Tessa

Loved it as a kid, still enjoy it immensely

Revisado: 04-26-21

Given it's publication date (late 80s), I'm not totally surprised that there are some concerning tropes that pop up with regards to LGBTQ+ issues (evil gay wizard; cruel/fickle/heartless bisexual who "can't decide"; the tragedy of being gay; a nod to the "cross-dressing is a sign of homosexuality"). That being said, there are very clear, very prominent themes throughout of loved ones embracing the totality of the gay characters (as in, "I love you for all of who you are", not "I love you in spite of this bad thing about you"), which was pretty radical to hear back when it was published. The main character is complex and incredibly well-written, as the author alternately has me wanting to throw my hands in the air and hug him depending on his behavior at any given point. The whole thing is extremely engaging and is one of few childhood re-reads that broadly stood the test of time.

Narrator is solid, but not great. Had the EXTREMELY annoying tendency to mispronounce names, particularly Ashkevron persistently being said as Ash-KRAV-on, except for a couple instances where it was pronounced with the letters in the correct order. A few other names were likewise mispronounced (meaning, letters in the wrong order, not that the narrator pronounced the name differently than I imagined while reading it). Most of the time, does a good job of separating characters by tone/style so that conversations are pretty straightforward to follow.

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So fun!

Revisado: 01-08-20

Loved this story a ton! No spoilers but excellent fun turning some tropes on their heads.

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Listen to this immediately!

Revisado: 05-23-19

I don't often write reviews but this book was absolutely fabulous! Super engaging and had me listening long past when I should've been asleep or working! The writing is excellent, the narration is amazing, and characters have distinct voices (both in how they're written and how they're voiced). I wasn't sure I'd enjoy another take on Alice in Wonderland, but I'd heard amazing things about the author so I figured I'd give it a try. So glad I did! Can't wait for the sequel!!!

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Obnoxiously sexist, infuriatingly condescending.

Revisado: 12-15-18

The narrator was great, excellently captured the condescending and sexist tone, but the book was trash. One extremely egregious item: there was never any acknowledgement that marriages exist where the partners involved aren't one man and one woman. Throughout the chapters, despite caveats, there was a heavy bias toward assuming that 1) most women don't contribute financially, 2) men are just unaware of harmful things they're doing... actually, I'm done spending time on this. It's a terrible book. Don't buy it.

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Awesome story concept, lacking in execution

Revisado: 09-27-18

Conceptually, the basic plotline is a lot of fun. Following the development of a dungeon as it advances is fairly novel, and I appreciate the ingenuity. That being said, the prose is very clunky in some places, the amount of time and degree of explanation for the "game mechanics", so to speak, sounded more like the author thought people might want to role play a game from the novel than a means to advance the plot and orient the reader to the world. The sexism is fairly noticeable, especially in the differences between how the feminine mentor is described vs the (several) masculine mentors, and the heart of the dungeon gets particularly condescending later in the story. I really wanted to like this story more than I did.

The narrator did a good job, overall. There was a fairly extensive number of distinctly identifiable characters. Except for a tendency for each of the primary characters of each major story arc to sound very similar, the narration was clear with good distinction between characters.

I'm dramatically more likely to listen to something else by this narrator than I am to listen to more books by this author.

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Stellar story, incredible narration!

Revisado: 09-05-16

I *adored* the main character, Sierra. The cast was complex and varied, and the family dynamics felt so true. I enjoyed the interweaving of everyday and fantastic elements and a storyline that never went quite where I expected it to. I also really liked the tie ins to the Bone Street Rumba novels, although I'm not sure which was written first.

All of this is only enhanced by the incredible range and depth of the narrator. The story includes a wide array of characters, including some complicated scenes with half a dozen characters speaking in a very short span, and the narrator so clearly voiced each individual, there was no confusion about who was speaking. This was a really impressive vocal performance, and I can't recommend the book enough!!

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Wizard of Oz meets Hitchhiker's Guide

Revisado: 07-14-16

I loved it! very engaging and narration was fabulous! The plot was not as easy to predict as I thought and kept surprising me as the story went along.

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good plot and dialogue, irritating narrator

Revisado: 05-20-16

I've enjoyed the book and series on the whole but was quite annoyed with the narration. Aside from minor items (always saying "secession" when in context the word must have clearly been "succession", for example), the narrator had very little consistency in intonation or even in pronouncing characters' names. While I realize that there are rather a lot of people introduced over the course of the series, and many countries, a single character sometimes sounds Russian, Swedish, Irish, or American. Given the structure of the series, it would make sense for each country to have a designated accent and stick with that. But at a minimum, I would like consistent accent and intonation for individuals we spend a lot of time with!

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Unlikable characters, good plot, excellent reading

Revisado: 10-07-15

Narrator was awesome, but story became frustrating. Characters were generally unsympathetic. I kept waiting to like them, for them to change, but they largely didn't. Plot was definitely interesting and kept me engaged.

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