T. Naughton

Good story, narration was jarring

Revisado: 12-31-23

I enjoyed the story. I like Titus Welliver as the voice of Bosch, and I like Christine Lakin as the voice of Ballard. The problem is that in the chapters that are mainly about Ballard, Lakin reads Bosch's lines. WHY?!! You clearly had Titus Welliver available!

When female narrators read a male's character's lines, they often sound like a woman with asthma, or like a women imitating a really dumb guy. Lakin's Bosch sounds like a woman with asthma.

Same with Welliver reading Ballard's lines in the chapters that are mainly Bosch. He doesn't sound anything like Lakin. He doesn't sound anything like a woman -- and despite being a talented mimic (look for videos of him on talk shows), I don't think he made much of an effort to sound like a woman.

So FFS, when you have both of them available, have Lakin read all of Ballard's lines and Welliver read all of Bosch's lines, no matter which character is the focus of the chapter. As it is now, we have two different Bosch voices (one good, one bad) and two different Ballard voices (ditto).

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Way, way, way too much information.

Revisado: 08-29-23

I was intrigued by the subject, but wondered how it could require two books of 18 hours each to cover. Now I know. I've never come across a book in more dire need of a strict editor. The author obviously did a massive amount of research, which is fine. But she apparently believed every bit of research had to go into the books, which isn't fine. There are sections that go on forever describing relationships between hundreds of people, banks, and businesses, all in excruciating detail. "Dense" doesn't begin to describe it -- and most of people, banks, and businesses described have nothing to do with the story of the mob or intelligence agencies blackmailing anyone.

If there's ever an abridged -- severely abridged -- edition, maybe I'll try again. But after hours of listening and hearing about exactly one government official being blackmailed so far, I had to give up.

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Narrator ruins it

Revisado: 03-08-17

Would you be willing to try another one of John Lee’s performances?

Absolutely not.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes.

Any additional comments?

After Jonathan Keeble, this narrator is a huge disappointment. When Keeble reads, you imagine Uhtred sitting by a fire and telling you his life story. It's lively. There's emotion and passion and humor. When this guy reads, you imagine someone with a book in his hand, reading quickly and flatly, as if he just wants to get it over and done with. He reads battle scenes as if reciting a grocery list. No sense of rising excitement -- no sense of excitement at all, in fact. Apparently trading sword blows with Danish Vikings is a ho-hum sort of thing, judging by the reading. The text says "'Shield wall!' I yelled." ... but the narrator doesn't even bother to raise his voice on the words "Shield wall." Seriously? Did the words "I yelled" not provide a clue on how to read the sentence?

The story is good, but I doubt I'll be able to endure 11 hours of this flat, passionless delivery. Makes me wonder who listens to some of these readers and decides to hire them.

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Good story, ruined by UPTALK narration

Revisado: 08-12-16

Would you try another book from Joel Stein and/or Joel Stein?

I'd read another of his books in print. I certainly won't listen to him narrate again.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I know this is a generational thing, but the narrator's uptalk style of speaking drove me up the wall -- to the point where I stopped listening to a book I'm sure I would have enjoyed reading very much. I can't believe the director/producer or whatever didn't stop the narration and tell the author to try speaking without the uptalk.

NOTE TO AUDIBLE NARRATORS AND PRODUCERS: A COMMA IS NOT A @#$%ING QUESTION MARK! The author reads like a Valley Girl talks. If I were writing out his narration and punctuating exactly as he speaks, we'd have sentences like these:

I know dogs go for walks?, but I thought that was a euphemism for going to the bathroom.

Soon after Joe got out of high school?, he spent ten years in prison for armed robbery.

He doesn't talk either?, but I think that's just what all super white men are like.

Though Ian will wear buttons on his shirt?, he mostly wears gear.

This is on every friggin' sentence that opens with a dependent clause. When a real, actual question comes along, my brain interprets it as another opening clause until I realize the sentence has ended. Oh, I see ... his voice rose in pitch there because it really and truly was a question this time. Well, too bad I can't distinguish questions from opening clauses just by listening to the narrator's voice.

Funny topic, well written. But the uptalk killed it for me. I finally couldn't stand it anymore and moved on to another book.

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It's a prepper's manual, not a novel. I gave up.

Revisado: 10-16-13

I'm giving up after investing nine hours listening. There's almost no story here. In nine hours, I've heard maybe 30 minutes of actual action. The rest reads like a prepper's field manual, lots and lots and lots of details about how a group of super-preppers prepared for an economic collapse ... all the way down to brand names and sizes and gauges for every tool, weapon, heritage seed, solar panel, etc., etc. etc.

In fact, the protagonists are so well-prepared (as explained in excruciating detail), there's no tension for the reader. There's no urgency, no sense that something bad will happen to them, no feeling they're in over their heads -- in other words, nothing to hold the reader's interest. They've got shelter, power, food, vehicles, tools, water, medical supplies, weapons, ammo, lots of land -- you name it, they thought of it. So against the backdrop of a worldwide financial collapse, the danger to them is ... pretty much nothing. Sure, bandits showed up in one scene, but the super-preppers killed and/or scared them all off quickly, thanks to their weapons and training. I never for a moment felt any fear for any of the super-preppers -- they're too good, too perfectly trained and prepared.

There's not even much written about what's going on in the rest of society once the economic collapse happens. No scenes from the urban jungle, no checking in with other characters stuck in suburbia, no mention of what the federal government was doing (Nothing? Did a fascist dictator arise? Did angry citizens storm Washington or Wall Street and kill the people who caused the collapse? Hellooo!) ... just a brief mention that several cities burned down or were barricaded, and then lots of lots of details about how the super-preppers had prepared for the collapse and thus are getting along just fine in their retreat.

Perhaps that changes later in the book, but nine hours is waaaay too much to invest in listening to a book that comes across as a prepper's field manual instead of the novel I hoped it would be. If there's going to be action that puts the protagonists in real peril, it needs to happen way before the nine-hour mark.

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Couldn't stand the narrator

Revisado: 09-10-05

If you're considering this book, I suggest listening to the sample first. I wanted to listen to this book, but dumped it because ...

The. Narrator. Is. So. Determined. To. Enunciate. That. He. Has. The. Pace. Of. A. Talking. Robot.

No way am I putting up with that choppy delivery for 19 hours. Fortunately, the nice folks at Audible gave me a credit for another book when I called and asked.

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