Nurhisham Hussein

Subpar narration

Revisado: 01-04-24

The story was okay. I would’ve expected a bit more background on the Masters itself, but the author almost presumes that you’re already aware of it. As others have noted, the narrator should’ve stuck to a straight reading of the text, rather than attempt any accents. Every foreign player sounded like a stereotypical Australian, which even the Australian players quoted in the book don’t speak like.

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Jason and the Argonauts in space

Revisado: 03-02-23

It only struck me about half way through listening, but once you recognise the plot it’s hard to not to see the similarities. This isn’t the usual Hammers Slammers fare, so if you’re expecting that, you’d be disappointed. But on its own terms, this is a good yarn. Jay Snyder is a change of pace from Stefan Rudnicki, and aside from a few mis-pronounced words, does a great job.

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Wonderful story marred by poor narration

Revisado: 01-27-21

I enjoyed this. I would have enjoyed it even more with a better narrator. Truman Smith has an obvious talent for telling a good story, and while the tone is light and focuses on the his personal experiences, some of the moral dilemmas of the bombing campaign in WWII are touched on. Mr Killavey’s narration however leaves a great deal to be desired, at least to my ears. He declaims more than he narrates. It speaks to the strength of the material that one can almost (though not quite) look past that. Recommended, but only if you can tolerate the narration, and some minor factual errors that should have been caught at the editing stage.

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What could have been

Revisado: 09-06-20

Given this work was published posthumously, it's hard to give a true assessment of this book. There are significant gaps, for example none of the history between Fuentes de Onoro and Waterloo is covered. Despite the title, we only enter the Peninsular war in the last quarter of the book. Many pieces of information are repeated multiple times; in fact the book reads more like a collection of articles rather than a coherent work. What's left however is fascinating and informative, and highly accessible. You can see glimpses of a great work that will sadly now never come to light.

Mr Davies voice is pleasant and clear, but the narration is marred by his diction. This work is read, not narrated, and almost every sentence is treated as standing alone, with noticeable pauses in between. This got more annoying the further I got in, and it is a testament to the quality of Mr Cusick's writing and the material that I nearly (but not quite) forgot this over the final chapters of the book. Of course, YMMV.

Overall, this was worth the credit I spent on it, but it could have been so much more.

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Meandering tale that ultimately goes nowhere

Revisado: 07-06-19

If this had been written as a stand alone book, with something/someone other than Berserkers as the antagonists, it might have worked better.

Of the two main plots in the book, the first - a tale of betrayal and redemption - might have made for a decent short story, if the main conflict was resolved. It wasn't, and the ending leaves you wondering what the point of the tale was. But the second plot, a "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" retelling of the Battle of Midway, would have been better told outside the Berserker universe. The effort to shoehorn WWII era technology and tactics into a Berserker tale is jarring for those who've been exposed to any of the other Berserker books. Whereas the other stories have warships with typically half-a-dozen crew, in Berserker Fury these have morphed into massive 2000-man behemoths with "flight decks". Beam and missile weapons have been replaced by "under-slingers" and dive bombers. The depiction of Solarian and Berserker military technology and the battles in this book are completely out of line with the rest of the canon. The only fun I had with Berserker Fury was trying to catch all the Midway references ("Bowman"="Fletcher", "Stinger"="Hornet", "Port Diamond"="Pearl Harbour" etc).

Paul Garcia's narration was excellent as usual, but isn't enough to save this mash-up.

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If you buy this, you're risking your sanity

Revisado: 03-11-19

I'm amazed anybody could give this audiobook 5 stars. As noted by other reviewers, the narrator is exceptionally bad. There might be a good story underneath it all - from what I could tell, Shiva in Steel is up to Saberhagen's usual standards - but whatever quality the story might have is submerged under a combination of hurried phrasing, awkward pauses, and robotic inflection. This audiobook wasn't "read", so much as "stated". Almost every single sentence, including those by the characters, was treated as a stand-alone statement. The effect was like listening to the greatest hits of a bored airport announcer. Avoid!

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Intended for Immature Audiences

Revisado: 09-05-18

I rarely write reviews, but this book was so bad, I had to write one. The action sequences were passable, and if that's your thing, this audiobook might satisfy you. However, the plot is paper thin and full of holes, the dialogue made me cringe, and the characters are as fully developed as the plot is (i.e. not at all). The love triangle in particular was painful to listen through, with about as much depth as a middle school romance. In the end, I ran through the book at 1.5x speed, just to get it over with. The cover blurb says this book is for "mature audiences". If it wasn't for the violence, I'd say its just the opposite.

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Good story, pity about the narration

Revisado: 05-19-14

Any additional comments?

It took me multiple attempts to finish this audiobook. The story is great, but the narration was, for me anyway, difficult to stomach and spoils the whole experience. Ms Frasier's diction is reasonably paced and clear, but there's a jarring discordance between the American accented narration, and the (sometimes unsuccessful) British accent used for the voices. Her attempt at male voices also doesn't come off very well. All in all, not something I would recommend.

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This might surprise you

Revisado: 08-27-04

I actually liked this. It's not a romance, it's a deliberate parody of romance. To be more specific, it feels more like a 17th/18th century heroic adventure with modern sensibilities and irreverence - something like Don Quixote meets The Princess Bride. The dialogue, situations and interactions are all seriously over the top, with tongue firmly in cheek. The narrator is perfect, and the other characterizations are good. The characters themselves are pretty two-dimensional, but in this idiom, they'd almost have to be.

I was a little aprehensive after reading the previous reviews, but was pleasantly surprised to find I was thouroughly enjoying the story after listening to the first couple of chapters. About the only thing I wasn't happy about was the ending, which felt rather abrupt. Apart from that, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this audio book. If your taste runs toward more contemporary fantasy writing, this might not be your cup of tea. This is not Xena. If on the other hand you enjoy more classical adventure stories, such as Alexander Dumas, you might dig this.

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