Simone

Perfect dark fantasy

Revisado: 08-05-24

Immersive storytelling brought to life by an excellent voice narrator. I didn’t know whether this prequel could live up to Buehlman’s excellent The Blacktongue Thief, but if anything, this possibly surpasses it. Masterful, deep character prose in a fully realized fantasy world.

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Beautiful and terrifying ghost story

Revisado: 04-16-24

… weaves the tragic historical real world story with its ghosts in a thrill ride full of human evils and the lasting power of love and family. The young siblings at the center of the tale are by turns terrified and brave and unshakably loyal. The narrator was also fantastic.

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Sweet story, good sci-fi premise, but incomplete

Revisado: 03-26-24

The author paints an interesting picture of how power generation and distribution might work in the future, but ultimately this is just the opening of a longer work, with no resolution of the larger mystery. Also, it was so short that I have no in-character understanding of how the family resolution occurred—as the main character even remarks herself.

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Riveting and strange

Revisado: 01-05-24

This second Southern Reach book doesn’t quite stand alone—information about Annihilation’s characters enriches the narrative—but it is outstanding. The new main character’s search for answers about Area X is relatable, we feel his frustrations and triumphs, and his decisions leading to the ending seem well-earned. And now I have to roll straight into book three.

What a great ride so far.

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Very imaginative but thin

Revisado: 06-30-23

Felt more like a short story or novelette than a novel, plot wise, but the characters were interesting and likable, and the situations were genuinely creepy. Really unique setting, though, with monsters that seemed very threatening!

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Great performance; unique story

Revisado: 02-15-23

I love this many-layered story. It’s fantasy elements and setting and magic are unique and interesting, and the political machinations are timeless and feel real in their milieu. The main character, while vulnerable and flawed, never feels dumbed down. The found family she comes to accept are all fascinating and powerful in their own rights! I am eager to read more by Sascha Stronach.

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Series just getting better and better

Revisado: 08-24-22

Characters I’ve come to love going deeper into the mysteries of their planet home, fighting for justice, their found families, their loves and their lives, against ever-escalating stakes that still never seem artificial or histrionic. Can’t wait for Book 5.

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Sharp, emotional thrills

Revisado: 05-13-22

Sara Mueller’s rich Gothic fantasy, full of women wronged, has much to say about the complicity of silence and polite society, even among those who think themselves brave. Yet the book never forgets that it is foremost a dark, many-layered mystery that delivers twists and threats with perfect timing. Things fall apart both within our psychic protagonists and without, as the empire that holds them hostage girds for the return of the monstrous eldest Prince, whose unleashed mind can drive every being in a city to madness.

Somehow the author weaves all the complex parallel threads into a great and satisfying conclusion.

This book is full of vivid characters, and the audio narration is stellar. The character voices remain distinct, and the book’s voice really shines through.

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Extraordinary performance; surprising story

Revisado: 07-27-21

In a genre often overwhelmed by tropes and predictable plots, this fantasy novel was a joy. The characters were fresh and well-conceived, smart and flawed and likable without ever resorting to unexplained abilities or abrupt revelations. Though it is the first in a series, the main character’s arc is satisfyingly resolved. Great work read by the author, a masterful and funny narrator who clearly loves his world.

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I loved the comics. This script? Not for me.

Revisado: 10-06-20

First, great voice acting and decent sound design here. If you loved the comics, those choices were great.

I give this an overall bad review because I found the translation into an audio script to be awful.

Without spoiling, the comics, which deal with hell, demons, high magic, and fighting evil (yay!) have of course many panels and even whole issues devoted to evil things happening that the characters must try to stop. In a comic, you see the still image, maybe read a line or two of text about the bad thing, and move on. It is a fast-moving medium.

Now imagine someone trying to translate that into an audio script. They made the choice to describe in vivid detail each drawing of torture or evil inflicted, such that a scenario of extremely vile behavior that covered one issue of a comic--perhaps a ten-minute read, where you understand the awfulness and you get some thematic images that are important and carried forward in the plot--is described panel by panel, so that each act takes many minutes to describe and read out.

As a horror, thriller, mystery, and comic fan who often listens to that genre of novel, I found these descriptions in this case to be too much. They slowed the plot down and simply made me feel gross, as though I was listening to someone wallowing in the horror rather than using it as part of a larger story.

Obviously other listeners may have a different level of tolerance, and love for the Sandman characters may overcome their distaste. YMMV.

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