The Digital Meltdown cover art

The Digital Meltdown

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Digital Meltdown

By: Roger Ley
Narrated by: Craig Bowles
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Scientist Dr. Martin Riley hopes to solve the world's plastic pollution problem and get very rich in the process, but the bacterium Ideonella Sakaiensis has its own agenda. Riley engineers a new strain of bacteria to tackle the ever-growing plastic pollution crisis. Initially, he is hailed as a hero and awarded a Nobel Prize, but the bacteria attack all the plastic on the planet, destroy the internet and bring an end to the Digital Age.

Meanwhile, Mary Lee, commander of the International Space Station, orbits overhead, a mute observer of mankind’s struggles on the planet below. She quarantines the Station to protect her digital companions, Jackson, and Mother, but isolates herself from humanity. Mankind stands at a tipping point as the digital era ends and technology returns to the age of steam. Can humanity recover, or will this be a final extinction event?

©2023 Roger Ley (P)2023 Roger Ley Dystopian Genetic Engineering Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Fiction Genetics Scary Thought-Provoking

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Harry Lampeter and the War with Scotland cover art
The Hole cover art
The Eighth Continent cover art
Chronoscape cover art
Denial & Disruption cover art
Object and Vist cover art
Family Law cover art
Path to Life cover art
Atropos cover art
Andorra Pett and the Oort Cloud Café cover art
Black Swan Planet cover art
Incredible Science Fiction cover art
My Favorites cover art
The Eagle Has Landed cover art
What Fresh Hell Is This?! cover art
They Stand Among Us cover art
All stars
Most relevant  

Listener received this title free

This isn’t my sort of book but I was giving a chance to listen to it for free.
I am grateful I was because this story is very well written and the characters are easily imaginable and I ended up wanting to listen to it in one sitting.
The author really has you laughing and also keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout.
I recommend you read or listen to this book, I feel you will not be disappointed.

A thought provoking story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

This book is a prequel to the Harry Lampeter books but is completely different. When I finished the book I wanted more as the characters were so engaging, I could have done with a complete new series based on them - they were so good and interesting. The stories were brilliant - I loved the ending especially (dont want to spoil it) but you will know when you get to it.

Oh and the narration, what can I say, just brought the characters to life.

Absolutely brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free


i have all of roger audio books all of them are very good 5 out of 5 for them all

Wow

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

Fantastic story that wonderfully manages to be current, futuristic and then throw in a return to the past! Incredically thought provoking and slightly scary as it feels like it will become true. You really should give this a listen.

Thought provoking, topical and a great story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

Engaging plot & well described characters. Highlighted by the great narration.

Thanks for the complimentary copy.

Engaging

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

NOTE: I was given a free copy of this book to review. This has not influenced the honesty of the review.

I enjoyed this prequel to the Harry Lampeter series very much and it answered a number of questions that the original series left unanswered. It explains how we get from where we are now to the state of the world of Harry Lampeter.

It is quite a different style to the main Harry Lampeter series, but enjoyable none-the-less.

The narration was generally good. No complaints worth writing about,

I would definitely recommend reading this before starting the "main" series.

Different to the others - but good nonetheless.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

This is not a funny book, it has moments of humour, but it's not a Harry Lampeter novel. The Digital Meltdown is a prequel to the Harry Lampeter, it provides the backstory to the Age of Steam and establishes the context in which Harry Lampeter operates. We already knew from the Harry Lampeter books the bare facts of the Digital Meltdown, but here we meet the people involved in and affected by the Meltdown. As expected Roger Ley peoples the story with believable characters brought to life by Craig Bowles's narration. Some of these characters don't have happy stories and all live through events that demand more than some can give. At times I was quite moved.

The book is plausible and doesn't demand any suspension of the reader's beliefs. It rather raises questions about the the world in which we live and how we live in in it. It shows the fragility of all we think we know. I really enjoyed the way AI is portrayed and the possibilities it raises. Although the book visits some dark places, it is ultimately hopeful and optimistic. I enjoyed it and felt satisfied at the end.

Plenty of food for thought

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

This book is a prequel to the Harry Lampeter books, describing in detail how the collapse of our civilization happened. It goes into detail about the origins of the Riley bug which did all the damage, and is a sombre commentary on messing with gene editing, causing uninteded consequences (as outlined in the Lampeter books). It is a much more serious book than the Lampeters which was a bit of a shame, very little humour, but a well thought out story with plenty of supporting science, although a few of the scientific explanations were a bit 'iffy'. The narration was good, but a few of the accents missed the mark somewhat.

Prequel to Harry Lampeter

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

This is a review given in exchange for a free download.
I found the book very enjoyable despite it being a bit predictable from the start. It was quite scary how believable the story was and how vulnerable we are as a civilisation.
Characters were very well portrayed and I particularly enjoyed the AI Jackson and his development.

I wasn’t that impressed with the narrator. It just felt a bit stilted at times and not quite as natural as most others I have listened to.

I can imagine the book would be better read rather than listened to.

Generally a good read and well worth reading.

Very enjoyable read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

I was given this title for free, in return for an honest review.

This was a long, sometimes rambling tale, with perhaps too much detail. I felt that it took too long to get to the meat of the matter and then, when it did, it was skirted over pretty quickly! Then it dragged on for several chapters in a long drawn out aftermath.

The B story was interesting, but incidental. There was no apparent connection to the main story, so I didn’t really see the relevance of it all…

As for the narrator - I think that he wasn’t best suited for this story, on occasion I couldn’t tell who was talking! Perhaps someone with more range would have been preferable. Better at a faster narration speed, but still not great!

Notwithstanding the above, the storyline was interesting, very novel and full of little guessed predictions of the future… I really enjoyed those. Even though I couldn’t see the relevance, the whole outer space storyline was interesting, although lacking in direction and depth. It would make an interesting separate novel.

I do, ordinarily, enjoy Science Fiction tales and this one was not too far off from now to make it all highly credible, with the exception of the B Story, this has the potential to be very engrossing, however, both the narrator and the long journey to “The Point”, make this very heavy going.

Innovative Story but Poor Narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews