Amazon Customer

Over all, a good performance by a new voice

Revisado: 09-07-17

What made the experience of listening to The True Death the most enjoyable?

I agree with a lot of what the previous reviewer had to say, however, I still liked this book a lot more than they did. Certainly this isn’t Shakespeare, but it’s a fun, pulpy horror story told with good energy. Gleason’s writing is really fun, he is witty and dark, and his characters are intriguing and have depth.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I think the world that Gleason creates is supposed to leave a lot of questions unanswered. Because the book is mostly first person, we only get to see this horrific world of Purgatory through the eyes of a person who has just arrived. Shepard asks a lot of questions that help get us started, and it is clear from the world building and the way that Gleason unfolds the story that this is a rich and well thought out world. Did I want to know more? Yes! But if the whole book spent time just giving us answers to all our questions it would have been a snoozer. Instead it was packed with lots of action and intrigue and really good stomach turning gruesomeness that helped answer some of those questions without getting us bogged down in too much exposition.

Have you listened to any of Ian Pugh’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

First time I've heard Pugh read. I think he is new to the scene.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I think the interplay between Shepard and Horace was really great and this was probably where I liked Pugh’s performance the best. I didn’t feel like the other voices were too similar, but I do agree that Pugh’s voice was a bit high strung at times, but it didn’t bother me - I wrote this off to the first person narration and Shepard being thrust into non-stop peril. That the whole book is told in first person by Shepard must make the narrator’s job so much harder, and Shepard is a really funny character on top of that, and I felt Pugh really nailed his personality, and kept up that energy consistently through the whole book.

I'm looking forward to more from Pugh. He is going to mature into a great reader.

Any additional comments?

I do think the pacing on some of the development was uneven. And the conclusion feels a bit rushed, especially the relationship between Horace and Mathew. A lot of big stuff goes down at the end with them, and I would have liked more time to live in that betrayal and the forgiveness. One of Gleason’s strengths is his ability to write snappy, sarcastic dialogue. This is, however, also a point of criticism, he relies perhaps too much on dialogue in his writing to reveal character. I found myself at times wanting a bit more prose to flesh out the characters and the world.

Still, for the first book in a pulpy, paranormal, horror story, (genres I read a lot of) I enjoyed myself enough to continue on with the series.

Disclaimer – I got this audiobook as a free promotion. Generally I don’t listen to audiobooks, preferring to read for myself.

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