Michelle

Surprised by how much I enjoyed this book!

Revisado: 07-03-19

Surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! There were several times I thought I could predict where the story was going but it still managed to surprise me quite a bit. I enjoyed the development of the characters and the world in which the story takes place. I am very much looking forward to continuing and listening to more of this series!

**I was voluntarily provided this review copy audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator.**

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Unique take on LitRPG genre

Revisado: 07-03-19

I have read and listened to a decent amount of books in the LitRPG genre, and this one was fairly unique. Overall the story moved forward at a good pace, with character development and tension. One thing I LIKED is that there was no MMO style chat logs or system messages that can make an audiobook version of a LitRPG book very repetitive.

There were a couple of times I felt the editing could have been better at the beginning, where something was explained only to be explained again a short while later but not so much it ruined my enjoyment of the story.

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A fairytale for adults

Revisado: 05-01-19

I am a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and this novel does not disappoint! I listened to this audiobook while on a road trip with my wife and we enjoyed it very much! Neil Gaiman also narrates and does an excellent job. I love when the author narrates because they have a more intimate connection with the story and characters.

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Hopefully just an intro

Revisado: 09-05-18

Smith is a short tale about a young man Jake who finds a ring that has been enchanted with sentience and an agenda - to protect the bearer and advance in power and influence. Jake tries to maintain his control over his life while dealing with the new powers that are granted by the ring, known as Smith.

Overall this book was enjoyable and fun. If I have to find one thing that I feel could have been better it would be pacing. The story has a very fast pacing but it feels as it is skipping over some chances at character development while jumping from one action scene to another. I am hoping that if this turns into a series there is some time spent on character development with some longer stories.

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The series just keeps getting better

Revisado: 06-07-18

This box set is books 4-6 of the Vesik Series. It continues on the storyline from the previous books about a Necromancer Damian Vesik and his friends who consist of Vampires, Werewolves, Faries, Water Witches, Witches, and more.

I really liked how each book has its own story arc as well as continuing a greater story arc as well. So many series books these days do not do this and you finish a book with the feeling of having not accomplished anything.

The tone is a mix of dark subjects and light humor which can clash with each other at times and some of the humor feels like it was being forced, but not to the point where it would diminish my enjoyment of the story at all.

The Audiobook was narrated by William Dufris who does an amazing job! I would definitely pick up more books that are narrated by him.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

left disapointed

Revisado: 04-05-18

I was a bit let down by this book. I have fond memories of my teacher reading this to us in second grade. Granted, this was probably THE teacher who got me into reading and who read The Hobbit to us as well in the 3rd grade (I had her as my homeroom teacher from 2nd - 5th grade), so perhaps my fond memories of one of my favorite teachers (Hi Ms. Adler!) has affected skewed my memories of this book.

The story started off decent but soon falls apart. The most well-developed character is Meg, but even she devolves into just a constant complainer. The antagonist is one-dimensional, simply described as "evil" with no clear goals, motives, or depth. His... It's? big evil plan? who knows, the most evil thing it seems to do is kidnap Meg's father. why? Who knows! Because "Evil".

Oh, and - spoilers here - the whole key to defeating the "evil" is with love. and not in any creative way, just by telling someone "I love you".

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Surprising, Intense, and fast-paced!

Revisado: 04-05-18

I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook from the publisher/author in exchange for a voluntary honest review.

I was honestly surprised by this book. It does start off a bit rough around the edges and had me worried that the book would be a bit cheesy, and the protagonist would be a bit too mary-sue and sexist, but this was not the case.

The action was pretty intense and fast-paced and the story was quite creative and unique.

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My favorite from Harmon Cooper so far!

Revisado: 03-06-18

I have read and listened to a few of the other books by Harmon Cooper and have enjoyed them but this one was my favorite so far. I really enjoyed the fact that one of the main characters was a streamer and streamed his games! In the other books, I thought that this was something that was missing. I am looking forward to more from Harmon Cooper!

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Enjoyable horror

Revisado: 03-06-18

This was my first experience with G.M. Hague and I am looking forward to enjoying more of his work, The narration was done well and the story was engaging and paced well.

** I was provided this audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator in exchange for an unbiased review via Audiobook Boom**

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Not for fans of sci-fi.

Revisado: 02-21-18

I have to start out this review with a confession. Well, two confessions.

Confession "numero uno": I did not finish this book. If I am honest with you, it would be more accurate to say, I _could not_ finish this book. I had to tap out about 4 hours into it. This is not something that happens to me often, especially on audiobooks. I can usually muster through, focus on the things I like and gloss over things that I do not like.

Which brings me to confession number two: I really dislike giving negative reviews. I mean I will give a low rating, but I typically do not spend the time writing out an actual review. However I commited to reviewing this book in exchange for a free copy. I was tempted to just take the easy way out and write a brief review that stated "This book just wasn't for me". Then I took a peek at the other positive reviews on Audible and thought "what am I missing?" as they are all positive. I also looked up the Author and noticed that she has a decent amount of other works, with similar followings. So I figured that I should just be honest.

So buckle up. I will be honest, but that doesn't mean I cannot try and be constructive and civil. I will first go into the issues I have with this book, and follow up with the positive things I have to say about the book. So here we go.

OK, I lied again. I feel I do need to say one positive thing first. I have to give much props to the narrator, Brian Callanan. If it were not for him I do not think I would have gotten 1/10th as far as I did. His excellent narration does so much, even for this book. I have listened to other books of his and he does a great job narrating. If I am ever able to finish a book I hope to someday have him narrate it. I highly recommend checking him out. Perhaps in a different book though. Now on with it...

To start off, this book is pitched as Sci-Fi. I guess it qualifies as it technically does have space ships, and alien races. But that's about where it ends. To call this "soft sci-fi" would even be pusing it. There is simply zero science involved in this at all. Even without explaining the technology, there are things about this book that just baffle me. The Captian of the ship uses the term "some sort of space effect" to describe a possible mental breakdown of one of the ships officers when she hears voices. I mean they have tests for "paranormal talent", but not for say... schizophrenia? This type of thing is just repeated constantly, no explanations except for "because space..." Then there are scenes where the Captain directly addresses the civilians onboard the ship, and they speak to him like they are peers and nobody seems bothered by this.

Somehow, despite the (undescribed in any way) technology to launch twenty space ships towards Mars, the Human ships are on a course to *completely* miss the planet. Nobody on the _twenty_ ships double checked this "math" and noticed this? They only discover this when one member of the crew gets a psychic message from and alien race. Then when they try and change course, they somehow cannot change it. The computer simply will not let them. No override, no taking the computers offline, no debugging, nothing. Also, despite the technology to build twenty colony ships capable of reaching Mars, somehow humanity has completely overlooked another planet "hiding behind Mars"? As a fan of science fiction these things really bothered me, but I could have overlooked it if it was the biggest issue I had with this book.

Moving on to characters. I was really bothered by how pretty much every male character was written in this book. Especially the humans. They all appear to have the mentality and personality of a sterotypical high-school football quarterback. The Captain begins oogling the breasts of a civilian upon the instant he sees her, then ends up sleeping with her. The scene in which this happens is just so poorly written, and literally describes how addicted the female is going to become to the Captiain because he is just so amazing at the sex. Seriously. Then, immediately afterwards The Cap has the same bragfest conversations with pretty much every other male member of his crew afterwards and then tells them he is going to marry this woman, after one single encounter and without even discussing any sort of relationship with the actual person who he plans on marrying. The crew then each tell the Captain how every other male on the ship wants to get with this woman but she is just such a hard catch. Another scene where a image of one female member of the alien race (we will get to them later) is shown to the entire ship, and some teenage males make crude comments like "If they all look like that I would love to score me one of those!" These scenes litterally made me cringe.

The writing style of the book was very simplistic. Every single book, article, or class on writing will tell you the same thing: Show don't tell. While I often understood what they were saying it always confused me why they always made such a deal out of it, now I know why. The biggest issue I had with this book was it constantly told me things, but never showed them to me. It left me having to take the word of the author that Lt. Noble is very brave, or that the Captain is very respected and commanding. Because it NEVER showed me any evidence of these things. It literally just said them.

Overall, I think that some of the ideas in this book have potential. The Alien bird people were entirely more interesting and I would like to know more about them and thier storyline. Unfortunately, everything about the human storyline was just too much for me to continue and eventually I knew the two would combine and just ruin it. I feel that if the Humans were made to be another race or from another planet that may have been better. Better yet, just rip them out completely and focus on Tantalus.

**I recieved a free copy of this audiobook from the author/narrator/publisher in exchange for an honest review. **

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