Anónimo

An Absolute Disappointment.

Revisado: 12-16-20

This review covers both "Peace Talks" and "Battleground," books 16 and 17 in the Dresden Files series.

Jim Butcher has been my favorite writer for many years and although it's been a while between books, The Dresden Files is my favorite series of novels. That is, until "Peace Talks" and "Battleground." These two entries in the series are far below the bar of what I have come to expect and look forward to from Mr. Butcher. They are so disappointing, I can't believe we had to wait so many years for these books. I don't know what happened. I can only tell you what I think and that is books 16 and 17 were intended to be one book. Maybe the publisher didn't think readers would buy such a lengthy book or more likely, maybe the publisher's greed dictated chopping the story into two books. Either way, based on the quality of the books, the decision leads me to believe Jim Butcher didn't appreciate it. Whatever the truth actually is, the bottom line is that both books are a big disappointment. Although "Battleground" is better than "Peace Talks." The Stories, (in both books), feel like earlier drafts and not final versions.

A few years ago Jim Butcher wrote a kind of tutorial on how to write/plot a novel and published it on the Internet. I found it very helpful for anyone wanting to write a novel. I don't know if it's still there, but it use to be accessible on his web site. In any event, pretty much all of Jim Butcher's work follows the format he established in his tutorial. "Peace Talks" and "Battleground," for some reason, seem to deviate from his format. Even worse, no care seems to have be taken toward treating the story as two stand alone novels that together, tell one full story. Because of this, "Peace Talks" has little action, and no pacing or climax to speak of. It just frustratingly ends in mid story. "Battleground" feels padded with battles. Some of which seem meaningless. Both books are also padded with entirely too many lengthy descriptions and a tons of internal character ramblings. Also, the interactions between some characters, such as the ongoing misunderstanding between Dresden and Ramirez, feel less natural and more contrived. Frankly, I have never seen Jim Butcher so far off his "A" game as he is in these two books.

James Marsters also returns as the series narrator for both books. He has been a part of the Dresden Files since the beginning. He is easily one of the best audiobook narrators out there, but even he had problems with "Peace Talks" and "Battleground." His acting skills and ability to bring an author's words to life hasn't lessened over the years, but six years between books seems to have dulled his memory for the character voices he created so long ago. Making those mistakes are forgivable, but what isn't forgivable is that no one caught the mistakes. I don't pretend to know what goes into the process of making an audiobook, but shouldn't someone be responsible for the continuity of the voices of reoccurring characters from one book to another?

Finally, I believe any author can have a disappointment or two in their body of work. Jim Butcher has proved himself human and finally had his. Now that it's out of his system I hope he can get back to his usual level of excellence in the next Dresden novel. I just hope the next novel will come a lot sooner than these last two books. It would go a long way toward forgetting about "Peace Talks" and "Battleground."

PS I apologize if you are finding my writing of this review, (and the last four or five), a little hard to follow. For some reason I cant get any paragraph breaks to show, So everything looks like one long, continuous, run on idea and Audible was no help in solving the problem.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

A Fresh Variation On A SciFi/LitRPG Tale

Revisado: 07-08-20

The earth has experienced a reality bending apocalypse called the “Advent” after a mysterious voice said, "Begin." There are now monsters roaming the planet. Animals and insects that have mutated into more dangerous versions of themselves. The power grids are down all over the world and many humans have been wiped out in the first few days of the Advent. Our protagonist, Drew Michalik, who was a Coast Guard mid-shipman, wakes up in the government building that he works in only to find out it has basically been turned into a dungeon and he must participate in the equivalent of a dungeon crawl to escape. Drew also discovers through a tutorial, (which is just a construct for a huge information dump in the book), that he is a red mage. A good editor should have insisted that the author, Xander Boyce, find a more elegant way to feed us all that info. But what's done is done. Stick with the book through the info dump. It will definitely be worth it from that point on.

It takes Drew approximately a third of the book to make it out of the government building and the author, Xander Boyce, could have continued on with more of the same for the rest of the book, but he doesn't. He continues on giving us more. We get revelations about the human race, the earth, the universe and the ones behind everything that's been happening as a bomb shell of a plot twist. Yet with all that, the author still isn't done. Therefore Drew isn't done.

One observation I'd also like to make is that the author makes Drew pretty overpowered compared to other humans with powers in the book. I believe making a character too powerful can take away a significant amount of drama as well a sense of peril in an action scene, but I didn't feel that way in this book.

"Advent: Red Mage, Book One" has so many story threads that it can't possibly address them all in one book. Not to mention that the title clearly states its book one, which tells us there will be more books allotted to wrap up all those loose story threads. Also, in addition to great writing by Xander Boyce, there is great narration by Luke Daniels, who is a spectacular voice actor for audiobooks. If you like SciFi and LitRPG with an interesting magic system, definitely give "Advent: Red Mage, Book One" a try.

Finally, this free, review copy audiobook was given to me at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Enjoyable In Spite Of Itself

Revisado: 07-07-20

As I listened to "Dark Covenant: The Berwick Witches" I came away with the mental impression of a movie that was later adapted into a book instead of the other way around. The story revolves around the city of New Berwick, Illinois. A city with a population that's about three quarters supernaturals and one quarter mundane humans. The major players are the witches and the werewolves who work together to defend and protect the city from things like curses, an evil, ancient witch and even a terrible secret that could come back to harm those involved.

There are a lot of characters and story threads to keep up with in "Dark Covenant." So many that the reader/listner may get confused sometimes. Some of the threads are, in my opinion, unnecessary to the main story, but they don't really ruin anything by remaining in. I do, however, have a few gripes with the book. One is when author, H. L. Randall, decides to rely on an old movie cliché to advance the story. Characters Matthew and Kayla encounter a bear in the woods. Remember all those old movies where the woman is running from a slow moving monster then trips and falls? This, of course, allows the slow moving monster to catch up. Well this same tactic was employed in "Dark Covenant" in order to reveal something major in the story. There is another example where H. L. Randall writes a character in such a stupid way that the character's actions cause someone to be killed by vampires. I really felt the whole thing was a cheap manipulation.

All in all, while I could definitely site a few more things that bothered me about the writing in “Dark Covenant,” there really is no need. At the risk of sounding contrary to my review, I actually did find "Dark Covenant" to be a good story overall with great narration to boot. The story definitely isn't perfect in my eyes, but I actually did enjoy it. Finally, this free, review copy audiobook was given to me at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

An Entertaining Supernatural Western.

Revisado: 06-05-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Silver Bullet is a hybrid of a western and a supernatural, horror story. It's got vampires and werebeasts and an interesting story. Although, for me, it was a bit too short of a story, I definitely enjoyed Silver Bullet. My one complaint is that the author, J. M. Thomas, wrote no dialog for the lead female character. She wrote her as a strong woman, but then she wouldn't let her speak. At no point in the book does she utter one line of dialog even though she isn't mute. I don't know what the thought process behind that choice was, but I definitely didn't care for the choice.

As with most books now-a-days, Silver Bullet is set up for sequel stories and I look forward to book two when it becomes available. Finally, this free, review copy audiobook was given to me at my request and I have voluntarily left this review

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Conroe Changes His Main Character Again

Revisado: 04-29-20

Chimeric Adaptive Enhanced Combat Operator or "C.A.E.C.O." for short is author, John Conroe's latest Demon Accords book. The first few books in the series started out as stories about his main character, Chris Gordon. Then Mr. Conroe shifted his attention to stories about a supporting character, teenage witch, Declan O'Carroll. Now if an author changes his focus to a different protagonists in the middle of his series, I would say that was a bad mistake. But that just goes to show how little I know. Declan has become a lead character and star of quite a few of the Demon Accord novels. Now it seems to be Caeco's turn to get a chance in the spotlight as a main character.

Better known as Caeco Jensen, she was originally Declan's girlfriend. But for whatever his reasons, Mr. Conroe wrote Caeco out of his Declan stories by having them break up and go their separate ways. Now with book 15 of his Demon Accord series, Conroe has decided to return to his Caeco character.

Unfortunately, Mr. Conroe didn't seem very inspired with "C.A.E.C.O." The story isn't terrible. Mr. Conroe is too good of an author to create something terrible, but he has definitely written stronger pieces. I think the main problem with Caeco is that she's written a bit too much on the robotic side. She's not a robot, but she also not Mr. Data from Star Trek either. With a boring personality like Caeco's you either need to surround her with exciting characters to play off of her and or a lot of action to keep you from realizing how boring she's written. Sadly, the AI that considers Declan its father has more personality than Caeco. Even more challenging, you could also write some growth into her personality so that she becomes more interesting and less boring as the story progresses. Unfortunately, I didn't feel any of those options happened in the story. "C.A.E.C.O." is a decidedly monotone tale. Personally, I'm a big Conroe fan and wouldn't miss any of his books, but in all honesty, after listening to "C.A.E.C.O.," I felt I could have skipped this entry in the series without any loss. So if you're trying to decide between multiple books as what to spend your hard earned money/credit on. "C.A.E.C.O." is definitely better than just okay, but it's not OMG good.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

A Film Noir Flavored Science Fiction Thriller.

Revisado: 04-28-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

"Optional Retirement Plan" is an action packed scifi story of hitman, Stacks Fischer, who has been marked for retirement by, Syndicate Corporation, the crime organization he's been a 30+ year enforcer for. After learning Stacks was diagnosed with the onset of dementia, Syndicate Corporation marks him for retirement out of fear of the things he could inadvertently say to the wrong person as his disease progresses. Stacks disagrees that he's outlived his usefulness and opts for the optional retirement plan.

Author, Chris Pourteau has written a fabulous story that truly makes me want to look for more of his work. But even more compelling is narrator, R. C. Bray. He has the absolute perfect voice for Stacks. It's like he was born to narrate this audiobook. Pick up a copy of "Optional Retirement Plan." It's definitely worth your time and money/credit.

Finally, this free, review copy audiobook was given to me at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Entertaining Book By An Author To Keep An Eye On.

Revisado: 04-28-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

"Order Of Vespers" is, among other things, a kind of dark coming of age tale for Jasper Andrews. All her life, Jasper has been warned by her parents to keep her powers in check so that they won't be noticed by normal people and even more importantly, those that would seek to kill them simply for fear of what she and her family are capable of doing. Jasper, who grew up listening to these warnings, always felt her family's tales of bogey men were just their way of trying to get her to double down on getting her power under control. A power that Jasper has never been able to get a good handle on. A power to blow things up. Jasper's lack of control had been the cause of endless concern for her parents and siblings. So when the day finally came that Jasper had an explosive incident at school, Jasper's parents decided they had no choice but to send her away for her own safety and the safety of the rest of the family. Before any of this could happen, Jasper's family is murdered, leaving Jasper on the run and wanting revenge, Jasper finds herself being chased by both police and superhuman killers with very little in the way of options. And that is just the beginning of "Order Of Vespers." If that isn't enough to draw you in, then I don't know what to tell you. This story just isn't for you.

Now I didn't find "Order Of Vespers" a perfect story, but I definitely enjoyed it for what it offered. Author, Matilda Reyes populates her book with a decent number of interesting and sometimes complex characters. If this becomes a series of books, (which seems to be the intent, as book 2 is available), I can see the potential for growth in the main character. Also, narrator, Monica Jaye does a good job of bringing the story to life. I really enjoyed her voice. I don't know why she didn't narrate book 2. I just hope the new person does at least as well. Finally, this free, review copy audiobook was given to me at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

An Good LitRPG That Avoids Many LitRPG Clichés.

Revisado: 02-12-20

Oathbreaker is a LitRPG story about a serious gamer named Steve, who is summoned into an online game by Bakta, a blood witch from the game. Using her magical abilities, Bakta had, somehow, been watching Steve's adventures while he was online in his gaming persona. Through her observations, she had determined Steve was a demon she could subjugate. Her goal was to have Steve help defeat a tyrannical ruler. Bakta performed a summoning ritual that somehow sucked Steve from actual reality and landed him in the online game. Only, Steve comes through as himself and not as his super powered, highly leveled up, player persona. Because of this, Steve is just an ordinary guy trying to survive in a world filled with fantasy characters that wield great power.

Oathbreaker does suffer from its pace in my opinion. After the summoning, the story spends a little too much time doing nothing exciting. On the other hand, Oathbreaker also avoids the harem cliché even though the story quickly presents us with two beautiful, sexy female characters. Instead, author, Stuart Thaman decides to add some depth to what could have been a more simplistic story. He really does a good job of not taking the easy way out. Also, narrator, J. Scott Bennett does his usual excellent job. In all honesty, I don't particularly like Mr. Bennett's voice, but I have to admit he is such a good narrator that I eventually get past my dislike.

The bottom line. "Oathbreaker" is a good story that manages to tell its tale without some of the usual LitRPG tropes we have come to expect from the genre. Finally, this free, review copy audiobook was given to me at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

A Really Good First Book To The Series.

Revisado: 02-12-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Ozzie Turner is a "cunning man." A term that was more widely used in England and Wales starting back in medieval times. Cunning folk were thought of as wizards or white witches, which were the kind that generally helped people. Cunning folk don't have abilities that you may have come to expect if you're an avid reader/listener of urban fantasy stories. Ozzie doesn't shoot bolts of energy from his hands or speak incantation spells that instantly produce results. Nor does he have a magic wand or staff. Cunning folk can mix up potions that aid them in their work or heal minor wounds and things of that nature, but they aren't the overpowered, magical characters you are use to reading/listening to in a typical urban fantasy novel. Their greatest weapon is their knowledge of the world that normal humans are blissfully unaware of and their preparation and tools that they employ to navigate the supernatural world.

Ozzie plys his trade in the town of Lost Falls. A place that is secretly a haven for all types of supernatural beings. Ozzie specializes in finding lost things and is hired to find a family heirloom. Everything about the job seemed simple and straight forward until Ozzie was shot and left for dead. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery as well as find the one responsible, Ozzie soon finds out just how in over his head he really is.

I wasn't familiar with author, Chris Underwood or narrator, Gary Bennett before "Cunning Devil," but now they are both on my radar. "Cunning Devil" is a very good offering in the "Lost Falls" series. There are currently three books that I'm aware of and I plan to check out all of them. Finally, this free, review copy audio book was given to me at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

The Seers: Secrets Of The Phantom Beast

Revisado: 01-04-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

We are all so sure about the world around us. Whether we consciously think about it or not, from a physics standpoint, there are certain universal constants that govern the universe and regulate how we interact in this world. But what if those universal constants we are so sure of, our very our perception of reality itself, turned out to be an illusion? That is the dilemma high school student, Jake Carter and a few other high school outcasts come to realize after a school tragedy. Discovering these new perceptions of reality and the power it brings could have been a positive thing. It could have been a grand adventure for Jake and the others, but with their new knowledge and abilities also came an awareness of another existence. An existence that seemed to be completely intolerant of Jake and the others.

"The Seers: Secrets Of The Phantom Beast" is a really interesting concept that is an extremely difficult tale to express to the reader/listener. The worst most science fiction and fantasy writers have to contend with is world building. Author, K. G. Broas, has to build and convey not just a world, but a whole universe to us. The author needs to both explain and describe concepts that are not only mind-blowing and challenging to say the least, but he also needs to keep the story moving along and of course, interesting. If completely successful, I envision something in the league of a Brandon Sanderson novel at its best and a generic comic book plot at its worst. I don't feel "The Seers" is on the level of A Brandon Sanderson novel, but it also remains to be seen, for me, if it will ascend above the level of a comic book.

Since the initial story doesn't finish in book one, I can't tell where it will stand on my scale. I can, however, tell you that I was getting into the story when it came to an end without wrapping up anything. Generally speaking, I don't mind a book with a secondary story arc that spans multiple books, but I really hate it when the primary story arc in a book is not completed in that same book. "The Seers: Secrets Of The Phantom Beast" unfortunately, does not wrap up in book one. In fact, the story feels like it's just getting started. I don't know what the author's intention was, I can only tell you I was left frustrated by where the story breaks to end book one. Enough so that it negatively affected how many stars I awarded book one. In truth, I feel like I would need to at least read/listen to book two before I give any review. Unfortunately, that's not how things work.

Finally, this free, review copy audio book was given to me at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña