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  • The Singularity Trap

  • By: Dennis E. Taylor
  • Narrated by: Ray Porter
  • Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (5,322 ratings)
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The Singularity Trap cover art

The Singularity Trap

By: Dennis E. Taylor
Narrated by: Ray Porter
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Summary

Dennis E. Taylor, author of the best-selling Bobiverse trilogy, explores a whole different, darker world in this sci-fi stand-alone. Determined to give his wife and children a better life back home, Ivan Pritchard ventures to the edge of known space to join the crew of the Mad Astra as an asteroid miner. He's prepared for hard work and loneliness—but not the unthinkable. After coming into contact with a mysterious alien substance, Pritchard finds an unwelcome entity sharing his mind, and a disturbing physical transformation taking place. With his very humanity at stake, Pritchard must save mankind from a full-scale interstellar war.

Brought to life by prolific, award-winning narrator Ray Porter, The Singularity Trap is a thrilling adventure rife with drama and action on a truly cosmic scale. 

©2018 Dennis E. Taylor (P)2018 Audible Originals, LLC. Cover illustration by Stephan Martiniere.

Critic reviews

“Dennis Taylor serves up a top-notch outer-space adventure…. Ray Porter’s narration is simply brilliant…. In addition to suspense, action, futuristic detail, and moments of comedy, the book brings a light, investigative touch to the question of what exactly human identity is.” (The Washington Post

What listeners say about The Singularity Trap

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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Classic Sci-fi with a Modern Style

Dennis E Taylor has done it again it seems as this is another high quality production from him very ably voiced by Ray Porter. The storyline has a lot of the hallmarks of classic sci-fi. In fact I'd say it's perhaps "harder" sci-fi than his popular Bobiverse series. A development of his style rather than a flat continuation.

It is still however imbued with Taylor's subtle humour at times and his patient and careful characterisation. It is also once again a fairly ordinary guy trying to deal with a situation beyond comprehension and while there are many tropes traditional to the genre there is plenty of invention too.

Ray Porter does a great job with the narration with many characters voiced in distinctive ways. There are also some nice touches on the audio with radio voices when appropriate which give it additional depth.

If you liked the Bobiverse series this is closer to what I would term hard sci-fi but there's still lots to love here and I think most people would get a similar level of enjoyment out of this one too. I think Taylor has another hit on his hands and he's clearly an author that is going to be fun to follow in the future.

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90 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Simply Outstanding

Without a doubt the best science fiction book I have ever read, and I have read a lot over the last 40 years. The plot is outstandingly brilliant and you are fully transported into the story line from page 1. The narration is so good it is beyond belief. This narrator is absolutely outstanding each character’s voice unique. I am in awe. I chose this book because of its high ratings. I now completely understand and concur with those ratings. I think I am going to have to listen to it again! And I am also going to look up every other book this narrator may have performed.

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48 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Average Follow Up to Bobiverse series

This might have benefited from a new narrator. Ray Porter narrated the Bobiverse series superbly and unfortunately there was similar vocal characterisation. The story sort of petered out, with similar themes from Taylor's previous series which weren't expanded upon enough. Sadly I'm afraid I can only give this book 3 stars as it doesn't get beyond average, which is a pity.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Love this...

Dennis E Taylor has delivered again. As has Ray Porter. And Audible.

The Bobiverse series may or may not have run its course, but evidently Dennis had plenty of life left in his old notes to come up with this great story. This comment is not meant to be negative in the slightest - this story is not a broth made of stale leftovers, but it has almost certainly arisen from ideas that didn't make it into the Bobiverse.

Ray Porter does an excellent job of narration, as before, and it doesn't at all come across as odd that Bob and Ivan sound alike. It's like having dinner with your old friend's pleasingly urbane younger brother.

The humour is still there, if maybe a little dryer (no Simpsons references that I recognised, for one). The characters are as rounded, and the protagonists as agreeable, as one would expect from Taylor. Perhaps, as another reviewer noted, the sci-fi is a little 'harder' than in the Bobiverse, but we're talking nanobots and LaGrange points vs Von Neumann probes and .. err LaGrange points. There's honestly not much in it IMO. And the arch-antagonists (the Others) in the Bobiverse used nanites, anyway.

I think Audible made a great decision in recognising the combined talents of Taylor as an author and Porter as a performer, and I hope this won't be the last we see from this dream team.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Spoiled by one-dimensional characters

Beware of spoilers.

This story has several classical sci-fi tropes going back to the 1950s, not to mention some of the characterisation being reminiscent of E.E. 'Doc' Smith.. It starts with our plucky out-of-luck underdog venturing into space on a run-down asteroid mining vessel. Having gone through a fairly torturous sequence of events, he 'makes contact' with an alien artefact. From then on, there are a number of 'deus-ex-machina' events,which end with the Earth being saved from destruction.

Sadly, most of the main characters are as thinly drawn as our hero becomes for his initial shape-shifting escape from captivity. The Earthly political and military backgrounds are drawn in cliches. Don't get me wrong, there are some aspects which are well-written and entertaining. It's a shame that the framework is so shaky.

The performance is good and holds your attention.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

It was... alright?

Started off as a promising classic SciFi story, however I found that the plot tended to waver and then by the end I lost interest. I was expecting more about the creators, I was left wanting more and the way the story ended I don't think those wants will ever be remedied.

The performance was awesome however.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Decent

Very slow in the beginning - I nearly gave up but stuck with it.

Story picked up towards the end. Found the concept was interesting and overall I was happy with the story.

Narration was good.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Highly recommend

This is an old story I guess but retold in a truly fascinating way. Without giving too much away the story has A good mix of good versus evil, versus the unknown. I can’t explain too much about the story as it will give away what is a very clever plot. I highly recommend this as an audio book as literally I couldn’t stop listening the pace and narration are superb

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring

I had to force myself to finish this book. The characters are empty shells and you aren't really given any reason to care about any if them. Almost the other way, I almost feel a dislike for Ivan for being a dry, souless main character, who really doesn't feel that upset about losing his family.

The whole thing kept feeling like might be building up to something but then the ending turned out to be equally un-exiting.

And. So. Many. Meetings.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Thoroughly entertaining if not 100% original

Thoroughly entertaining if not 100% original, a simple but well flushed out story with good character development and sound science to back it up

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5 people found this helpful