OYENTE

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Great performance, not as great book

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-25-25

As usual, Guidall gives a lot of life to the Longmire world. Without going into spoilery details, the plot of this novel is weaker than others in the series and ends of compromising Walt's character.



**SPOILERS**


If Walt had stopped with his "I have too much goodness in me to kill people outright" while letting that one guy go THREE TIMES, he could have prevented the deaths of the innocent people who volunteered to help him. Yes, he tried to tell some of them to leave him to his mission, but they were too involved by those points and their lives were already in danger. I know he is a complicated character, but his deliberate refusal to protect people - what he says is his mission - was incredibly annoying in this book. A very frustrating read.

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Good book, but yikes

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
2 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 03-25-24

If you're at all squeamish or aren't ready to hear repeated descriptions of the torture of a child, this is not the book for you. I'm pretty sturdy with those kinds of things, but this was still a tough listen.

Also, there's a lot of weird reflection on having had an abortion - huge amounts of shame and self-blaming that I also found hard to listen to (not to mention the repeated and not-at-all-accurate implication that an abortion can cause a subsequent inability to bring a pregnancy to term).

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Incredibly confusing

Total
2 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
1 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 10-13-23

As usual, great narration by Saward, but holy cats - this book really fell apart in terms of the writing Way too many new characters who then required way too much exposition. There was a huge amount of talking about what was going on instead of things really going on, which made parts of it both confusing and boring.

And why on earth would Hayden choose to give two of the major side characters names that are so similar? (To the point where the author has to warn us through Conrad that the names are similar! Pick something else!)

I was a little shocked to learn that the characters and their relations (to each other and to the various groups of people) are all laid out in a big chart in the print edition. That's how complicated it's become and yet listeners to the books don't have access to that information. Listening to it all in a block wouldn't be helpful, but that's a really important resource that we don't have access to. The audiobooks need to come with a link to a page we can access and refer to.

While I understand that it was fun for the author to get Conrad into a helicopter, it turned him into a cab driver and put him entirely out of the action in some very important scenes (including, arguably, the *most* important scene).

Saffron is growing on me, but I am having a hard time watching her turn into some kind of combat ninja with so little training.

****SPOILER****

And what is with this dynamic of bringing someone into the King's Watch where during their very first case with Conrad they end up killing someone? They are each understandably traumatized and say so when Conrad checks in with them, but then that's it and they are suddenly somehow ok with it, ("Join the King's Watch! Prepare to take a life! We know you are scholars, but now you're in an elite branch of the military where you should prepare to use your previously defensive - and usually only ceremonial - weapons to kill people! Welcome to PTSD!")

I can't imagine why Hayden would choose to create a great partnership with a great character - Vickie - only to put her in the background (where she stays in the next book).

Other people have mentioned that they don't like the switching of narrator POV - that doesn't bother me structurally, but I couldn't be less interested in Mina's story. I'm starting to find her annoying and hearing more from the Princess just makes it worse. The whole swastika tattoo dynamic requires constant management and has - at least to me - never been "worth" it. It's just too offensive to be relegated to a minor plot point and having to explain it just draws more attention to something that can't ever be resolved and set aside.

I definitely agree with the other listeners (and print readers) who have mentioned how annoying it is to be referred out to short stories that apparently contain some significant information. Short stories should stand outside of the major narrative - add to our understanding of some of the characters. I shouldn't need to go outside of a novel to learn other important things about the novel. I don't think Hayden does it as a way to generate more income really, but it's very sloppy storytelling.

I'm going to carry on with the series because I understand that the next one is better (and having listened to the first few chapters, it does seem like it's off to a better start), but Eight Kings was almost the end for me.

But again: Ciaran Saward is great. Given that he has to handle an incredible (and ever-expanding) number of female characters, it says a lot about his skills. I may feel like I've gotten "pulled out" of the book because of choices made by the author, but I've not felt that because of the narration. (I particularly love Hannah and Vickie.)

If there was a way to skip a book in a series without being hopelessly lost, I'd recommend skipping this one. I'm pretty lost and I read it!

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What has the producer done to this book??

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-21-22

I have owned this audiobook long before Audible, and have listened to it many times. I purchased it on Audible several years ago and have listened a couple of times since - Lenny Henry is a delight and "Are you the man with the lime?" is part of the family vocabulary.

But what delusional producer decided that what this book REALLY needed was musical bridges between chapters? I have never heard anything so disruptive in an audiobook. Not only is it not necessary, but the song itself doesn't in any way match the tone of the book and to make matters worse, the selection of music with lyrics and the placement of it means that there are people singing OVER THE NARRATION. The crossfade results in a low-volume start to the narration of each chapter.

The music is a fairly recent addition to this audiobook, and whoever made this decision and implemented it should be made to work for Graham Coates and live in that cave forever.

Brilliant narration, amazing novel, both worth repeated listens.

I say with 100% certainty that Neil Gaiman would be horrified by the music. Ugh.

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The narrators did their best

Total
1 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
1 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-29-22

But they couldn't overcome the unevenness of the writing. I read the first book in the series - it had some issues, but the world was intriguing. This book desperately needed an editor. While I understand that Clod constantly hears the voices of the things, that repetition was out of control in this book. Climactic scenes took too long to unfold (a scene where someone was on the brink of destruction, with the "weapon" inches from him, but then there was a full 3 minutes of conversation with and between things while the would-be destroyer apparently just cooled his heels). Characters make drastic changes in personality and motivations, sometimes even within a single scene. I kept hanging in, hoping things would get back on track, but after a while it seemed to deliberately slow down even more, as though there was a third book in mind, but not enough narrative to fill it. I really wanted to like this, but it became unlistenable. How unlistenable? I quit only an hour from the end because I absolutely did not care what happened next. Especially since I was sure it would involve Lucy Pennant endlessly repeating her own name.

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Miserable editing, great performance

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-08-21

Whoever edited the digital files as they were converted into mp3/Audible format didn't even bother to listen to the transitions. Breaks in the narrative or between chapters are cut so tightly together that they practically overlap. Some of the other books in the series have had this problem, but this one was over the top.

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