Dueling Ogres

The ONLY podcast I listen to!

Revisado: 02-07-21

And I'm not just because I'm the editor and host! Seriously though, I hope you all enjoy the show, please leave a review and we'll read it live on air! You know...if it's nice. We have very soft and squishy feelings 🥺👉👈

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Tim Robbins delivers as a VO actor

Revisado: 04-20-20

It's a little silly to write a review. It's a Bradbury novel, it's Robbins acting away. Two masters who breathe life into the characters they write/perform.

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I listened to this three times, at least!

Revisado: 01-06-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

To get the legal stuff out of the way, this Audible book was provided free in exchange for an honest review.

Hunter's Dream Online: Ascension (Book 1), written by J.R. Davis, is a well-rounded LitRPG novel for anyone who's spent time in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, Everquest, The Elder Scrolls Online, etc.

I'm not going to lie, I really REALLY liked this audiobook. In fact, I've listened to it three times so far! For those of you who have never read a LitRPG, Hunter's Dream Online: Ascension is a great introduction to the genre. Suffice to say, I have J. R. Davis on my watchlist for when the next part of this series comes out on Audible. I enjoyed the storytelling, the joke-making, and the narration so much that I've listened again and again to this book. 5 stars!

If you would like to see my FULL REVIEW, please visit https://duelog.me/ascension-review

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An Enjoyable Listen via Audible

Revisado: 10-24-19

To get the legal stuff out of the way, this Audible book was provided free in exchange for an honest review.

If you're a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, this book reads like an exploration of a player character's backstory by that player character and his/her dungeon master. Xion, the main character, seems blissfully unaware of how the world works. Almost content to live out his days in his little village, he secretly pines for a more eventful life - as most of us do. Very quickly, however, he finds himself in some world-breaking trouble. Of course, this can all be discovered in the publisher's summary.

The main characters are all teenagers, and Mr. Knight does a great job reminding us of this. The priorities of these teens, especially Xion, come off as over-dramatic and antipodal to what is happening around them. In some places in the story, they are literally screaming at adults who far surpass their own skills to listen to them. In this sense, the novel feels a bit like a teen fantasy. Reality does set in on occasion, and when it does, crashes down like a dwarven hammer imbued with lighting and thunder. The progression of the story overall did feel a bit rushed at times, with Xion's purpose for existing superseding what could have been some more interesting interactions and expositions between him, his peers, and fellow members of groups that he travels with through the tale.

As for the narration, Ms. Barber does an adequate job reading the tale, though in my estimation she could slow her performance down in order to focus on the inflections of the characters and breathing more life into the world as she reads the description of the surrounding world. In many places, it felt like a "dry read" which led large swathes of the storytelling to feel a little flat. Someone else commented on the lack of vocal range, but to be honest, this can be hedged by focusing on performing the story as mentioned above instead of reading it.

From a technical aspect, Ms. Barber's noise gate tended to cut off too soon, leaving the end of some of her sentences considerably lower in volume than they should have been. It was also very clear when she had started a new recording session, as her recording settings (either the room in which she was recording or the recording settings themselves, or both) sounded substantially different from each other at times. I don't expect a narrator to sit down and record a full novel in one sitting, but I do expect them to be cognisant of their room noise and consistent in their execution. When these things do not happen, it pulls the listener away from the story.

This looks to be Ms. Barber's first audio book on Audible, so I am more than willing to give her some leeway. I do encourage her to keep honing her craft and to not give up if she enjoys reading these books for an audience. I've been creating and editing spoken-word audio for several years now, and the learning curve to keep an audience's attention with your voice is steep, but rewarding. My advice to Ms. Barber is to study narrators who have a.) performed a lot and b.) who have performed in the same genre so that she can experiment with different sounds, inflection, and cadence to enhance her own performance.

While this review may seem to be erring on the side of negative, I was very much left wanting to know what happens to Xion and his compatriots. It is my most sincere hope that Mr. Knight continues to expand the nuances of these characters as he continues the tale and highlights Xion's lack of knowledge of the greater world more than proving Xion's intuition right over and over again. To me, a character who learns from his mistakes, who makes the wrong moves and suffers from those consequences only to rise stronger and better than before is far more interesting than a character who rolls a natural 20 when the heat is truly on.

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Krakista Keesay is a great character.

Revisado: 10-10-18

Terry W Ervin II II really does a fine job laying out the technology and the surroundings in which he places his characters. but more enjoyable to me, is the fact that Krakista Keesay really tickles the grumpy old man inside of me. While he is not particularly unpleasant to be around, most people find him so after a short while simply because he doesn't put up with any BS. He has a bit of a hot temper when people speak down to him, but he's earned every right to be defensive about his position, perhaps in spite of his current station.

James Conlan does a wonderful job voicing the characters and working in just the right amount of audio processing to really sell the story that Terry has crafted. Five stars all around, much love. Dueling Ogres Podcast.

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