The Outlands

The Outlands Saga, Book 1

By: Tyler Edwards

Narrated by: Robert Grindley

Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

In the ruins of the world that was lies the city of Dios, a haven protected from the hostile environment known as The Outlands. Ruled by an oppressive Patriarch, the people of Dios are conditioned in fear. The smallest infraction could result in banishment to the Outlands, a fate worse than death.

With his make-shift family of “Undesirables”, Jett Lasting struggles to find his place in a world where drawing attention to yourself can get you killed. His very existence is considered a crime. To survive, he must avoid guards, beggar gangs, and an ever-growing tension that could drag the whole city into chaos.

Jett unwittingly becomes entwined in a plot to overthrow the government where his choices could lead to freedom or the death of everyone he’s ever known or cared about.

©2021 Tyler Edwards (P)2024 Tyler Edwards

What I've been looking for.

First off I finished this book in one day, it was too good not to. It's not a dystopia book that is pure doom and gloom but is also not butterflies and rainbows. It's well written and just a overall fun experience to listen too.

Enjoyable Dustopian

This book reminds me of a couple of other series I really like (red rising and hunger games). I had a hard time setting this down and ended up finishing it in a weekend. I wasn’t expecting much from this book as this is one of the first books by this author but the reviews on goodreads sucked me in! I ended up putting this in my top 10 series list at #8. Hopefully the rest of the books end up as entertaining to me as this and it remains in my top ten.

There was a small mistake in the location for a supporting character. He was supposedly captured but the next scene he was still with the group as though he never was captured. I had to listen to it twice before I realized I didn’t miss anything it was just a mistake. I just overlooked it and moved on… it didn’t really change the outcome of the story at all.

Fascinating

This was thrilling, I enjoyed it very much! Love the characters and plot, hope to see more like this.

Solid World Building

The Outlands was written by Tyler Edwards and narrated by Robert Grindley. This young adult dystopian adventure is a suitable listen for its genre. I found it to be comparable to the more notable hallmarks of the YA genre. I.e., Hunger Games and Divergent. With great world-building and a surprise ending to make it all worth wild this is a good read. Where it fell short in my opinion was the characters. They seemed flat with cookie-cutter personalities. But with this being the first book in the series there is still time to see the characters grow and break through the troupes of their current existence.


The narration by Robert Grindley was the same as the writing. Solid but not compelling. Unfortunately, the only thing that made an impact on me was that his pronunciations of certain words were very different from any other narrator I have listened to.


Editing, quality, and production were on par with most books I have listened to. It was clear, with no issue with sound or quality.


Disclaimer: This Audiobook was provided free of charge by the author, narrator, and/or publisher in exchange for a non-bias, honest review.

Solid Dystopian Story

The 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.

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.

Gripping keeps you guessing

4 Blue Roses🌹🌹🌹🌹
5 Blue Headphones🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧
1 Blue Flame🔥

Narrator Robert Grindley gave a stunning performance, utilizing his voice in all sorts of ways. He is not afraid to try new accents or voices. He will carry listeners to a futuristic dystopian world, reminding me of the Hunger Games and the Divergent series. I did hear a few uncomfortable mouth smacking and lip licking sounds, but after the first chapter, the narrator seemed like he relaxed and proved himself an excellent storyteller. I counted at least 10 different voices, which is much higher than the average. He conveys drama, tension, and angsty moments, which increased the intensity of the action and revolutionary fighting scenes.

The plot is interesting enough, so young adults and those folks not needing steamy romances will find it highly gripping. Listeners will definitely find themselves cheering for the reluctant protagonist and his lackeys which guarantees an exhilarating audiobook.

The character building and world-building were a bit vague, meaning the radius surrounding the city and the city square, and all the way to the Outlands was a bit difficult to visualize. The suppressed and oppressed outcasts suffering, wanting to fight, starting a rebellion irritated me crazy. They kept repeating their suffering, and although I heard it many times over, I did not find myself sympathizing with them. They moved extremely slowly. It felt like they got nowhere. Lots of speculation and planning, lots of guessing.

But a surprise character, appearing two hours before the ending had me sitting up. “WTF? What is going on here”, I asked myself. Hmmm, a mysterious, sexy 40 something man, being introduced,,, "down with the Patriarch!" I cheered!!!

Yes, I recommend this audiobook.

Happy Listening

Captivating characters!!

I really enjoyed this book. I would like to read the next one as soon as it comes in . the characters were easy to love, and the story was easy to follow, kept my attention. Great story!!

What an incredibly frustrating audiobook!

I get why the ratings on this have skewed high, despite its flaws, but the Audible community deserves better. It's a book that seems so promising initially with good ideas and a solid cast of characters. Sadly about the point you've got your hopes up and are invested in the characters, the writing and narrating take a turn for the worse and end up being a massive disappointment

As far as the narrating goes, other reviewers are exactly right about extraneous noise and especially the narrator's dry mouth. For crying out loud, give that poor man a bottle of water so I don't have to hear his mouth clicking like a dang dilophosaurus. Once you hear it it's impossible to unhear. Some of his voices are excellent and others (particularly females) are questionable at best and laughably bad at worst (looking at you 'Olivia'). But the worst offense is the weird pronunciations. If I'd heard the non-word "disorientating" one more time I may have choked old Cottonmouth.

Still I could have overlooked the audio production problems if the story had been as good as it initially promised. Just after the setup and characters hook you in, you start to get this sense of "disorientating-ness". Parts that should have urgency and speed are incessantly interrupted by characters pontificating about the state of their society and their place in it and their relationships and the way a guard is moving and blah blah blah ... oh yeah I better put this bomb down! Conversely parts that deserve some exposition and description to bring the setting alive are rushed through so fast it's difficult to to tell exactly how the characters get from point A to point B. The biggest offense is a blatant mistake towards the end that has a character that was previously captured abruptly present and participating in conversation with the other characters. Another reviewer noted this and said it didn't change much in the story but it's still a grating and obnoxious mistake that any semi-concious editor should have caught.

The end's not bad but does a lot of twisting and turning that, for me, doesn't make up for insulting the readers intelligence and time with the mistakes above. I'm scoring this two stars because of the core ideas that are solid but I think the author (or someone on his team) was in too big a hurry to get this on the market and didn't give the last two-thirds the time and attention it deserved to make a really good novel.

Pass on this one and maybe the authors next attempt will be fully baked.