Obscura

By: Joe Hart

Narrated by: Christina Traister

Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

She’s felt it before…the fear of losing control. And it’s happening again.

In the near future, an aggressive and terrifying new form of dementia is affecting victims of all ages. The cause is unknown, and the symptoms are disturbing. Dr. Gillian Ryan is on the cutting edge of research and desperately determined to find a cure. She’s already lost her husband to the disease, and now her young daughter is slowly succumbing as well. After losing her funding, she is given the unique opportunity to expand her research. She will travel with a NASA team to a space station where the crew has been stricken with symptoms of a similar inexplicable psychosis—memory loss, trances, and violent, uncontrollable impulses.

Crippled by a secret addiction and suffering from creeping paranoia, Gillian finds her journey becoming a nightmare as unexplainable and violent events plague the mission. With her grip weakening on reality, she starts to doubt her own innocence. And she’s beginning to question so much more—like the true nature of the mission, the motivations of the crew, and every deadly new secret space has to offer.

Merging thrilling science-fiction adventure with mind-bending psychological suspense, Wall Street Journal bestselling author Joe Hart explores both the vast mysteries of outer space and the even darker unknown that lies within ourselves.

©2018 Joe Hart (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Irritating characters

I couldn’t find anyone to root for in this story. I disliked the main character and her interactions with the other characters.
As for the narration, do Swedes really sound like Dracula??

I really liked it!

I'm not a huge scifi fan, bit I really liked this book. I had an interesting premise as far as the tech, as well as some mystery that kept me guessing. The writing was pretty ok too. It wasn't any thing fancy, but I actually appreciate when an author knows how to write in a way that says out of the way of the story.

This was recomended to me because I bought one of the Authors other books ... but never listened. I plan to make that book one of my next ones, and will keep him on my radar.

The narration KILLS it

Putting my super-cheap three month Kindle Unlimited membership (thanks to Goodreads) to its best use meant staking out around 30 books I wanted to read anyway, but had not yet spent the cash for the Kindle or credit for the Audible to add to my library. A few of my choices sounded iffy, but I was certain Obscura would be a winner. Every social media site I visit screams this book at me, as "a perfect match" for a sci-fi and thriller reader like Donna.

I can't express just how wrong they were. All of them.

I chose the Audible version, because my long commute lends itself well to listening. I am perhaps four hours into Obscura and I can't take another moment of this narrator destroying this book. Is it a decent story? Who the heck knows? Certainly not me, because who can concentrate with Christina Traister's pretentious voice assailing their ears? All I can hear is her weird over-enunciation of every single word and her "awwd" PNW-styled vowel switch with every word like conscience, which awwdly comes up quite a bit in a book about a neurological disease like Losian's. *sigh*

Additionally, I read science fiction FOR THE SCIENCE. The fiction is necessary, since a lot of the plausible isn't quite here yet (but a girl can dream, am I right?). This futuristic sci-fi book is way too light on the science and pretty heavy on the drama.

One question, because I'm definitely not up on the addiction lingo: Do people really call hydrocodone pills "hydros"? Every time I heard that all I could think was Gillian was chugging a bottle of water.

Aggravation and annoyance across the board. It wasn't for me, but that's okay -- it was free! On to the next KU choice on my list, fingers crossed this one won't have a narrator that tries way too hard. I want to settle into something intriguing, and sadly Obscura never even hit interesting for me.

Will probably become a TV Show or Film

Very much enjoyed this book and would recommend to almost anyone. I feel that it has elements for every type of reader. Very suspenseful, so it keeps pulling you back in, while having themes that provoke thoughts and conversation. It is Sci-Fi, but not at all fantastic, which makes it very easy to relate to. It may be the fastest book I've finished so far.

I hated the main character

not since the son from the first purge movie haveI wanted to see someone die.

Good scifi story with a murder mystery!

This was an easy listen and the link was perfect. The narrator was great, would love to hear more books read by her!

Ok

Not sure why I cannot just leave a star review only so I typed this.

Great little sci-fi mystery

I enjoyed this story. Joe Hart is great writer & has a good imagination. Narrator was good too.

It was fine

A rough start and a very predictable ending. But the isolation section with a few chapters after were great.

I can’t say I’d recommend it, but I wouldn’t discourage anyone either

Brilliant

I have never read a book by Joe Hart before Obscura and I’m pretty mad at myself now. This is one of the most brilliant books I’ve read in quite some time. It was real, gritty, and cuts to the heart of a ton of issues that are going on now.

Obscura tells a story of a woman on a mission. A new form of dementia is affecting people and causing them to lose their memories far too young. No one knows what causes it, if it’s easily spread, or if it’s curable. Dr. Gillian Ryan is out to try and change that. Along the way, she is promised something she never thought anyone could get – unlimited funding. But it comes with a catch.

I would coin this as being a psychological science fiction thriller. Hart wrote a world that is stunning in its description but also simple and easy to understand. Things are worse – we’re a little into the future and we’ve basically doomed a group of people without even knowing how.

I took care of my grandpa who had dementia and Alzheimers – Hart hits the nail on the head with his description of this new disease and how people react to it. It was almost hard to listen to at times because I couldn’t imagine watching my wife or someone that I’m intimately close with (like a kid) go through the same issues. Even the way that Hart had Gillian and her daughter describe it from a kids point of view was chilling. The Fuzzies is a term I won’t soon forget.

I want to spend a lot of time writing about the latter parts of the book but I just can’t. Hart wrote a book that is like an onion – it had so many different layers to it. The deeper I got the more I wanted to know. The way that Obscura is set up, it could have gone a hundred different directions but the ones that Hart went with, making this easily one of the best books I’ve read this year if not ever. The story itself and the way that Hart weaved science fact in with science fiction was reminiscent of some of my favorite Michael Crichton books.

I had the privilege of listening to this a little early and my wife and I literally finished it during our drive to Washington DC. We started and finished it in one trip – and sat in silence after it finished because we couldn’t believe just how good the story was.

The narration for Obscura was done by Christina Traister who I thought did a perfect job. The scenes of paranoia and panic at the mid-point of the book were perfectly voiced with the right amount of emotion and panic in her voice to really nail Gillian as a real person and not just a character in a book.

Overall, Obscura… seriously might be one of the best books I’ve ever read. I had a feeling I was going to like this book, but wow. I liked it even more than I expected.