Obscura

Written by Joe Hart

Narrated by Christina Traister

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: May 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543678338

Joe Hart

Joe Hart is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of more than fifteen novels, including Or Else, The River Is Dark, Obscura, and The Last Girl. When not writing, he enjoys reading, exercising, exploring the great outdoors, and watching movies with his family. For more information on his upcoming novels and access to his blog, visit www.joehartbooks.com.

Reviews for Obscura

[Rlynoyb · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked the overall story; however, I have no idea what the title of this book had to do with the story. The narrator was very good and did an excellent job. My biggest gripe with this book is the "agenda" which quite frankly is ruining our entire way of life. I am not convinced about global climate change and there does not seem to be enough evidence it is the fault of mankind. Also, the idiots running the world just keep exporting all the pollution to China so how is that fixing anything. I also felt this book supported the masking agenda which I am also not fond of. We cannot hide in our basements and secret ourselves away from the world to maybe, and that is a big maybe change the temperature by a few degrees. I am rather sick of author's forcing their liberal agenda's down my throat. That aside, the story was good and I cared about the characters. Don't get too attached to any of them though.

[Andrew Beck · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great sci-fi, adventure, and mystery book I hope the story continues

[KIMBERLY MOORE · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Boring. Boring. Boring. Waste of my life and time. Don’t recommend AT ALL. How in the entire hell did people find this interfering?

[stephkaye-923485 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A well-written murder mystery with some interesting sci-fi ideas.

[kristymk18-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A genre-bending book with something for everyone. Hart mixes science-fiction, suspense, psychological thriller, and even a touch of horror to make for a wild ride.

[jadedog13 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book combines sci-fi, horror, and suspense into a gripping adventure filled with surprises. I listened to this book every chance I had and stayed up late last night to finish it. As much as I thought I knew about how it would turn out, I was still surprised.

[verkruissen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Obscura is a story about a scientist, Dr. Gillian Ryan, who is pregnant with her first child. Her husband has started to forget things, stare vacantly at nothing and have violent outbursts. Before she is able to let him know she is pregnant he blanks out as they are driving and gets them into a horrific car accident. She survives and he is badly injured but his disease is rapidly deteriorating all the memories of her and their marriage. He eventually dies from the disease shortly after their daughter is born. This incident drives Dr. Gillian Ryan to get her doctorate and began researching the disease for a possible cure when her daughter starts to show signs of the same disease. When her funding is cut off by the government she gets an unexpected offer from an old college flame who works for NASA. He wants her to travel to the International Space Station to study crew members who are starting to show signs of this mysterious disease in exchange for unlimited funding for her research. Even though it means leaving her daughter for 6 months the chance to cure her is to great and she agrees. Once she gets into outer space though nothing is quite what it seems. I enjoyed that this book wasn't so technical that I lost interest and the ending was definitely unexpected. I'm hoping that this story continues but it is excellent as a stand alone novel!If you liked The Martian by Andy Weir or The Deep by Nick Cutter, will enjoy this novel. Riveting, fast paced, kept me on the edge of my seat. Loved it!

[lauriegienapp · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow. Let me say that again, Wow! I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, even as I started reading it. It's a sci-fi psychological thriller with so many twists and turns. You think you have part of it figured out, only to look behind you and see that not everything is as it seems. I had the audio version of this, and was listening to it in the car... this story was so compelling that I was offering to go to the grocery store just to get back in the car. I was happy for stoplights and sad at green lights, because I needed more time in the car.Well written, well edited... this was a great story.

[kathl33n-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I would say this started as a medical/sci-fi story and then became a mystery/thriller with the emphasis on thriller. What a great story! If you think you don't like sci-fi, I think you will probably like this, the world setting is in the very, very near future and the science isn't anything outside of what we are familiar with today and can't easily imagine. I'm holding back just a bit on my rating because the beginning was a bit slow for me, but once it got going it really was a thrill ride. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for something just a little bit different. The story was familiar and current taking the reader just outside of their comfort zone and the plot was engaging and really addicting the last half of the read ;)Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy to read in exchange for providing an honest review.

[anissaannalise-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to read this because I'm a sucker for space station stories and I wasn't disappointed. The pace was well done and the multiple mysteries are laid out very well. As if missions to Mars aren't fraught enough, we have Dr. Gillian Ryan a lead neural researcher along for the trip. She specializes in Losian's disease, a neuro-degenerative disease that causes rapid memory loss, rage outbursts and ultimately, death. It's claimed her husband, Kent and ails her daughter, Carrie. Her grief hampers her but it's her opioid addiction that's really what should have excluded her from this trip. The fate of the mission is given by interspersed snippets of interviews given in its aftermath, so a bit of the tension is bled away knowing Discovery VI didn't go as planned, it doesn't dim the drive to know exactly what went down.Carson, a former boyfriend from college, arrives to offer her a once in a lifetime chance. his offer coincides with the day she finds out her research is losing its funding. If she goes on a mission to the UN space station to do research she'll have just about unlimited funding for her research (this is the same sort of offer extended to Drs Grant & Sattler in Jurassic Park... and we all know how well that turned out). The research she's expected to undertake is on those who've been subjected to teleportation (the mechanism is really neat where the body is taken down to absolute zero making the atoms traceable and calculated at a fixed point so thereby able to be disassembled and moved from one place and reassembled in another) are changed by it and experience memory loss and other symptoms that are much like Losian's. Gillian agrees to go along and along with her research assistant Birk, she's stashed a six month supply of her hydrocodone (Carson cleared it because every gram on payload needs to be accounted for) and she's up and away. It's not long before the lies told to get Gillian on the mission start showing themselves. For instance, she's not going to the UN station orbiting Earth. The real mission is to the space station orbiting Mars. A bit farther away, that. Carson and Tinsel were in on the lie but Mission Commander Easton was not. Additionally, they won't fill her in on all the details of the mission. Understandably, Gillian is not happy. Still, they aren't going to turn the ship around and return her to Earth either. She's in this for the long haul. Poor Birk's body has decided that it doesn't like space at all so while he's still stout of heart, his stomach isn't letting him do much more than remain close to the nearest commode. Stasis comes as a welcome sleep for him but Gillian refuses to be put under. She opts for being awake for the 106 day trip to Mars.Before they even get to Mars' orbit, a crew member suffers a terrible death and Gillian is the prime suspect. She was the only person not in stasis. She also went through a very bad opioid withdrawal during the time everyone else was asleep. The hallucinations she was also having may or may not have been related to the drugs, the withdrawal or something sinister but elusive. Suspected or likely murderer or not, Gillian's still expected to do the work she was sent to do. And then things really get even more dangerous and frankly, creepy.The culmination of story was well done. The answer to the teleportation sickness turned out to be obvious but was still revealed in an interesting way. This had me on edge right to the Epilogue (and this was a welcome one after all that had come before). This was just a compulsive read. I quite enjoyed Gillian & Birk characterisations and the way isolation, loss and addiction were expressed here. This is also the second book I've read this year set on space stations that plays with and asks interesting questions about our memories & their value to us. Like Chris Brookmyre's Places in the Darkness, this will stay on my mind for a while. And I know it's likely unseemly to ask this when this book hasn't actually debuted yet but... when's the sequel coming? Because you know.... that ending. Definitely recommended. I received a free galley of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

[jess_reads_books · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In the not so distant future, an aggressive disease known as Losian’s is wreaking havoc on the world. Losian’s is a form of dementia that can strike individuals of any age and at any time. The symptoms are disturbing, often leading to violence in the affected individual, and the cause is unknown. Dr. Gillian Ryan knows all too well the impact the disease can have as she lost her husband to it and now her daughter has become a victim as well. She is on the brink of finding a cure, but funding is running out. A man from her past shows up at her door with an offer she can’t refuse. He wants to work with NASA and travel to their space station for 6 months, where the crew have fallen under the effects of something similar to Losian’s and in exchange she will receive funding for the rest of her life. Gillian initially struggles with leaving her daughter behind, but the idea of endless funding to find a cure to save her is too strong. Once Gillian departs on her space journey she finds out her destination isn’t quite where she expected. Determined to not lose sight of her end goal, she puts herself on a rigorous path of finding a cure. Her quest is severely hindered as she battles an addiction to pain pills and a growing sense of paranoia. As nightmares come to life around her and Gillian’s life appears to be threatened, she must work to find the answers to not only what’s happening around her, but also discover the cure to a disease that no one has been able to get close to finding. In a race against the clock, can Gillian accomplish all that she needs or will she succumb to addiction and paranoia? OBSCURA is an original and intriguing science fiction thriller beautifully mixing a chilling future reality with the unbreakable human notion to fight for those that mean the most to us. Joe Hart creates a 2028 in which a disease that already affects many of the world’s population today has evolved into something that could strike anyone at anytime. In today’s society it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t been impacted by Alzheimer’s and dementia or knows someone else who was. The relatability of the effects of this disease and the notion that it could be worse, creates a connection to the main character of Gillian that allows the reader to understand her drive to find a cure for Losian’s at almost any cost. The thriller aspect of this book adds another component that keeps the reader flipping pages to find the answer. It’s clear early on in the novel that someone is trying to sabotage the NASA mission Gillian is a part of, but Hart keeps the reader constantly guessing who the mastermind might be. OBSCURA is a 5 star read perfect for thriller fans looking for a space and science fiction aspect to change things up from the typical offerings in this genre.A special thank you to Amazon Publishing and Joe Hart for sending me a copy of OBSCURA in exchange for my honest review.

[runner56_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the most memorable images I store from my childhood is the idea of the teleporter. You know the program; Capt James Kirk daring to go where no one had gone before and in order to do this he uses the magical services of what was affectionately known on Star Trek as a transporter or teleportation machine. The transporter converted a person into an energy pattern (dematerialization ) then beamed to a target (place) where it was converted back to matter (rematerialization) I tell you this because "Obscura" the excellent new novel by Joe Hart uses this idea as a central theme.Doctor Gillian Ryan is a recognized expert into research concerning a dementia type illness known as Losian's disease. She has lost her partner Kent to the condition and disturbingly her daughter Carrie is now showing signs that she may also suffer from this life threatening affliction. Research for a cure is expensive and with funds running low she is approached by an old friend Carson who has a proposition for her that may be her salvation offering unlimited funds for her research program if only she will repay his kindness in the following way...Ander's transport is a teleportation system which causes atoms that make up a human body to be first frozen solid then vaporized before emerging at a secondary location as a solid human mass once again (think Star trek) However the users of Ander's transport appear to have been stricken with symptoms similar to Losian's namely memory loss, trances, and violent uncontrollable impulses. If Gillian will help NASA find a cure, travel to the space station via shuttle, then they in their turn promise unlimited funds with research into Losian's disease, and with time running out for her daughter she has little alternative but to accept. However she soon finds herself caught up in a web of deceit and lies, a nightmare three month journey to Mars, a conspiracy that feeds into her own paranoia, with real fears that she will never see her home or her precious daughter again.I love this type of SF based story where the human race is concerned not only with the decaying state it's planet (melting of the ice caps etc) but also with the need to reach out and discover other solar systems, other civilizations, potential areas that we can populate and yes..."to boldly go where no man has gone before" Joe Hart has written an intelligent thought provoking novel raising question and ideas that are pertinent to society today. I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend. Many thanks to the good people at netgalley and the publisher Thomas & Mercer for a gratis copy in return for an honest review and that is what I have written.