The Outlands

Solid Dystopian Story

Review by: The Audiobook ReviewThe Outlands, written by Tyler Edwards, is a decent dystopian/post-apocalyptic story set in the future where humans now live in giant walled cities under a protective dome to keep out the toxins and the other nasties outside their walls. Only a handful exist, like the megacities idea in Judge Dredd, and each apparently specialising in something (kind of like Hunger Games), although we spend all of the book inside Dios.

Jett Lasting doesn't fit into the structured, class-based society. He's an undesirable, the lowest of the classes. No good for anything except stealing and taking up space. He runs with a makeshift family, avoiding beggar gangs and the tyrannical Patriarch, just trying to stay alive.

Eventually, of course, this life gets to him, and slowly the seeds of rebellion are sewn, kicking off some fast-paced action where it's impossible to know who to trust.

I'll admit, it took me a few chapters to really get into this. It started a little slow, but I'm glad I stuck with it though because as the story went on, I began to connect with characters and care about their struggles.

Narration by Robert Grindley was... okay. Not great, but okay. I wasn't a fan of a few of the vocal choices he made for some of the characters, but others were excellent. There was a lot of extraneous noise throughout, small clicks and background noises like that, plus the narrator constantly sounded like he had a dry mouth. A glass of water and maybe some more time spent cleaning up the background noises could have improved the quality immensely.


Overall, not a bad story and one I enjoyed getting to experience. Plenty of action, along with twists and turns to keep you wondering who to trust.

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I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. I have not let this gift affect nor influence my opinions of this audiobook and have left an honest review.