D. Emmeril

A sequel that didn't need to exist

Revisado: 08-05-23

The Disturbance wasn't a great book, but it was solid, hard science fiction. The elaborate story gymnastics required to bring all the main characters together for a sequel are ridiculous. Several characters have completely changed or abandoned their previous motivations to allow this book to happen. And, apparently, there's *always* another android hidden aboard Sheppard 1.

Insult becomes injury when you listen to the end and learn this is only half a book. The story literally stops in a cliffhanger at the halfway point with nothing reaolved.

Personally, I won't be back for part 3.

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Well-written book marred by an irritating reader

Revisado: 04-05-22

"The Necromancer's House" isn't Christopher Buehlman's best book ("The Blacktongue Thief" holds that honor), but it's still a solid, well-plotted story with interesting characters and a fascinating take on the existence of magic and a community of mages in the modern world. If you enjoy Niel Gaiman or Joe Abercrombie, you should find this book to be right up your street...

IF you can get past Todd Haberkorn's narration. I don't know if Mr. Haberkorn has dyslexia, or simply needs to take a vocabulary class, but I have never in my life listened to an audiobook that left me shouting corrections at my headphones.

"but the dezinens of Oswego..." ""Did you mean 'DENIZENS?'"
"they piled her with drinks..." "I actually think they 'PLIED' her with drinks, don't you?!?"
"not knowing the lyrics was no impeedment to singing along..." "Did you mean 'IMPEDIMENT," TODD? F-ing IMPEDIMENT???"

Etc., etc., etc. Probably every 10 minutes or so there's a mispronounced, misread or wholly invented word (that isn't in the text; I own the book) that changes the meaning of the sentence and pulls you out of the story completely. Haberkorn's characterizations are good, but damn he needs a remedial reading course.

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AGREED Book That is MUCH Smarter Than its Narrator

Revisado: 05-26-18

I am re-posting D. Emmeril's review in its entirety because I agree with him completely. Willaim Dufris is a blight on the world of audiobooks, and CRYPTONOMICON deserves SO MUCH better.

Can we sign a petition? Take up a collection? Begin a grassroots campaign? Anything to stop the dreadful, smug, ignorant William Dufris from mangling another brilliant novel? At all costs, this man MUST be stopped.

It isn't simply that Dufris has little command of the English language (Bill, do you honestly not know the animal is called a "carry-boo, NOT a cara-bau???). It isn't just that he plainly has no interest in grasping the meaning of the text he's regurgitating, placing impossible emphasis on conversations and description to hopelessly pervert or confuse their meaning.

The real crime is that Dufris thinks EVERY goddamned novel, EVERY goddamned story, EVERY goddamned situation, is a comedy. I've read "Cryptonomicon" twice. Had I listened to this audiobook first, I would come away with the impression that Stephenson's magnum opus was a farce; a Wooster & Jeeves played for slapstick effect.

He should never be allowed near a serious work of literature again.

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AGREED Book That is MUCH Smarter Than its Narrator

Revisado: 05-26-18

I am re-posting D. Emmeril's review in its entirety because I agree with him completely. Willaim Dufris is a blight on the world of audiobooks, and CRYPTONOMICON deserves SO MUCH better.

Can we sign a petition? Take up a collection? Begin a grassroots campaign? Anything to stop the dreadful, smug, ignorant William Dufris from mangling another brilliant novel? At all costs, this man MUST be stopped.

It isn't simply that Dufris has little command of the English language (Bill, do you honestly not know the animal is called a "carry-boo, NOT a cara-bau???). It isn't just that he plainly has no interest in grasping the meaning of the text he's regurgitating, placing impossible emphasis on conversations and description to hopelessly pervert or confuse their meaning.

The real crime is that Dufris thinks EVERY goddamned novel, EVERY goddamned story, EVERY goddamned situation, is a comedy. I've read "Cryptonomicon" twice. Had I listened to this audiobook first, I would come away with the impression that Stephenson's magnum opus was a farce; a Wooster & Jeeves played for slapstick effect.

He should never be allowed near a serious work of literature again.

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Utter Brilliance

Revisado: 10-31-17

this is not an easy book. It is, in fact, the Mount Everest of novels. Alan Moore has crafted a love letter to language, history, art, time, physics, metaphysics, and the long-gone district of his childhood in Northampton.

Like Everest, the view from the top of this book is without peer, and absolutely worth the climb.

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Seems like Taylor ran out of ideas.

Revisado: 06-11-17

Seriously, at this point I can't actually tell what this series is about anymore. What incredibly muddled storytelling. I suspect this fingers of a meddling editor behind the scenes. what a mess.

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A little painful clarity

Revisado: 11-20-03

With incisive tone and witty -- albeit bitterly witty -- prose, Moore cuts through the smokescreen of the Bush administration, exposing their de facto theft of the country from under our noses. Collecting information that has been easily available, but never widely or popularly disseminated, Moore lays open the festering wound that is the current political state of the world's "only superpower," a greed-driven oligarchy controlled by power-made manicas on both the right and the left. Where's your country? The sad answer is, it's been bought, sold and paid for.

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