked since it would spoil not only the first book but definitely this book. I absolutely flew through it and will probably pick book one back up again since I enjoyed it so much.

9 of 10 people found this review helpful

Multitude

Solitude and Multitude are the first two novels in the Dimension Space Series by Dean M.Cole. Both are approximately 9-10 hours of listening, narrated by R.C.Bray and Julia Whelen, published by Candtor Press and Blue Heron Audio.

Plot: A wave of light emanates from CERN supercollider in Geneva, Switzerland and sweeps across the globe, annihilating all life forms. "Poof," no one is left. Animals, bird, bugs, all gone. Planes fall from the sky, trains ram into stations, boats plow into shore, cars, buses, trucks all without drivers, crash. The people are all gone.

Two survive. A lone astronaut, Commander Angela Brown, is stranded on a space station. An aviator, Vaughn Singleton, has survived in an earthbound experiment within the protections of a chamber. Initially, neither is aware of the other.

Months pass. On the space station, Angela makes a family of lab mice that live in her hair. Depressed, completely alone, Vaughn wanders the earth, intent on committing suicide. He absently glances through an old newspaper and discovers an article about an upcoming space launch. A light bulb glows over his head - there may be someone else alive, up there.

And so begins this apocalyptic SciFi series. What happened? Who did it, how, and why? An experiment at CERN gone horribly wrong? An alien invasion of earth? The future of mankind is a stake!

Liked: Story. It's intriguing, thought-provoking detail on the science of CERN. Narration by R.C.Bray as Vaughn Singleton and Julia Whelen as Angela Brown. Smooth transitions, well produced. No explicit sex scenes, no offensive language inappropriate to the scene. Feel free to give the books to anyone as gifts.

Not so hot: Although the books loosely conclude, there are cliffhangers — sequels to come.

If you're a SciFi fan or merely willing to stretch the imagination and get lost in an apocalyptic story, these will do.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Good Story, Painful to listen to. <br />

I liked the story. It seems the author made the Von and Angela Dumb and Dumber in order to increase the length. Didn't need to. Shorter story would have been more enjoyable. Very difficult to listen when thier idiot sides would surface.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

A story that excels in every possible multiverse

I have been waiting for this sequel for nearly two years. To say that it was worth the wait is an understatement.

I listened to the audiobook version of this story and it was performed so well. Bob and Julia both did a fantastic job. I loved the new duet narration style used in the sequel compared to the dual style used in Solitude.

I can't go into as much detail with my review as I would like without giving out spoilers. So, let me just sum it up with Dean is a great researcher and tackled a concept that has always fascinated me in the physics realm. I have always been drawn to stories about CERN and the LHC, and Mr. Cole's work definitely piqued my interest.

On a side note, I have never related more to a character than I did with Angela and her experiences with modern cinema in relation to her educational goals. That hit me right in the feels.

This cliffhanger has me really anxious to get to Amplitude. I am hoping that it comes to fruition quickly as I want to dive right in at the soonest possible opportunity.

Another easy 5/5 from Mr. Cole.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

I was disappointed!

I bought this with great expectations, having thoroughly enjoyed Solitude, and also previously enjoyed these 2 narrators. But I found Multitude to be overly long, repetitive (and not just for the plot), depressing and with many, many, many repetitions of "Oh shit". I was ready to abandon it, but I persevered. At the end of it there was a preview of the next in the series, Amplitude. I wonder if this is the story of what was happening in Europe, contemporaneously (when Angela and Vaughn were having their troubles), or a continuation of the story after the more or less happy ending of the second book. I'll have to think about if I'm willing to invest the time in the next one, although the free chapter already included one "Oh shit" from a different character, so I'm a little doubtful.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

And I thought the first book was intense!

Dean Cole really ramped up the intensity in this second book! It's almost like he decided there wasn't enough tension and action and excitement in the first book so he tripled his efforts here! This was probably the fastest I've gone through an audiobook. I think the book came out like 5 days ago. That's fast for me because I usually only listen in the car. My commute and life didn't have me in the car enough to listen to this. It's funny because when I had other people in the car I was annoyed because I couldn't listen. I just had to find out what was happening.

The intrigue, tension, mystery, emotion was greater this go round. If Mr Cole is indeed increasing his game with each book, I can't wait until the next one! If R.C. Bray & Julia Whelan weren't such amazing narrators, I'd get the e-book and read it just so I can continue. Alas, I cannot do that because I owe it to them to listen to their performances. Besides, it's almost like I have a personal relationship with them now since we've journeyed so long together. We've come this far so we're going to stay the course and get through the homestretch. I can't wait for the next one. *heads over to author website to stalk his social media*

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Great story

Great continuation of the original story but yet giving us something completely different. Looking forward to what's next.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

this book is fracking fantastic!!!!!

Dean creates a wicked smart universe (or should I say universe's) with his dimension space series. book one "Solitude" leaves the reader wondering where he is going with the story, but not in a bad way, with mystery shrouding what happens in book two. Multitude begins puzzling the pieces together, and in an intelligent fashion., while still managing to keep the reader thinking "WTF". Lord Bray as always does a fantastic narration, bringing the characters to life, and keeping the listener engaged in the story. Multitude brings the dimension to the space, turning on the switch in the listeners mind as to the science of the story, but does so in a way that still leaves many unanswered questions as to who is behind the curtain turning the knobs and flicking the switches. overall this is shaping up to be an award winning series, with book one already an award winner in it's own right. my advice is to pull the trigger on this series, well worth the credit, and I will be following Dean's works with great interest.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Great book.

rc really brings the book to life. the nod to expeditionary force made me chuckle as well.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Groundhogs and Aliens!

Any book like Solitude that leaves you with just two human beings alive on the planet watching a stream of buildings, vehicles and tanks flying over their heads is unlikely to have a follow-up that's all plain sailing! And so it proves here! Solitude had a unique perspective of two characters separated by space itself working together, it was a great premise and worked extremely well. Now that Angela and Vaughn are together it's a different chemistry and feel to the book. They set off determined to work out what went wrong for humanity and there are no surprises that they got a lot more than they bargained for.

If you thought that they were lucky and succeeded more by blind luck and ignorance in the first one then as they loop through inter-dimensional space you'll wonder at it once again as the plot and action veer off into a cartoon or video-game like space from fairly early on. But this isn't intended to be gritty, hard sci-fi by any stretch and if you park your reality scooter for your listening sessions and go with it you'll have a ball with this. If you're after something like Adrian Tchaikovsky or Arthur C Clarke then look elsewhere.

Part of the reason this works so well is the narration of course. It goes without saying that RC Bray gives a great performance and he is more than ably joined by Julie Whelan who's no slouch behind the microphone. In the first one they worked brilliantly in the first part of the book alternating with the characters separated but it wasn't so good when the two eventually came together. In this one they found a great formula with RC Bray doing the narrative and Vaughn's voice with his usual excellent high-tension delivery and Whelan doing Andrea's voice and some sundry other parts. Probably harder to put together but extremely effective so bravo whoever made that decision.

Eventually, this one brings it's own story to a conclusion and gives us a spoiler excerpt from the third book, Amplitude. For reasons I won't elaborate on that one looks set to once again shake things up in terms of the chemistry but I suspect we can expect more crazy action, pseudoscience and Laura Croft-like antics from the characters. And why not?

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Enjoyable wanting book 3.

This book is recorded better than the first. With the first book the narrators each did part narration and their own characters. But when Bray was narrating and Angela was supposed to speak he would do her voice instead of them editing and using Julia’s. In this book R C Bray does the narration and Vaughn. Julia Whelan does her character, Angela. They both do a really good job. They manage to show emotion and can express themselves without raising the overall volume of the audio. (With the last audiobook I listened to i had to keep adjusting the volume due to the narrator’s shouting) I think I got to the end of the book before the characters did. Mostly anyway. I wanted to shake the characters a little until they saw what I could see. But that didn’t make me hate the story any less. Looking forward to book 3.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

a reasonable yet slow sequel

struggled to finish this, a lot of repetition (some is to be expected). will read the next in the series for sure though as solitude was strong.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

I was worried

for a moment I thought this was the final book in the series! it's not!!!!!!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Loved it!

Excellent adventure, preferred the narration in this one too as it sounded strange Julia and RC voicing each others parts. I caught the Expeditionary Force reference too :)

Can't wait until book 3!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Pretty poor compared to 1st book

I liked first book was a fun story even though I didn’t really like Julia whelans narration. This book is just awful, pretty poor story with dreadful dialogue. It made me not like the characters, Bray was solid as ever but book was a letdown.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

great storyline

I loved this book not your average apocalyptic story great performance from both narrators and I found it kept you interested all the way through can't wait for book 3

Good story concept with annoying characters

So the first book was quite good. However I was wondering if now that they are together the author would be able to manage the story. And the answer is - sort of.

First of all the characters bicker, complain and whine a lot about each other's flaws and (perceived) slights. And not in a romantic funny or entertaining kinda way. Just annoying dialogue that lets you become that uncomfortable "third wheel" in a couple's dinner party argument.

And second, they always try to "be the alpha" which creates weird moments that seriously detract from the story. Why not do confidently what you do best and be humble doing the stuff you need practice with? Simple enough. And that was pretty much what made the first story work. So yeah this part was poor in that way.

Anyways, the concept was good so it gets 4 stars.

great listen

I really enjoyed both books , looking forward to the third one . I hate to criticise any writer because its something I could not do but...... there is only so many times "eyes went round" or "eyes went wide " should be used and became a bit of an eye roll moment for me every time I heard it in the story . Narrator was RC Bray so I dont need to say any more than that about him . The lady who did the second narration had her part changed from the first book , for me it works better that way but iam a massive fan of Mr Bray so Iam biased. But she did a great job of voicing commander Brown and really added a dimension to the character...... No pun intended

liked it... a lot

story was excellent, can't way to see what happens next, narration was excellent as always, RCBray and Julia Whelan knocked it out of the atmosphere let alone the park. can't wait for the next installment