Under Darkness

By: Jasper T. Scott

Narrated by: Ben Jaeger-Thomas

Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

From the USA Today best-selling author of Dark Space... a series of unrelated stand-alone sci-fi novels; no sequels and no cliffhangers 

The sun vanished and darkness fell in the middle of the day, and then the meteors began to fall....

Bill Steele is in the trenches, trying to survive in the competitive world of luxury vacation resorts on the island of Kauai. Today is a particularly bad day; the water main burst and his guests are demanding refunds and promising bad reviews. In the middle of this, a dark shadow falls over the island. It’s not a lunar eclipse, because Bill can clearly see the crescent moon shimmering on the water. This is something else.  

Moments later, the meteors begin to fall. One of them lands in the water just beyond the resort. Everyone flees screaming to their rooms, expecting a wall of water to follow, but the tsunami never arrives. Bill and his daughter watch the news from the relative safety of their third-floor suite. The anchorman is fleeing from his hillside vantage point with his cameraman in hot pursuit. Their muffled screams are the last thing anyone hears before the signal is lost....

If you liked the movies Alien and Independence Day, you’ll love Under Darkness.

©2018 Jasper T. Scott (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Good narration, ABSURD story.

I don’t understand how this book got such great reviews. It has just about as dumb a premise if there ever was one. Aliens block out the sun to land on Kauai, infect a bunch of people who are supposed to spread the alien “infection” to the rest of America/the world once quarantine is lifted.

Why block out the sun? If they are so photos-sensitive to the sun’s rays, why not invade at night, and any number of metropolises around the world?

Also, apparently these strong, vicious, aliens can’t open doors. They’d knock on a room door and if it goes unopened, these creatures move on to the next room. If the door is answered, they somehow slip inside the room and attack the occupant.

The more I listen, the worse it gets. I cant get through it. I’m done. The characters are poorly developed and just plain ol’ stupid. Apparently in the book’s universe, if you ever want to give hardened soldiers the slip, or access restricted CDC areas, all you have to do is say “I’m here for tests” or “I’m here to conduct tests”. Saying something similar also works on alien infected people if you ever want to explain away your presence in an area.

I’m returning this book.

Heart-thumping thriller!

This is my first time reading/listening to Jasper T. Scott's work and I am seriously glad I took the recommendation. Under Darkness is a trippy mix of Independence Day vibes (of the good kind) with all the visceral fun of a Scream movie...but with aliens. What surprised me most was how fleshed out the characters were (pun intended): something not seen often enough in the sci-fi/horror genre. To begin with, there is divorcee, Bill Steele, who is struggling to run a five-star hotel while raising his wild-child daughter. Then there are the newlyweds on their possibly last day honeymooning <B.E.G.>. And there is the unfaithful businessman trying to reconnect with his wife and spoiled family. All while running away from terrors brought to them from another world. If you're looking for an enjoyable thrill, Under Darkness delivers.

Good stand alone sci-fi

I enjoy a good single book story , there are so many that you have to go through 3-5 books that end up with a " I went through 4 books for that ending. Truth be told there are those that you wished they'd written a few more the were so good.
This is a good story and no one's safe right up to the last paragraph. I really enjoyed it like I said and would suggest it to others.

Not your typical island in the sun

I really enjoyed this audiobook. It had a little something for everybody. What a thrilling alien invasion story. It was almost like The movie Cloverfield meets the video game Dead Island. I found there to be lots of twists and turns throughout this one. There are many side plots which engage nicely with the main alien invasion plot and they all come together at the perfect moment. There is a whole lot of action, a little bit of scary and just enough weird that really makes this one work. The characters are great and you really feel like you know and care about them as the story progresses. Of course there are those characters that you just love to hate and others you just shake your head at but for the most part I really enjoyed following each character and their side plot getting them to the end of this book. There is also a little bit of Island slang language mixed in there that feels really authentic and like the author did his homework. The performance was top-notch in this one and really carries and adds value to the story. There is a wide range of characters of both male and female throughout this one and each voice is done very very nicely. The characters experience a lot of fear in this story and the narrator does a fabulous job portraying this in their voices. This was a very enjoyable listen and a very very ruined vacation for some of the characters.

Awesome

Really enjoyed this story. The characters were great and story itself kept wanting to keep going. It was hard to stop listening when I got out of my car. Highly recommended!

Great story. Better than Independence Day

I really enjoyed this novel. Only marked it down because the narrator did not know how to pronounce irradiate and nuclear, Both important words in the story.

this kept me riveted

I absolutely loved this story! the narrator really made it come alive. the non-stop action began very early in the book and continued.

Great read!

Action packed with twists and turns! Not boring at all! I finished it so fast!

Not one of his best.

Some of the characters were not believable. Particularly the teenage daughter who did stupid things and then suddenly she’s carrying a gun and giving her opinion on technical things. Actually rooted against her. Not sure why I listened to the whole book.

Trying to like it...

Great idea and premise then it just turns hard to follow and boring. I made it to 16 chapters and had to stop. You travel X lightyears to land on earth, then land with no weapons or armor or any technology at all with easily killable 'soldiers' just to eat people. What? Why? The characters are boring, no real motivation to find out, why, how, etc. Not worth however much a credit is.

Boring Story

Uninteresting story, not keen to buy other books of the series. The performance was not that great either as narrative lacked variation in tone and rate of speech that should tally with emotions and changes in the story

Just OK

No wow factor here, just ok. Characters not that interesting, performance not great. Story has potential.

Rather Slow and Dull

I am often surprised by how interesting and engrossing audio books can be but when I forget what the plot is as happened with this book several times, I suspect that my attention has been attracted easily elsewhere. This happened throughout the story. I was neither interested in the characters nor engrossed in the plot. The best part was the hard work put in by the narrator Ben Jaeger-Thomas.

Started off ok but deteriorated.

One of those annoying books held me just enough to find out what happened, then really wished I hadn’t bothered.
The narrator saved it for me but overall childish .

Brilliant!

Listened to this none stop action story in one sitting while decorating my kitchen.
A great story, with great narration.

Hard to stop listening

This book popped up on my list. I was not sure about it, but decided to give it a go. So pleased I did. Really enjoyed this book, and I will be looking at the author for more reads.
Very different from what I have read before. Highly recommend, apart from the late night because I wanted to hear the end!

Great for first book.

Better than i expected. Glad i took a chance on this book. Worth listening too.