Jennifer Nieboer

Done with this series

Revisado: 06-28-16

I've worked my way through all of the sword of truth books by listening to them on audio. The beauty of audio is it doesn't matter if something distracts you for a moment because Goodkind repeats stuff so much that you'll hear it again a few minutes later. I'm pretty sure he gets paid by the word and his editor is afraid to tell him to tighten things up. A lot. Plus he has an annoying habit of simply dropping things if someone points out that his major plot point is a massive inconsistency. (Ex: Richard and Kahlan can't have a kid because if it's a son it will be the offspring of a confessor and a wizard, and therefore be uncontrollably evil. Sure, okay. Except that confessor abilities always inherit to daughters. Zedd married a confessor, they had a girl and she was raped by a wizard. Richard was the offspring. The son of a confessor and a wizard. So, Richard is the evil bad guy he's told his child would be? Made no sense and I kept waiting for ANY of the characters to point this out but instead, Goodkind just dropped the whole thread without ever resolving it.)
In the same way that none of the characters ever seem to grasp the obvious, this entire book falls along the same line. Even the main characters are blindingly ignorant of the obvious facts right in front of them. I'm astonished that Richard and Kahlan have both devolved so badly. It's one thing for the masses to be idiots, but R and K are supposed to be clever, and indeed, used to be portrayed that way (except for the having kids part). The plot is so slow, tedious, and obvious that I don't even care what happens next. I'm done with this series and I'm done with this author. There is so much other better fiction out there to listen to or read that I will no longer waste my time on Terry Goodkind.

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Excellent audio version

Revisado: 06-28-16

Interesting take on a zombie apocalypse. Spooky, engaging, and filled with excellent audio performances. Nathan Fillion as a haunted Canadian soldier was particularly noteworthy. Throughout, I heard so many familiar voices that I finally looked up a cast list so I would stop trying to figure out who that was and just listen to the story. Some of the vignettes haunted me for weeks after I listened to them, (puppy store, space station, San Diego invasion) and the overall story keeps you listening. One warning though: I wouldn't recommend listening to it while walking your dog through fog-shrouded streets at one a.m. Just a bad idea, really. Listen during daylight hours when it's a little harder to imagine this reality coming to pass....

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Engaging and fun

Revisado: 03-16-16

What a nifty find in the audio world of books. It's a compulsively engaging story that keeps the reader's attention throughout, sprinkled with enough humor to make it lots of fun. The author does an excellent job world building, and alters enough of the fantasy conventions to make the world her own unique creation. Luke Daniels is the perfect narrator, especially as the voice of Eli. I look forward to listening to more of this series.

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Awesome lecture

Revisado: 11-09-15

I've listened to quite a few of the Great Courses lectures and this one is hands down the best so far. The lecturer's knowledge of and enthusiasm for his subject comes through in every lecture. He makes Mozart's life come alive for you, and his music samples are great at illustrating his points. Never did I feel like I was missing anything (like visual aids as has happened in several of the other courses), nor did I feel like he was simply reading from a script. He loves his subject and imparts that to the listener. I will find more works by this lecturer and listen to them just because he was so good.

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Very useful and informative

Revisado: 06-21-15

As a budding writer, I found this course to be very helpful. I have "suffered" at a writer's workshop, and found her comments about them to be very healing. It motivates me to get back to my writing for the joy of it, and not worry so much about what others think. Additionally, she makes it very plain that writing is a business, and if one intends to write for a living, one better learn this aspect of it. I will very likely get a hard copy version of this book just to have the reference guides on these points. Overall, I found this to be very good and will look for more works by this author as I progress down the path to becoming a full time writer.

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Dated but informative

Revisado: 06-21-15

I truly am the "non-scientist" this course supposedly is aiming for. I never had any chemistry, physics, or advanced math classes in high school or college, although I took biology, astronomy, and basic algebra. I found the course to be laid out very well, building upon concepts as it progressed. Eventually, though, some parts of it just went over my head, and I think in part, it is due to the fact that this is really meant to be watched on television, with attendant pictures to aid you in your understanding. Plus, the professor is, shall we say, a bit brisk in his narration. I'd barely have time to grasp some concept before he was on to the next. Now he did warn the listener at a few points to "pause the tape" and fully digest something before continuing so if I didn't, that's on me. He did seem quite enthusiastic about all of it, although the sound of his pages turning did distract me a few times. It is also unintentionally hilarious to hear him talking about vcrs and tape players while listening to this on my iPod. And hearing about the "construction" of the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, and the "possibility" of ever discovering the Higgs boson particle, all things that have already come to pass. Overall, I think this course has given me a better basic understanding of physics and the history of physics but I may have to look for a few more courses along this line to deepen my understanding. Oh, and I've downloaded a few more Great Courses during the sale, and I'm desperately hoping that the fakey applause to announce chapter breaks isn't present throughout all of them....

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Marsters narration at last

Revisado: 06-21-15

This was the only one of the Dresden books I didn't have on audio because it originally hadn't been done by James Marsters. I listened to some examples of the previous narrator doing this book, and just couldn't get past the fundamental differences. Marsters totally delivers and it was worth the wait. Thoroughly enjoyed it and it fits seamlessly into the series, acting as a bridge between Harry's previous life as an investigator and his new life as the Winter Knight. Even if you previously downloaded this book, do it again to keep the continuity of the same narrator throughout the series.

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Listen to sample before buying audio version

Revisado: 12-14-14

I downloaded this book on the recommendation of someone who had read the printed version and loved it. I wish I had listened to a sample of it before I bought it or I would have gotten the printed version as well.
The book is a fascinating look at the lives of ordinary citizens of a small German town during Hitler's rise to power, and explores reasons for why good, moral people could be seduced by the promises of the Nazi regime, or more often, refused to believe that it would go any further down the road toward genocide and therefore did nothing until it was too late. Told mostly through the eyes of a young teacher, flashbacks reveal much about her past and the consequences she faces if she doesn't go along with the regime and all it entails.
The problem that I had with the book was the narrator, who happens to be the author herself. I realize that English is not her native language, and I admire her for wanting to have the book read the way she probably heard it in her mind, but she was not a good choice for an audio version of the book. She reads in a languid, slow, almost sometimes halting fashion that I could have tolerated except for her pronounced lisp. And I don't mean a German accent, which was quite easy to listen to, but her chronic inability to pronounce the Rs and Ls in words, instead substituting Ws. This is not a side effect of a German accent, and I found it to be incredibly distracting. I am sympathetic to people with speech difficulties (I've had problems with an occasional stammer throughout my life) but I in no way think they should be narrating audio books. I finally had to put the playback speed on my iPod to Faster play, to help minimize the lisp, and it also neatly solved the very slow pace of the narration. I think this audio version would have been much better served with someone such as Diane Kruger or Elisabeth Rohm reading it. Both are actresses with good speaking voices who are German born or raised, and could have easily handled the German passages throughout the novel.
So, I would recommend the book, but consider carefully if the audio version is acceptable to you by listening to a sample first.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Um....What? Are you kidding me? Betrayed!

Revisado: 04-08-14

Where does Allegiant rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I loved the first book and thought the second one was pretty good. I looked forward to the movie that was coming out. Then I listened this one. I thought Aaron did well stepping into the voice of Four and I did all right with the perspective jumping back and forth. But then we got to the.... I guess I'll call it the Big Plot Twist. I get that Roth wanted to be different and not follow convention, but I actually had to go back and listen to the Big Plot Twist again because I just couldn't believe that it was what it was. It soured the whole story for me, and I actually tend to like this sort of plot twists in many of my other books, but NOT in a YA fantasy and NOT from a first person narrator. I feel it violates actual writing convention and storytelling and immediately throws your reader out of the story. Honestly, I can only think that the producers of the movie Divergent found out about the Big Plot Twist and said, "Oh crap, there goes the franchise..." I might give Roth another try in the future, but I would certainly be a lot less trusting of her narrators....

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

Intriguing and different

Revisado: 04-08-14

What did you love best about The Lock Artist?

I gave this book a try because I love picking locks even if I'm only good with small padlocks. It's an interesting story that builds to a satisfactory conclusion and when the narrator read the section about what had happened to Michael as a child I got goosebumps listening to it. MacLeod Andrews did a great job with the narration and I had no trouble distinguishing the characters from each other. I'm a little puzzled about the reviews that disliked the book for being about "unsavory" or "lowlife" characters. I can only guess those readers/listeners never read any stories about mobsters like The Godfather. I enjoyed The Lock Artist have will definitely read more from Steve Hamilton.

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