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Bewilderness #1
Bewilderness Part One: Threshold
Listening time 3 hours 28 mins
Dr. Abby Corman has a bold idea: open a stable doorway between our world and an uninhabited parallel Earth. A new world we can use to mine resources to end poverty, grow enough food to end all hunger, and allow for population growth to end overcrowding. What could be a more noble aspiration for a brilliant young scientist?
But the path to hell is paved with good intentions...
The Gateway is in a secure lab in a huge office building in New York. Ultra-modern, impenetrable by industrial spies or foreign agents, totally secure. Once it goes into lockdown for the Gateway test firing, it becomes the world’s largest and most unbreakable vault. Locked doors, though, can do more than keep bad things out. They can keep bad things in.
Bewilderness: Threshold is the first part of a sprawling science fiction epic packed with weird science, corporate greed, betrayal, and horror. An Audible Original by New York Times best seller Jonathan Maberry, author of Patient Zero and V-Wars.
Dr. Abby Corman has a bold idea: open a stable doorway between our world and an uninhabited parallel Earth. A new world we can use to mine resources to end poverty, grow enough food to end all hunger, and allow for population growth to end overcrowding. What could be a more noble aspiration for a brilliant young scientist?
But the path to hell is paved with good intentions...
The Gateway is in a secure lab in a huge office building in New York. Ultra-modern, impenetrable by industrial spies or foreign agents, totally secure. Once it goes into lockdown for the Gateway test firing, it becomes the world’s largest and most unbreakable vault. Locked doors, though, can do more than keep bad things out. They can keep bad things in.
Bewilderness: Threshold is the first part of a sprawling science fiction epic packed with weird science, corporate greed, betrayal, and horror. An Audible Original by New York Times best seller Jonathan Maberry, author of Patient Zero and V-Wars.
Audible Audio
Published December 3, 2020
5 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Maberry
519 books7,745 followersJONATHAN MABERRY is a NYTimes bestselling author, #1 Audible bestseller, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 4-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, comic book writer, and producer. He is the author of more than 50 novels, 190 short stories, 16 short story collections, 30 graphic novels, 14 nonfiction books, and has edited 26 anthologies. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series starring Ian Somerhalder. His 2009-10 run as writer on the Black Panther comic formed a large chunk of the recent blockbuster film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. His bestselling YA zombie series, Rot & Ruin is in development for film at Alcon Entertainment; and John Wick director, Chad Stahelski, is developing Jonathan’s Joe Ledger Thrillers for TV. Jonathan writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and action; and he writes for adults, teens and middle grade. His works include The Pine Deep Trilogy, The Kagen the Damned Trilogy, NecroTek, Ink, Glimpse, the Rot & Ruin series, the Dead of Night series, The Wolfman, X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate, The Sleepers War (with Weston Ochse), Mars One, and many others. He is the editor of high-profile anthologies including Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, The X-Files, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Out of Tune, Don’t Turn out the Lights: A Tribute to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Baker Street Irregulars, Nights of the Living Dead, Shadows & Verse, and others. His comics include Marvel Zombies Return, The Punisher: Naked Kills, Wolverine: Ghosts, Godzilla vs Cthulhu: Death May Die, Bad Blood and many others. Jonathan has written in many popular licensed worlds, including Hellboy, True Blood, The Wolfman, John Carter of Mars, Sherlock Holmes, C.H.U.D., Diablo IV, Deadlands, World of Warcraft, Planet of the Apes, Aliens, Predator, Karl Kolchak, and many others. He the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, and the editor of Weird Tales Magazine. He lives in San Diego, California. Find him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
December 31, 2021
3.5 Stars
Decades of work bridging advanced technology with the brightest minds have finally culminated in the impossible. A gateway has been made to help current beleaguered and overpopulated Earth mine parallel universes for their resources. It only has to be tested for readiness...
Featuring top scientist Abby, who voices her reluctance that the gateway is fully operational, spurs her brash boss to fire her for her shortsightedness, and the repercussions are damning.
There’s suspense, explosions, plenty of people to hate, and a nice level of unknown fear permeating this story as Abby and her boyfriend, ex-marine David, rush back to prevent the gate from opening. Whelp. They’re too late, and it seems the gate has let in all sorts of nasty horrors. This ends on a cliffhanger as all come to the realization that closing the threshold is not going to be easy as previously thought.
This sets up the trilogy nicely, and I’m intrigued for sure! Off to the next installment!
NOTE: this is available only as an audio on audible.com
Decades of work bridging advanced technology with the brightest minds have finally culminated in the impossible. A gateway has been made to help current beleaguered and overpopulated Earth mine parallel universes for their resources. It only has to be tested for readiness...
Featuring top scientist Abby, who voices her reluctance that the gateway is fully operational, spurs her brash boss to fire her for her shortsightedness, and the repercussions are damning.
There’s suspense, explosions, plenty of people to hate, and a nice level of unknown fear permeating this story as Abby and her boyfriend, ex-marine David, rush back to prevent the gate from opening. Whelp. They’re too late, and it seems the gate has let in all sorts of nasty horrors. This ends on a cliffhanger as all come to the realization that closing the threshold is not going to be easy as previously thought.
This sets up the trilogy nicely, and I’m intrigued for sure! Off to the next installment!
NOTE: this is available only as an audio on audible.com
December 6, 2020
Notes:
Currently on Audible Plus
I think I would have enjoyed the story more if the rest of it was available to read now vs later. I thought it was a fun audio drama. Written in episodic format. Shayna Small did a nice job of making the story come to life by ear. Maybe she isn't as fun to listen to at regular speed? She was fine at 2.65x.
Curious to see where Maberry will take the story. =)
Currently on Audible Plus
I think I would have enjoyed the story more if the rest of it was available to read now vs later. I thought it was a fun audio drama. Written in episodic format. Shayna Small did a nice job of making the story come to life by ear. Maybe she isn't as fun to listen to at regular speed? She was fine at 2.65x.
Curious to see where Maberry will take the story. =)
February 5, 2022
This review is for the audio version of the book.
This book had such great potential: Stargate-type gates, the real reason behind Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, etc, etc. I really wanted to like this book, however there were many things I disliked about this book. These are just some of them:
Firstly, the behaviour of the scientists. The main character behaved somewhat like a scientist would but the other people portrayed as scientists were the worst caricatures of arrogance. Science breeds a type of mindset and anybody who is successful at science has that mindset be they the lowliest worker or the highest manager. That mindset doesn't change and that mindset wasn't portrayed in the characterisation of the "project leader" and the woman who failed at Fukushima - they are not scientists. Ok, I get it. If they behaved like scientists there would be no story. I can hate it but I can live with that.
Secondly, climbing up a building. Once things hit the fan the boyfriend decides that the ONLY way to get to his scientist girlfriend is to climb up the outside of a 60-story building. Really? Breaking the door down and climbing up the elevator shaft makes more sense. Ok, if he wasn't climbing on the outside of the building there wouldn't have been the encounter with...., so I get it. I hate the stupidity of it but I get it.
Lastly, the length of the book is usually not an issue for me but it was with this book. If this had been a movie then this would've been the part of the movie at the beginning where the credits are still being shown over the initial action, and then its over. On a cliff-hanger. With almost nothing that happened before it. I get that you want people to buy your books, but if you are going to basically write one scene as a book, call it a prequel or book O. Don't pass it off as a complete novel. This wasn't even a short story because there is no time for any character development, fleshing out the world, explaining the implications, nothing!
I will not be continuing this series.
I received a free copy of this book and chose to write a review.
This book had such great potential: Stargate-type gates, the real reason behind Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, etc, etc. I really wanted to like this book, however there were many things I disliked about this book. These are just some of them:
Firstly, the behaviour of the scientists. The main character behaved somewhat like a scientist would but the other people portrayed as scientists were the worst caricatures of arrogance. Science breeds a type of mindset and anybody who is successful at science has that mindset be they the lowliest worker or the highest manager. That mindset doesn't change and that mindset wasn't portrayed in the characterisation of the "project leader" and the woman who failed at Fukushima - they are not scientists. Ok, I get it. If they behaved like scientists there would be no story. I can hate it but I can live with that.
Secondly, climbing up a building. Once things hit the fan the boyfriend decides that the ONLY way to get to his scientist girlfriend is to climb up the outside of a 60-story building. Really? Breaking the door down and climbing up the elevator shaft makes more sense. Ok, if he wasn't climbing on the outside of the building there wouldn't have been the encounter with...., so I get it. I hate the stupidity of it but I get it.
Lastly, the length of the book is usually not an issue for me but it was with this book. If this had been a movie then this would've been the part of the movie at the beginning where the credits are still being shown over the initial action, and then its over. On a cliff-hanger. With almost nothing that happened before it. I get that you want people to buy your books, but if you are going to basically write one scene as a book, call it a prequel or book O. Don't pass it off as a complete novel. This wasn't even a short story because there is no time for any character development, fleshing out the world, explaining the implications, nothing!
I will not be continuing this series.
I received a free copy of this book and chose to write a review.
January 1, 2021
This was great! Classic Maberry - and I can't wait for the next installment. Edgy, just to the brink of brutal without getting too gory - I love the characters Maberry creates.
The narration by Shayna Small was excellent.
The narration by Shayna Small was excellent.
December 29, 2020
Oh. My. Gosh.
I’m hooked. Seriously..wow..
This was an Audible Original and the only bad thing I have to say is that it ends in a cliffhanger. This is apparently a two or three part series and only the first episode is out. Bummer. The premise is awesome ( how does he think of things like this?) as the narration was smooth and entertaining.
Can’t wait for the next episode.
Wow.
I’m hooked. Seriously..wow..
This was an Audible Original and the only bad thing I have to say is that it ends in a cliffhanger. This is apparently a two or three part series and only the first episode is out. Bummer. The premise is awesome ( how does he think of things like this?) as the narration was smooth and entertaining.
Can’t wait for the next episode.
Wow.
July 6, 2021
Meh. Good story and got better towards the end, but the melodrama was over the top and the dialogue was cringe-inducing. If Rosa said "You're not listening! No, listen to me!" one more time I think my head might have exploded. This is below Maberry's standards. I won't continue the series.
March 2, 2021
I would have liked this when i was 10, one dimensional characters reacting in bewildering ways
September 19, 2023
I have been looking for a while for a story about a time or dimension portal that could be exploited to solve global problems on Earth and I'm struggling to find one with the right blend of discovery, adventure, scientific caution and corporate corruption. At a premise level, this was looking to scratch that itch but didn't quite get going until the end.
This was still fun and because it's so short I will jump straight into parts 2 and 3 next...
This was still fun and because it's so short I will jump straight into parts 2 and 3 next...
March 23, 2021
Great story. Iffy narrator.
Loved the characters and the potential world coming.
Dr. Benjamin tho. What a dick!
Loved the characters and the potential world coming.
Dr. Benjamin tho. What a dick!
February 4, 2022
Do not pick this one up. The dialogue was written by a 10-year-old boy, or at least it seems that way. No depth to any character. Not an engaging story at all. Good premise, but it falls flat halfway through.
January 7, 2021
Didn't like the audible reader, but fun story.
May 23, 2023
Dr. Abby Corman, in a world where the inhabitants are rapidly depleting the resources, is working hard to find a solution. She is close, just the initial test, a few months to analyze the results, update the variables and processes, and it’s ready!
However, like any proper government funded project, there is a budget committee, and oversight to deal with. All of which she is prepared to do. Her boss on the other hand, thinks everything can be done by tomorrow.
Gosh, didn’t see that coming did we? Wait, did we see the big explosion and lots of people dying in New York City? Oops, that might be a spoiler. But then again, building a big, dangerous science lab in the middle of one of the most populous cities in the world, is never a bad idea, is it?
Given all of the tropes, (female scientist trying to save the world, bad bureaucrat, ex-military boyfriend, Latina assistant, multiverse, etc.), similes and metaphors (“the storm walked across the city like a giant insect on legs of lightning”), it was still an engaging, likable story. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here. Can Abby save the world, will her boyfriend save her from impending death, will the universe end, will the series actually end as a trilogy, or will it continue on endlessly until the sun explodes in a blast of gamma radiation seen only as a blip on a foreign telescope billions of years from now…
However, like any proper government funded project, there is a budget committee, and oversight to deal with. All of which she is prepared to do. Her boss on the other hand, thinks everything can be done by tomorrow.
Gosh, didn’t see that coming did we? Wait, did we see the big explosion and lots of people dying in New York City? Oops, that might be a spoiler. But then again, building a big, dangerous science lab in the middle of one of the most populous cities in the world, is never a bad idea, is it?
Given all of the tropes, (female scientist trying to save the world, bad bureaucrat, ex-military boyfriend, Latina assistant, multiverse, etc.), similes and metaphors (“the storm walked across the city like a giant insect on legs of lightning”), it was still an engaging, likable story. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here. Can Abby save the world, will her boyfriend save her from impending death, will the universe end, will the series actually end as a trilogy, or will it continue on endlessly until the sun explodes in a blast of gamma radiation seen only as a blip on a foreign telescope billions of years from now…
March 26, 2021
I listened to this whole series while driving across Colorado and Kansas and it was the perfect way to spend that many hours on the road. This was silly and yet very entertaining. I really liked the overall concept of the breach between realities and how that played out
This first entry in the series was a little dry in the beginning while setting up characters and many of those characters are very cartoony but for this kind of story that worked and was not so absurd that it pulled me out of the story. Well mostly, the main villain was way over the top breathy, trying to be sexy, and pure evil. She was a bit too much.
And for some reason the protagonists boyfriend decides the only way he can help his girl is to climb the outside of the frikken building.
Overall though the story was entertaining and moved at a good pace right up until the major cliff hanger ending.
This first entry in the series was a little dry in the beginning while setting up characters and many of those characters are very cartoony but for this kind of story that worked and was not so absurd that it pulled me out of the story. Well mostly, the main villain was way over the top breathy, trying to be sexy, and pure evil. She was a bit too much.
And for some reason the protagonists boyfriend decides the only way he can help his girl is to climb the outside of the frikken building.
Overall though the story was entertaining and moved at a good pace right up until the major cliff hanger ending.
March 26, 2023
The series was interesting to listen to. There were pros and cons. I finished all three, but I'm not sure if I would have stuck with it if all three audiobooks were full length. I wanted to see what happened, but there were some really frustrating character behaviors in these books that were there only to prolong the story or to push the story forward. I can't remember but I think it was the second audiobook or the third where one character spends nearly the whole book in a single location having a repeating "misunderstanding" with another character I'm thinking so that the author could have time to maneuver other characters into place for the ending? I don't know but it was super frustrating to listen to whenever that segment came up...for hours.
February 10, 2023
So, this is not good. I love Maberry's other stuff, but this is a big miss. Good story idea, but cartoon characters, and surprisingly bad writing. It's like the book was finished, then some grad student was assigned to go in and randomly add 500 adjectives and adverbs with a thesaurus in hand. Just awful. And Maberry cannot write female characters. AT ALL. Really terrible. Just cliché stick figures. And the woman they chose to do the audio book is BAD. The lead character is named Abby, and her boyfriend says/moans "Abbeh" 300 times in 11 hours. So bad. A real wasted opportunity, with a good original story idea.
May 6, 2021
One of my favorite authors dives headfirst into writing some great pulp fiction. Scientists are opening up a gateway between alternate dimensions, and bad scientists want the money and get in too much of a hurry and it all goes blooey. The lead character is a nervous lady scientist instead of Maberry's usual ActionMan and it makes for a fun change of pace. In many ways, it reminds me a lot of a more action-oriented version of Peter Clines' own "Threshold" series, not to mention King's "The Mist". I am thoroughly looking forward to the next book in the set.
December 25, 2022
Some of the characters were very realistic feeling. I really like the other universes theory and the me take of experiment accidents to the connection with real historical tragedies. I’m a little lost of some things but think that because it’s a cliff hanger lol I loved Abby’s bf. With how top secret this project is I was expecting more procedures and security to be involved around starting up the machine and the employment processing. Hoping the holes will be filled in next book. This kept me on my toes.
February 19, 2021
An intriguing idea, not executed the best. Aside from the occasional plain bad writing, I wasn't a fan of the repeated use of misogynistic insults. Yes, I get that most of the women in this story don't like each other, but the repeated instances of them attacking each other with explicitly gendered language (b*tch, witch, harlot, etc) was distracting and uneccessary. Hopefully that doesn't continue in book two, but I'm not holding my breath.
February 27, 2022
A brief look at what happens when ego and desire for profit and fame outstrip common sense and scientific protocols.
Dr. Corman's creation of a stable wormhole between our world and a parallel one could solve all of our problems. Access to unlimited, free resources could mean the end of poverty, hunger, war...but only if her machine works.
The real threat, however, could come from it working to well...
Dr. Corman's creation of a stable wormhole between our world and a parallel one could solve all of our problems. Access to unlimited, free resources could mean the end of poverty, hunger, war...but only if her machine works.
The real threat, however, could come from it working to well...
December 10, 2020
Jury is still out on this one. Not really sure if I want to go on. It's a good premise. The antagonists are too evil for me - I've become accustomed to seeing the humanity in both antagonist and protagonist. I will come back to this series and look harder after the holidays. Right now - I need "light and airy"
December 31, 2020
3.5 stars. Fast-paced sci-fi short story about bringing a device online that can open portals to alternate universes. I thought the bad guys were a little too evil (and I'd hope there would be more oversight on a scientific project like this!), but overall I enjoyed the story and was sad to be left on a major cliff hanger with no 2nd installment in sight!!
July 29, 2021
Brilliant! A classic science-gone-wrong story that builds and builds towards certain catastrophe. The characters are fleshed out nicely and the science is explained very well. Exactly what I expect from the never disappointing Maberry. Ends on a real cliffhanger, so you have no choice but to get part two. My only complaint is that the narrator at times sounds like Bart Simpson...
November 12, 2021
Pretty entertaining, a woman who works on a secret project gets fired for being honest with someone and they go ahead and do the experiment without her. All kinds of bad things follow. I had read another book by Maberry and enjoyed it so I thought I would give this a listen. It was enjoyable but I am not sure I will bother with the sequel.
January 22, 2023
I liked this book as a sci-fi audiobook! I appreciated how swiftly to story progressed and how it ended on kind of a cliffhanger but the fact that part two is already on Audible means that I'm about to go start it now! I loved there are so many things going on and I'm trying to piece everything together but the plot twists are so good!
November 12, 2024
The story relies on unlikeable and incompetent characters doing reckless things to make everything go to hell. Nothing about this story was realistic or believable. Kids too bad because the premise is interesting and it could have been an interesting story if not for the over-the-top terrible characters.
December 7, 2020
Shades of Lovecraft. My only complaint about this audible original is that I must wait for part two. So many questions! How many worlds are out there? Can science be stopped once it is started. Should it be stopped?
January 28, 2021
A short fun start to a new Audible original series. The characters are just beginning to be fleshed out and the ending opens the door for some promised intriguing world building, This book seems like just a taste of the craziness to come.
April 24, 2021
Approx 115 pages
This was alright. 3.5 and I'll round it up because I read the rest, and the first was better than the 2nd two. Quick and easy listen, alright storyline. The first book was good, not great, but good.
This was alright. 3.5 and I'll round it up because I read the rest, and the first was better than the 2nd two. Quick and easy listen, alright storyline. The first book was good, not great, but good.
June 10, 2021
3.5 stars and another very good set of stories from Jonathan Maberry. Looks like I got lucky on finding this when all of the series is available as quite a cliffhanger and I can move on to 2nd and 3rd.
July 26, 2021
Not my usual genre but wanted something different to listen to. This was a really interesting story. Developed characters and story. I'm interested to see if part 2 is as good. Wasn't my favorite narrator.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews