• The Darkening

  • A Zombie Apocalypse Novel
  • By: Cynthia Melton
  • Narrated by: Virtual Voice
  • Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
  • 3.8 out of 5 stars (19 ratings)

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The Darkening  By  cover art

The Darkening

By: Cynthia Melton
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
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This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks

Publisher's summary

It isn't about the zombies, it's about the survivors.

A meteor hits a government research facility sending the world into chaos.

Chalice Hart must step up and lead a rag-tag group of survivors to safety.

Every place the group thinks is safe soon becomes overrun by either the undead or those wanting what the group possesses. Along the way, they accept other survivors into their group, while losing others on their journey to safety. Chalice’s hope lies in Colton, the first they'd picked up, and on rumors of a cure.

Their growing hope is shattered when the undead begin to mutant into something not even the horror stories they’d read as children could prepare them for.

Will the survivors find their safe haven or will the world forever be overrun by the hordes of undead?


Formerly published as The Zombie Awakening Series.

What listeners say about The Darkening

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Nice story but lose the computer

Good story but I do not like a computer with no feeling reading it. Otherwise it was great.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

AI is terrible

The AI voice and vocabulary is horrid. If an actual person read the book I would give it a 5.
The story was great not unlike other stories but enough characters that were different. The character development was pretty good.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

the narration was really the worst part. The mechanical voice was very distracting. It lacked feeling and felt very unatural.

I did like the general idea of the story but it felt like the author didn't do much in the way of researching the story and certain aspects of a potential apocalypse. It says the story was about the survivors but it failed to cover many potential hardships. The survivors seemed to have it to easy and a lot of opportunities to spice up the story were missed

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

no to narrator

it might have been a good story but robot voice made it bad. Really 👎

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Human nature

Love the zombie genre and this was spot on, although a little predictable. Pace and action was good. I didn’t not care for computer generated narration, lacking inflection. I enjoyed this listen.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good, exciting parts of the book—ignited the adrenaline!

Certain parts extremely exciting! Would look for Sony books from this author …enjoyed the computer voice fine

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Story was good AI terrible

For the most part storyline wasn’t bad. But the AI was terrible and I hope the message gets across that it might be cheaper but it ruins the experience.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A happy and hopeful ending

Reading using virtual voice is extremely annoying. Please return to real narrators. The story was okay.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

all the stupid decisions mabe by the so called leaders

so instead of leading the dead away from the perfectly good farm with gardens and live stock . these stooges decide to load up a cow and pigs snd move to the mall in a town where a armed militant group of hostiles who wants to take breading age females against their will for breading

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

AI voice is the worst thing that happened to audio bookstores

Writers need to make sure their work isn’t turned into garbage with this AI reader, was the story good? I have no idea as the voice was putting me to sleep. Avoid these at all costs.

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