The Post-Human Omnibus

By: David Simpson

Narrated by: Ray Chase

Length: 24 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

1. Sub-Human 

Before he was Oldtimer, he was Craig Emilson, a young doctor sucked into military service at the outbreak of World War III. Enlisting to become a Special Forces suborbital paratrooper, Craig is selected to take part in the most important mission in American military history - a sortie into enemy territory to eliminate the world's first strong artificial intelligence. The mission is only the beginning of Craig's story and the story of humanity as well as they accelerate toward a world that is post-human. 

If you're already a fan of the smash-hit Post-Human Series, this prequel to Post-Human, Sub-Human, will answer the previously unanswered questions of how the post-human world came to be. And if you're new to the series, Sub-Human will serve as an engrossing introduction to a possible future that has enraptured tens of thousands of listeners! 

2. Post-Human 

The future should have been perfect. Microscopic robots known as nans could repair any damage to your body, keep you young by resetting your cellular clocks, and allow you to download upgrades like intelligence, muscle strength, and eyesight. You were supposed to be able to have anything you wanted with a simple thought, to be able to live forever. But when a small group of five terraformers working on Venus return to Earth, they discover that every other human in the solar system has been gruesomely murdered. Now James Keats and his four companions must discover what happened to the rest of humanity and fight back if they wish to avoid the same horrifying fate.

3. Trans-Human 

In this sequel to Post-Human, humanity will be forced to face a future more advanced than it could have imagined if it wants to survive. Nineteen months have passed since the AI turned against humanity and was subsequently destroyed. In the meantime James Keats has turned over the AI's powers to a nonintelligent, easily controlled operating system. 

He and Thel have left the planet and spent six months vacationing on Venus, which has been terraformed without the consent or knowledge of the Governing Council. The AI has been deleted, but the message it sent out into the abyss of space in search of a companion has been answered. An alien force dwarfing the Earth is on its way to find out why the AI has stopped communicating. Keats and company can only assume its intentions will be hostile when it finds out the truth.

4. Human Plus 

Human Plus is the fourth story in the smash hit science-fiction series. Not exactly a sequel, not exactly a prequel, Human Plus will defy expectations. No matter what you thought was coming next, you're in for a surprise! 

Just one caution: When you're finished you're going to want to share the surprises with everyone online.... Please don't! Please respect future listeners, and let them enjoy the surprises just as much as you did! 

©2014 David Simpson (P)2015 Podium Publishing

Critic Reviews

"Wow! Reads like an action film is reeling off in your head!" (Joanna Daneman, #1 HALL OF FAME, TOP 10 AMAZON REVIEWER, [Review for Sub-Human])

"Fantastic series, download and start reading right now!" (Mark Draper, TOP 10 AMAZON REVIEWER)

I unsuccessfully tried to listen

I purchased this book which is actually a 4 novel series 14 months ago. I have tried to listen to it several times. I give up! My major complaint is over performance by narrator Ray Chase. He is not a novice, but his emphasis is on the wrong words and phrases. He narrates like an excited two year old talks.

The plot? Being nice, I'll say I'm really not in the target audience.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Humanity on the brink of destruction...again.

With the Post-Human Omnibus clocking in at just under 25 hours for 4 books you know that each book isn't very long or deep so don't expect a ton of character development. However, David Simpson does cram a dizzying array of science fiction topics into a small space including nano-technology, human augmentation, virtual reality, sentient artificial intelligence, assimilation, terraforming, and alternate universes, just to name a few. The story itself is a wild ride that goes from one mankind threatening scenario to another in rapid succession with hardly a breath in between.

Sub-Human starts with a political climate pitting two sides against each other over the controversy of strong AI. One side believes that if a true artificial intelligence is created it will quickly realize that humans need to go and mankind will face extinction. This faction will stop at nothing to prevent the other side from actually creating such an AI including a nuclear war. Basically, they are willing to destroy human civilization to prevent an AI from doing so.

Post-Human tackles the endless desire to better oneself through technology and the ramifications of doing so. Nano-technology allows Post-Humans to become almost immortal but it comes at a great cost. Post-Humans become dependent on technology for survival and we've all seen enough sci-fi movies to know how that works out.

Trans-Human finds mankind facing a threat from beyond the solar system as old enemies become allies in order to survive this new external threat.

And finally, Human Plus is a weird one and any attempt to explain it would be a potential spoiler so all I will say is that it was my least favorite book of the series.

Overall I found the series enjoyable but there are times where the fiction dominated the science a bit too much and some laughable explanations were given for why things work the way they do. I found that I was able to look beyond those times and I just went along for the ride. If you are looking for something deep and profound then you should look elsewhere, but if you just want to gorge yourself at a sci-fi buffet then you have come to the right place.

Ray Chase does a decent job at the voices of the various characters and while his performance wasn't perfect I had no issue with him like some of the other reviewers did.

14 of 16 people found this review helpful

Man, I really wanted to like this book

I've been a lover of cyberpunk for a very long time. However, I've been out of the genre for a while. So when I did a few key word searches this title floated to the top of the list. So many stars. I didn't think I could go wrong. It was a quick buy. However...

The performance was terrible. It would have been better if he had read it in a monotone voice. I do like a dramatic reading, but every.. single... conversation... was...read... in... an... over... the... top... manner. After a while it made me think of how people used to lampoon William Shatner's captain Kirk from the 60s. Then there was the writing. So many MaGuffins.I couldn't even laugh after a while. I'm really sorry if I offend folks, but it was as if the author was wanting to throw in outlandish plot points just to make all the 11 year old reader's happy. I can get on board with believing we can send a human through to a parallel universe for the first time with no hitch. But does it have to be in a super remote place, within moments of a critical historical human event? And then does the human, a man of science, have chose to change the outcome of that event without a thought, while talking to everyone present like annoying children? What a waste of a good premise.

19 of 25 people found this review helpful

Pop-culture advanced humans with medieval morals

What was most disappointing about David Simpson’s story?

I mean come on, humans who live forever, but divorce is illegal? Public shaming of people with impure thoughts? This is a world where the Catholic Church invents cyborgs. It's especially implausible considering a leader of this government lusted after a colleague decades younger than him then married her after her husband was temporarily out of the picture.
The science seemed to be based on a poor understanding of pop-culture science, basically magnets and "magnetic energy" can do anything. The characters carried over from previous stories seemed to completely change to fit whatever new scenario arose. The story for the first book was clearly an angry American teenage boy fantasy. The series was disappointment after disappointment.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The ASI testing was a neat idea.

Any additional comments?

I would not recommend this series for fans of hard-science fiction or those easily annoyed by someone who would use terms like energy, force, and power interchangeably.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Good listen

This was a binge listeners dream. All the books for one credit? Yes please! So I like this series but sometimes the characters seemed to balk at every new mind bending thing, like they can't wrap their head around something even though it is no more outlandish than the ten other things that just happened to them. Other that that it made my morning commute fly by.

6 of 8 people found this review helpful

Really great story

I love the narrator and the author did a fantastic job with the characters and the story line.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Garbage.

It's difficult to think of anything nice to say. The writing is juvenile and the style doesn't contribute to the story. The larger scale ideas, like the political and ethical questions brought up are underdeveloped, the characters and relationships are trite, and every facet of science the author tries to include makes him sound like a bigger dimwit. We quit after 4 hours.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Confusing

I struggled to finish this set. Mr. Simpson has had a great idea but I ended the series with more. questions than I started. I really enjoyed the first book (ranking 4 stars) The remainder of the series read like a Quentin Taritino movie, it was all over the place. I can't tell how many times I had to rewind to figure out if it was good AI or bad AI or where the character was.. Confusing is an understatement. way to many twists and turns.

Ray Chase was excellent narrator as always.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Waste of time and money

What would have made The Post-Human Omnibus better?

Better storytelling for the books themselves, and almost any other reader for the Audible narration.

What was most disappointing about David Simpson’s story?

The story suffered from cardboard cut-out characters either doing predictable things or behaving in ways that didn't make sense for who the character supposedly was. Mr Simpson's use of the English language is fine, but the storytelling wasn't there. I stopped reading the ebook shortly after the protagonist's visit to the WTC on 9/11 because I thought it was a waste of my time to continue. I stopped listening to the Audible narration a lot sooner than that because the reader was horrible.

How could the performance have been better?

This is a book about military characters. The author's voicing was artificial, affected, and annoying. He sounded like a rich fop suffering from terminal ennui, which certainly doesn't sound right for soldiers, particularly Special Forces types. Even a straightforward reading in a normal speaking voice, without any attempt at different characters, would have been better. (Heaven help him if that IS his normal speaking voice.)

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Angry that I wasted even $2.99 for a terrible reading performance.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Everything You'd Ever Want in Sci-Fi

If you could sum up The Post-Human Omnibus in three words, what would they be?

Such Great Fun

What did you like best about this story?

The tech and the uses of the tech. The possibilities of the future (irregardless of the probabilities). The path of the story, along with the switchbacks and side-tracks.

What about Ray Chase’s performance did you like?

His performance was as close to flawless as any voice-performer can be.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Overjoyed with the author's usage of possibility.

Any additional comments?

The book lost one star due to the author's attempt to 'reveal' the purpose of life. Too much time was given to something that just didn't resonate with me.

5 of 7 people found this review helpful

The titles are the best bits.

I had hoped for a vision of advancement, an imagining of evolved humanity, a cleverly developed prognosis of direction and progress. None of this eventuated.

Yes there's a sophisticated AI, and virtual realities but in all 4 books in this omnibus edition there was a sense of limitation and echoes of other ideas (Matrix especially). I really don't think torturing the AI would be used to test it's altruism by so-called Post Humans. There's nothing in any of the books to suggest advancement of the species to justify the titles, except for "Subhuman" and even that doesn't ring true.

Concepts were not explored or developed to any extent. The Artificial Intelligence, while designed to be humanistic, had implausible reactions and there were experiences of pain in virtual realities which didn't come off as authentic.

The narrator was particularly irritating. His pronunciation of the name "Craig" was "Crig ", for example. His differentiation of various characters was very limited except for the villain, and the AI. The female voices were almost identical; breathy and low, the male were very similar! When a character shouted or screamed, was angry or romantic, it all sounded the same. A whispered scream is not convincing. I will actively avoid any other book narrated by Ray Chase.

I won't be seeking out any other books by David Simpson either. Other authors have broached similar themes much more intelligently and imaginatively. David Simpson is no Frank Herbert, Dan Simmons or Alistair Reynolds. Don't expect much if you decide to buy his books.

10 of 11 people found this review helpful

Rambling and nonsensical but...

I am less than half way through this very good value four parter but I am already at the point where I need to leave a review. Who knows, this could be a mid-term review that gets replaced by something much more glowing by the time I finish.

I love a good sci-fi but this seems to ramble and drift off course at times. However, this may not be the fault of the author. There is one thing I really cannot abide and that is breathy and dreamy narration. If the performer wishes to whisp on then for heavens sake go and read Lady Chatterley.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Good listen

Not the deepest of sci-fi but enjoyable and very well read. The story unfolds over all 4 books and I think best appreciated as a whole.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

dross

I wish I could say something nice about this, but I can't. Terrible, infantile, sci fi.
I love sci fi, from Phillip k Dick, to Iain m banks, via Peter f Hamilton.
I believe that it's a genre that alows authors to create scenarios that test the human condition and explore our goals.
I really wanted to like this book, but it just doesn't work, the characters are 2 dimensional at best, and it reads as if it was written by someone just jamming every sci fi idea they heard into a story.
Then saying, this happened, then this, and then I was like, then he was like, then this girl was like, whatever.
it's pretty dire, within the first hour or so it mentioned the lead characters atavistic smile about 3 times, as if that some how gave him depth or a personality. more like the author read it on his word of the day calendar.
The supposedly strong women feel entirely uninspiring and flimsy, they just don't stand up as people, but then nor does anyone else.
I'd like to say something nice about the narrator, but he seemed like a good fit for this, I won't be listening to anything else he reads,
his accents and characterisations just made it all worse.
A really painful experience, I couldn't event get through to the second book, very disappointing.
I wouldn't normally comment on something this harshly, I normally wouldn't comment at all, but this was that bad.
I worry that someone will read this and think it's a good example of the genre.
I also worry that every time someone reads this, a better author misses there more deserving opportunity.

6 of 8 people found this review helpful

entertaining and full of ideas

as a series the ideas get better from book to book. Entertaining and imaginative. moves at a good pace

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Dragged on a bit

I found these books fun although the lap to different characters and different time periods between books was rather jarring. I really struggled to listen the last book because it was so vastly different from the others, but that difference did make sense in the end. There was a satisfying ending but sometimes was a trek to get there.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Think:Scifi Fans Fast food... but with extra MSG

What disappointed you about The Post-Human Omnibus?

The first book was good... it explains the reason that That there are so many positive reviews on what is overall a 2 dimensional world with 2D characters filling it.She said, he said, he said, she said, josh said, James said, old timer said, dog said, cat said.... It was an excruciating listen.

What was most disappointing about David Simpson’s story?

It began with a good concept - the prospect of a human/AI singularity and the rest of humanity's response to what could be our extinction - but after the first book he got greedy and wanted to include every other scifi concept in existence - from sentient Von Neumann machines to panspermia theory - should have been an interesting conflict but I found this story... well implausible (the irony!).

There was no explanation as to why the caricature of an AI was so sadistic. I sniggered a couple of times when Ray Chase changed his voice.

ALL the women needed saving, none of them seemed to have agency in their destiny.. very old school... no wonder humanity faces extermination by machines when one half seems totally useless and the other spends all their energy trying to save them.

Unlikely romantic interests and next to no concern for how ultra long lived humans couldn't possibly be emotionally mature after 90 years.

It felt strange that nobody else had a nickname. Craigs 'Old timer' moniker was used WAY too often. I'm sure there is a more imaginative way to put across how old he is to the reader?

Separating perspectives with chapters is what I prefer to read. When done well it goes a long way to ensure that you can keep up with the multiple characters, their (hopefully) unique world view and motivations. The story began that way but then squandered a good start and threw as much as it could at us from every direction... chapters ended mid action scene after action scene... world building be dammed, character development? meh! Middle finger to the reader, the author wants to mosh at a Red hot chillies concert.

Another thing about chapters - there are way too many. I half expected to hear a squarespace or $1-Shave commercials between cut scenes.

I don't normally write reviews, as not all writers will be equal to the masters - hence why we have a start rating system, but I felt passionate about this book. Disappointed doesn't quite sum it up.
I dont know how it got 130 5star reviews on Amazon... Dont know why it ranks highly in the US audible either.

If you have read more than a couple of scifi novels/space operas or even a good fiction story then dont waste your time.I've wasted 5 hours on this dross.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

I do like Ray Chase's performances in general... but even Morgan Freeman couldn't polish this turd.

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I brought into the concepts and the first book was OK. SciFi light for those first timeers.

Any additional comments?

This series is like cheap beer: When you were a 18 it was great, but after tasting the good stuff you wonder why adults still buy that crap.

4 of 6 people found this review helpful

Starts and ends well

This was a really book book to begin with and the last story ended the series well, but i got a bit jaded with the story part way through.

worth a listen

a lot of similarities to other books and films matrix and inception in particular but some good ideas and thought provoking concepts

Crazy ride

To put it simply, this series is a straight up rollercoaster of emotions! If you don't go back and forth between sides during these books then you are doing it wrong.

Amazing story telling!