New Found Land: The Long Haul

by Austin Grossman, Neal Stephenson, Sean Stewart

Imagine two worlds at war. In one, citizens with jet packs and ray guns have colonized Venus. In the other, magic reigns supreme, and history turns on swords and spells. Now imagine they have just discovered a third world.

Our world.

Our timeline of ride-share apps and strip malls is about to become the newest battlefield in the long war between science fiction and fantasy.

In Florida, assassins are hunting down optical scientist Felicia Scurry. Her only chance of survival lies with long haul trucker Bucephalus Troy, who has stumbled into a world he calls Bamalot, a swords and sorcery version of today where magic works and science never happened. In Seattle, YouTube blogger Charity Kong is on the trail of a jet-pack-wearing secret agent who broke her heart. And in a sinister secret college deep under Oxford, a failed comic book artist just might have started a Three Worlds War.

Legendary science fiction writer Neal Stephenson teams up with World Fantasy Award-winning author Sean Stewart (Galveston;Cathy’s Book) and Austin Grossman (Soon I Will Be Invincible) to present New Found Land: The Long Haul, a thrilling, hilarious, and mind-bending audio drama in the tradition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Fast-paced, funny, and deeply weird, The Long Haul is a warm-hearted, rollicking adventure about ordinary people rising to an extraordinary moment.

New Found Land: The Long Haul is performed by Amber Williams, Jay Snyder, Gregory Connors, Izabel Mar, John Zdrojeski, Steve Routman, Graeme Malcolm, John Pirkis, Elizabeth Evans, LJ Ganser, Marc Vietor, Elizabeth Jasicki and features the voices of Allyson Johnson, Carrie Seim, Josh Hurley, Kevin T. Collins, Khristine Hvam, Lauren Fortgang, Nick Sullivan, Raphael Corkhill, and Steve Rimpici.

Genres: Audiobook, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Humor, Alternate History

233 pages, Audible Audio

First published June 10, 2021

About the author

Austin Grossman graduated from Harvard University in 1991 with a plan to write the great American novel; instead he became a video game designer at Looking Glass Studios.

He has since contributed as a writer and designer to a number of critically acclaimed video games, such as ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II, SYSTEM SHOCK, DEUS EX, and TOMB RAIDER: LEGEND, and has taught and lectured on narrative in video games. He is currently a freelance game design consultant,

He is also a doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, where he specializes in Romantic and Victorian literature.

SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE is his debut novel. (from the author's website)"

Reviews

[Gary K Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok - so this one didn't really work for me. I saw it didn't rate very well, but if you follow my reviews you probably figured out I'm a pretty lenient grader. I figured I would give it a try. None of my GR friends had prescreened it for me - so I was going off on my own. 😀

I was under the impression that it was Audible Only audiobook by Neal Stephenson. Well... kind of. It is Audible only for sure, but it was more like a radio play. As far as the writing goes... it was actually co-written by Stephenson with the other author listed as Austin Grossman. I think Grossman is better known for making video games. I think this was going to be a video game, but they turned into this story instead??

So I don't necessarily have anything against radio plays, but I was expecting an audiobook. In a radio play you get the benefits of sound effects and such, but in this case anyway - the story was told purely with dialogue. To me that's why I generally prefer 'book vs the movie'... in the book I get much more description as to what is going on - and my imagination can take hold. Often times it meanders into what the characters were thinking - yet not speaking. This minutia of detail is typically something viewers of a movie don't want to be bothered with, but in books - I rather like it. If you've ever read anything by Neal Stephenson this minutia of detail goes to the extreme. He goes on and on... sometimes ad nauseam about details. For me anyway - I don't mind this. I like his stories. I'm sure you could take some of his classics (many over 900 pages) and reduce them to a wikipedia entry with a skeleton of the plot points, but it's not the same. That's kind of what this story felt like.

So what was the story? It was a weird blend of fantasy, sci-fi, with multiple universes and alternate timelines - Timey Wimey stuff. Pieces of it reminded me of King/Straub's "The Talisman" (twinners), other parts "12 Monkeys" (audio breadcrumbs and even had a WW1 scene), "The Magicians", and a few nods to "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". All these are right my alley - but this story didn't click for me. Maybe a full book with those missing details ?? I'm not sure.

Also… the most frustrating bit of all there were no parts actually in Laminar... with rocket men and flying cars - really?!? that part sounded kind of interesting

I tend to knock stars off books that I don't like the dialogue - even if I like the story. You may know from my reviews that I prefer books with humor tossed in. Stephen King can write extremely dark subject matter - yet still fit in things to make me smile. In this case the humor seemed forced... or maybe I'm just too old to get the jokes? 😀 In any event, it didn't work for me. I think I will stick with Neal's 900+ page books.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

New Found Land may not be for everyone, but it's definitely for this comic nerd who loves Neal Stephenson and audio dramas.

In fact, the idea of fantasy comic book universes being "real" in another reality and the stories we read here in the prime universe were transcribed all along, that's such a classic DC concept.

It's a lot of fun and irreverent, and paced well as an Audible original. There's two main universe actually: a retro scifi one with jetpacks, and also high fantasy. They converge in the normal world as the main characters get sucked into various plots and secret wars. All of this is very witty and just funny. Also rather thought-provoking.

I particularly enjoy the nerdy collector guy, and there's also the conspiracy-nut-trucker-podcaster who becomes the sort of wizard archetype. Speculative fiction versus magic, natural foils! There's the Stan Lee-inspired old New Yorker in the flashbacks who has so much charm. And don't get me wrong, it's not just a boy's club as there are many female characters crucial to the plot.

Anyway, the multiverse is certainly in the zeitgeist these days, and this adds well to this newly forming canon. I hope they continue the series and I will happily listen to more.

Perhaps one day, my own other self from the universe next door will possess me and trade places, and see if this kind of of thing is on to something...

[Soo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes:

Currently on Audible Plus

Series of shorts woven together for an overall story arc. Great narration & fun story.

3 Stars for Story, 4 Stars for Narration

[Ronie Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, I hope the next one is released this year

[Tory Thai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gave me some of the same feel good campy adventure as The Zeta Family by Gretchen Enders. Highly recommend that audiobook if you liked this.

This was amazing! I loved the audio drama format. The noise and sound effects were minimal and barely if any music. Every now and then for like introductions to chapters or events it may have a tune that ends when everyone starts talking but nothing too distracting. Only issue I had was some of the audio quality took a dip for dramatic effect when some of the characters were listening to tapes. It's a artistic choice that doesn't impact the story but some times I found it jarring.

Overall the story feels very episodic but also it isn't. Occasionally these characters dive into tapes that give a storyline from a different world. Once a chapter in this other worlds story it will continue in the 'modern/present time/world'. I liked this format as it was easy to jump in and out of to listen throughout a few days and pick up where I left off.

The use of a full cast was a great decision due to the number of distinct characters. I think without a full cast I probably would have struggled recognizing who was who as there were so many important characters to keep track of. The full cast gave everyone a distinct personality and voice that suited their character.

The plot was so much fun! It felt like a campy on the road modern fantasy adventure. It was also funny/cute too several moments got a chuckle or a giggle out of me as I really appreciated the kind of humor in this. The plots stacked on top of plots was easy to follow too thanks to the use of the full cast making it really distinct which storyline you were following and with what characters.

The characters were fun. Super outrageous, over the top fun and were fairly consistent. Character growth was lacking but I didn't really mind. I felt like the characters were already super fun and distinct that any growth would be hard to work in when they are already at 100.

World building was great too. I felt like the audio drama format did a great enough job at being descriptive where it needed to be and a use of sound effects for easily recognizable things to fluff out everything. I never once had trouble picturing what was going on.

Overall I felt really good with this. It's not a high tension or high anxiety adventure. It's more of a silly and light-hearted approach. There is some tenser moments, and of course these characters being hunted does darken the overall theme time to time but it never gets grim.

Highly recommend this if you're needing something fun and light.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simultaneously a unique and been-there, fun and plodding, interesting and kinda slow. I liked it more than I'm letting on - an outstanding full-cast performance held up an otherwise "okay" novel, however the production left a bit to be desired. The first half or more of the book had periods in another timeline, during which the sound was muted (so you knew it was a different area) and some other audible effects that made it kind of annoying to listen to at times. There were periods where certain characters were so quiet I couldn't hear them at the volume that was "normal" for where I was listening, which is a huge downside to me.

Overall, a unique and fun little story, with interesting characters and backlog, but with some technical decisions that kind of frustrated me. In an "audible original" with a full cast, I feel like production is part of rating the book.

[Badseedgirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story and feel like it was the start of a very interesting series. I listed to a full cast version on Audible. I found this to be a distraction, but eventually was able to get past this. I will say I am very interested in the world building in this book and would enjoy another book from there.

[Dan Francis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this because of Neal Stephenson, and there were some witty gems in the dialogue, but the story was disconnected and hard to follow which wasn’t helped by the overwhelming background “atmosphere” in many scenes and over-the-top accents. I would have enjoyed a straight audiobook reader much more.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this 'radio play' style story from Audible. Humourous adventures across 3 realities - imaginative, funny, entertaining adventure. Would definitely read a sequel!

[Christopher D Langton · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as world building and Audiobook performance goes, this should be 5 stars.
Nearly at the end and will finish it.
Why rate it only 3 stars?
If there are 3 authors, I expected at least the quality of a single edit, i.e. at least one actual editor had taken a pass at it and ironed out most editing issues.
But no, these three authors are clear armatures, or the armatures didn't listen to the one with any author experience. They additionally seem to think getting their work properly edited is not important, they are smarter than the editors or some other kind of hubris.
The errors that stood out like a painful needle in my eardrum:
1. No writers skill about perspectives in dialogue.
There are inconsistencies everywhere, the easiest contrast (jarring) one is when Felicia plays her double's (Felicity) recordings, some are scripted to be Felicity speaking into the phone, describing events in the first person perspective - This works well, but when they introduced other characters into these recordings like Valkyrie, suddenly you hear Felicity's voice speak in third person saying "Valkyrie said" into the recording. It's not really third person, the way it is written, because the story telling has been so far Felicity recording herself, so why now is Felicity simultaneously telling us a tale like an omniscient god reading from a book while at the same time the characters in her story are there speaking first person AND it is being recorded and played back in third person now but first person in past recordings in her own voice..? I mean just pick a perspective, don't mash all 3 (or is that 4?) different ones like that.

2. Who's PoV is it anyway? The PoV character in 1st person perspective would be using I saw, I felt, I thought, or there is no actual PoV character and the whole thing is in 3rd person perspective where the writer would be using names; Felicity said, Felicity saw, Felicity felt, Felicity thought.
So they've chosen the 1PP with "I" in narration everywhere, I assume because the dialogue is acted so the inexperienced writers, or rather the writers unused to writing for audio, fail to separate dialogue from narration (we'll get to this more in point 3) - which I could overlook as a listener if, here's the part where the listener/reader experience suffers; How are these characters all knowing? Constantly they know about events happening elsewhere they can't "experience" from their PoV but they still know about it.. The obvious example excludes Brian listening via the necklace device, but on so many occasions Brian will just start breaking the 4th wall and be all omniscient. For a prologue that's expected, if the character does this intentionally (like Deadpool) tell the reader and they will expect it. but when Brian, Charity, and Bob all are doing it, others too occasionally, it gets beyond cringe-worthy. Maybe it could be considered a stylistic quirk or something creative even, if the PoV's, perspective's, narration, and dialogue were all professional and consistent - but.. they're amateurish and this 4th wall breaking godlike omniscient writing..

3. Mixing dialogue and narration.
Covered briefly already, so it will be brief. There's several places where recordings are played and that is where we expect to hear them played to us in pure 1PP for all recorded characters, no PoV at all, all dialogue, no narration at all. In several places these recordings will switch to 3PP or focus on a PoV narration instead of all dialogue playback. Edited? unlikely..

4. There were so many odd representative like near the end you're still getting character introduction styled narration: "It was me, Felicity.I ..." which is clearly another example of mixing narrator with dialogue, but why is the writer still, at the end, doing character name introductions like this? I think I can explain this one too, I've experimented with LLM's and this is an artifact of LLM output. They seem to fall back to these kind of writing even at the end of a story because the LLM doesn't understand timeline, nor where in an arc the response fits, let alone if it is even considered appropriate to do character name introductions later in the story at all as a experienced writer would.

Conclusion is most of these 4 issues are almost certainly evidence the author/s are either A) not reading each others contributions, B) not clue how to sync their contributions with any consistency, C) one or more are using an LLM because all 4 of these errors are products of how LLM's mix up concepts interchangeably and will do this even more when the prompt (the author) does not specify the PoV or perspective as parameters for the LLM to stick to when responding..

Did I say I really enjoy this story and performance? Because I really REALLY did.
I wish, WISH, truly would still love to see this edited and some actual care put into the craft.
It's a fun story, a fun world, fun characters!
If it wasn't so clearly unedited LLM content or thrown together by authors who never met each other and didn't read each others contributions - this would be pretty awesome...

[Y · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three timelines crisscrossing by triplegangers by portals and magic spells

Interesting story but not a very tight plot(1.How did Felicity get chosen as the oracle and how do people in the middle-world all have the skill to tell the future in Wyrd? Explaining it as 'perspective' from a different world does not make sense to me, I mean it doesn't give you the ability to tell the future. 2.Despite the divulging of the timelines in the 11th century, how is it that everyone is present in all timelines? The probability is zilch this would be the case. ..... I can go on and on but nitpicking through each plot hole would only detract to what was overall a very enjoyable read so I will stop here) with some leap of faith tech and magic systems.
The format was also dramatised and this felt a bit wonky to me with the fantasy/sci-fi cross genre and rather complex background. I had no problem following the story but the issue I had with the plot and systematic background was probably due to the format. Overall kept my interest and it was a humorous adventure I had a great time listening to.

The ending seemed to indicate this would be a series but doesn't seem like there is a second book yet

[Gena Kukartsev · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5. It was almost ok but kinda too silly. It's a shame I did not enjoy it more because there is supposed to be Neal Stephenson in there somewhere but I could not see him. The premise about two additional alternative realities existing in parallel with our regular one: one with magic and one with high tech seems barely intriguing to begin with, and I did not engage with the story enough. The focal points seem to be: trying to make fun of a character from one reality to be confused with the technology in the other reality (like a non-tech person starting a fire in a modern oven), witty dialogue for the sake of fairly straightforward witticisms. Perhaps, the story just did not take itself serious enough to be captivating for me.

[jazz weisman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was browsing around the other day and discovered that Stephenson had co-written a book I'd never heard of! Given that I was pretty sure I'd read everything he's written, this was quite the surprise!

While it definitely didn't break into my favorite Stephenson books, it was actually a lot of fun, and the full cast recording / audio effects etc were interesting and generally added to the story. It's a fun little romp through a universe where the main story is in a world very like today, but there are alternate timelines with magic or ~sci-fi stuff, and then interactions between them etc. Kind of a fun little road trip / adventure story.

[Lee M Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I liked:
The audio production was amazing and enjoyable. Each character was well done. The cast and sound production crew worked hard to put on a great performance. I absolutely applaud their work and results.

What I did not like:
The story of the alternate universe/time-lines out to police and destroy the other alternates was lost on me. While the characters were likeable their situation and their plans to complete their 'missions' were not something I could get attached to or cheer for.

What surprised me:
I have never read a story in which long-haul blue collar truck drivers are involved in 'save-the-world' science fiction.

[Al Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

K so not what I was expecting and I'm still not very comfortable with it. I'll need a few day to think more about it. This has at least a couple of great authors and one I don't know, so far I'm convinced that it doesn't live up to the best of the great authors. There were some bits that were good, and some parts that I should have fast forwarded thru but didn't. I'm just going to but this one into the "I'm not sure" category and give a listen to the opening of the inevitable next one if I don't just skip it all together.

[Windy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise sounded interesting, and since it was free with my Audible subscription, I thought I'd give it a try. Huge mistake...thats several hours of my life I won't get back again. The story is extremely disjointed, very confusing and hard to follow. The accents used by the narrators are excessive and detract immensely from forming any kind of likeability of the characters. Even if they release a sequel, it'll be a hard pass from me.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the beginning and up to about halfway, this book was a solid 3 stars. I wouldn't recommend it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. By the end, it was 4.5 for sure.

This audiodrama is incredibly well done! I had no trouble making distinction between character voices. I was very amused by the humour, by the characters, by the story. The lore is very interesting and it was fun to follow how it was developing. Fantasy with a southern accent!

[Margot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super fun, well recorded and adapted to the medium. I hear a lot of the fun bits of the author’s voices here- Grossman’s game-dev, Stephenson’s obsessive research, (last author I am less familiar with but he’s also a game dev guy so double dose there!). It’s not deep but it is an amusing 8hrs, great for a road trip. They leave the door open for sequels and I hope they write them!

[Angelika Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. It was super funny at times, but I think the main concept of the story should’ve been given more pages. Alternative realities is a tough concept to grasp in the best of times. When you throw in a wide cast of characters and all these hijinks, it really detracts from the main story.

[Julie Capell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Listened to this as an Audible Audio, performed like a play with different actors reading different parts. I only got through about the first 2 hours and I stopped. Neither the plot nor the characters grabbed me.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun and inventive. I can imagine the many possibilities for related tales.

I feel slightly guilty calling this fantastic radio drama a book. I suppose it’s more of a script, so I’ll go with that!

[Wendi]

Finished it, but barely. Lots of eye rolling and huffs of impatience. Over acted. No attachment to any of the characters. Very little world building, particularly for the third, most technologically advanced world. Mostly glad it’s over.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

DFN

[Amy Chan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Must have got this as an audible freebee. Terrible mish mash of subplots and characters with badly patched together...who knows what the overall story was meant to be

[Clinton Westwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending seemed rush, but the world building was great.

[Kiro Selanor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a free book with my Audible subscription. I don't usually look at Audible's free offerings, because they're not as good as the books I buy, but this book's authors were good, including Neal Stephenson, so I decided to give it a try.

This isn't a book that was converted to audio; it's an audio play. This means several things. First, there's no narration: the only words you hear are whatever the characters are saying. Second, the audio production quality is extremely high: there are multiple voice actors, plus sound effects and music that relate to what is happening.

I have found that I prefer books over this format. Without narration there's limited scope for clever sentences, because of the limitation that you can only hear what characters are saying. You can't get into their thoughts either, except when they're relating them to someone (or, in a frequently-used narrative device, recording them).

The plot is pretty hackneyed: there are two worlds parallel to ours, one Fantasy and one SF, and the worlds are starting to bleed together. Because this story was originally created to promote the mixed-reality company Magic Leap, there's also a Mixed Reality device that lets people look into these other worlds.

The dialogues are pretty good, fast paced and with humor. You can certainly get into the story and follow it along. But ultimately I decided that I prefer books over what is essentially a TV show without a visual component.

[Kate Laird · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this for the fun, campy, sci-fi road trip romp it was. The characters were fun and the story followed a well determined path.

[Zane Pinner · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best audiobooks I've listened to.

Engaging characters, excellently played, with pitch perfect production too.

A cleverly written and well staged radio play - I hope more audiobooks go down this path of full cast and production.

The story is the kind of complex spec fiction I've come to expect from Stephenson - I'll certainly be looking up the other authors too - and the world building and multiverse concepts are very well handled and easy to digest.

The characters in this piece are really fun and likeable. Lots of laugh out loud imagery and I really wish I had a magic beard.

There's so much to like here. I'm looking forward to the next instalment.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Audible audio 'book' is a fully produced audio show with sound effectsperformed and different voice actors for each character. It's all dialogue and no narration. It reminded me of some radio dramas i secretly listened to as a child and early teenager in the 70's. A great story, and well developed. However, it was hard to keep track of all of the characters in my head towards the end, so a bit of narration to reminder me of who is who would have been helpful, as well as what and when things are happening.

[Dawn]

D.N.F. at 55%. For me, this radio-play-style comic science fiction romp started out strong but I lost interest quite a while before I stopped listening. I liked the idea of alternate timelines, but the sharing bodies part disappointed me, both in concept and execution. For me, the silliness sometimes worked and sometimes was annoying. It's so subjective, and I can see other people enjoying it a lot more.