The Outlands

The Outlands Saga, Book 1

By: Tyler Edwards

Narrated by: Robert Grindley

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

it was a great book

it took me a second to get into it. but it was amazing by the end of it.

Gripping story!!

First - I absolutely love the narration! Robert does a truly fantastic job and feels like the perfect choice!

Second - I became obsessed with this book very quickly. The world building, characters, and plot are all well thought out and captivating.

the story is fast paced, and has so many twists!

this is definitely worth the read/listen if you're a fan of dystopian fantasy or sci-fi!!

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.

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.