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Necroscope
- The Last of the Lost Years, Vol. I
- De: Brian Lumley
- Narrado por: Joshua Saxon
- Duración: 10 h y 37 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Narración:5 out of 5 stars 53
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Necroscope®: The Last of the Lost Years, Volume 1, the 19th in Brian Lumley's Necroscope® series, contains two short novels, one long novella, and one short story. Each of these feature the Necroscope, Harry Keogh, during this final period of his life known as “The Lost Years”. Stories included in this collection: In Dublin's Fair City, Dinosaur Dreams, The Plague-Bearer, and Harry and the Pirates.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Good One
- De Mistsofjade en 05-24-20
- Necroscope
- The Last of the Lost Years, Vol. I
- De: Brian Lumley
- Narrado por: Joshua Saxon
Excellent Narration
Revisado: 07-09-20
I'll start off by saying that Joshua Saxon is an excellent narrator. His voice is perfectly suited to this sort of material, and he avoids the common genre fiction narration pitfalls of emotionless delivery and its reverse, overacting. He does a great job and it's honestly a crime that he's not a more prolific and well known narrator than he is.
As for the stories themselves, they are one short story, one novella, and two stories somewhere in between, all starring Lumley's most well known creation, the Necroscope. I'll admit that I have not yet read anything else in the lengthy Necroscope series, so this was my first. I suspect that this book is not the ideal starting place, however it was not by any means a *bad* one. I never found myself confused or unable to follow things, which is impressive considering how far along in the series these stories apparently are.
There are two types of potential buyer for this collection: One, those already familiar with the series, no doubt know what to expect. If they liked previous stories starring this character, I suspect they will likely enjoy these ones as well. For the second group, people like me new to the series, I would say that these stories are enjoyable and easy to follow despite this lack of knowledge, but that due to potential for spoilers they should consider whether they'd rather start here with the benefit of excellent narration and 'taster size' stories, or from the original novel for the benefits of publication order. Which is most important will be a matter of personal priorities.
This audiobook was provided to me for free at my request in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
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Never Die
- De: Rob J. Hayes
- Narrado por: Kim Bretton
- Duración: 11 h y 13 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 207
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Narración:4.5 out of 5 stars 174
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 174
Ein is on a mission from God. A God of Death. Time is up for the Emperor of Ten Kings and it falls to a murdered eight year old boy to render the judgement of a God. Ein knows he can't do it alone, but the empire is rife with heroes. The only problem; in order to serve, they must first die.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it!
- De Amazon Customer en 07-06-19
- Never Die
- De: Rob J. Hayes
- Narrado por: Kim Bretton
Adventures in Wuxia Necromancy
Revisado: 04-14-20
A solid piece of evidence that self-publishing ha really come into its own, substantially better than a number of books I've read that went the traditional route.
The book is very heavy on (enjoyable, varied, and well-written) fight scenes. If that's something you actively dislike, subtract a star from your rating. If it's something you enjoy, add one. There is a very simple test to know if this book is for you: It is essentially a mixture of a wuxia story and the "assembling a team of misfits with unique skills for a suicide mission" variety of action film—with some fun twists—in book form. If that sounds like something appealing, you will almost certainly enjoy the book. If it doesn't, you almost certainly will not. Fortunately, I fell on the former end of that particular equation.
Initially I wasn't sure how I felt about the narration; an odd thing for me given that I normally have very strong opinions on a narrator within the first 5 minutes or so. As I got a but further in, it really started to work for me. In the end I would say the narration was solid and fitting for the genre and content. The vast majority of character voices felt appropriate given their characterization, which is not as common as one might hope in audiobooks.
This audiobook was provided to me for free at my request in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
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The Taint and Other Novellas
- Best Mythos Tales
- De: Brian Lumley
- Narrado por: Joshua Saxon
- Duración: 12 h y 14 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 131
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Narración:5 out of 5 stars 117
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 117
The very best of Brian Lumley's works in the Cthulhu Mythos sub-genre, including such recent tales as "The Hymn" and "The Taint", are collected and presented for the first time in audio format.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unbiasedly and unabashedly fantastic!
- De Kevin Potter en 09-22-19
- The Taint and Other Novellas
- Best Mythos Tales
- De: Brian Lumley
- Narrado por: Joshua Saxon
A well-narrated collection of Lumley's Mythos work
Revisado: 04-14-20
Short story collections are almost always difficult to review, especially ones such as this which draw from across a wide portion of the author's career.
The collection contains Lumley stories firmly set within the Cthulhu Mythos. While I feel this is something of a constraint on his potential, those more enthused by the stories being part of that shared universe should mentally add 0.5-1 extra stars onto my rating of the stories overall. It's a real mix, everything from somewhat weak but competently written, to something very good indeed such as the headline story, 'The Taint'. Given this range, I'd assign the collection overall a 3.5, perhaps a 4 if one doesn't mind the weakest story.
Mr. Saxon's narration is, as I've come to expect from him, genuinely excellent and a great fit for the genre and content. Weak narration can render a great book unlistenable, and narration as good as this easily justifies one bonus star at the very least. Taking that and the stories themselves into account, I feel that 4.5 is a fair score for this audiobook, bumped up to a full 5 if one is eager for Mythos stories specifically.
This audiobook was provided to me for free at my request in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
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No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories
- De: Brian Lumley
- Narrado por: Joshua Saxon
- Duración: 12 h y 41 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Narración:4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 64
With his multiple-award-winning literary career now spanning over four decades, Lumley continues to write his superior fictions, examples of which from each of those decades can be found in this current collection, where weird tales itself is represented by no less than five stories! And so, to complete a trilogy of volumes begun with the Lovecraft-inspired The Taint and Other Novellas, and followed by Haggopian and Other Stories, Subterranean Press is now proud to offer No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories, a handpicked collection of Brian Lumley s best macabre tales.
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4 out of 5 stars
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another outstanding collection & great narrator
- De latasha en 12-09-19
- No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories
- De: Brian Lumley
- Narrado por: Joshua Saxon
Engaging Collection of Lumley's Non-Mythos Tales
Revisado: 09-10-19
"No Sharks in the Med" is a collection of several of Lumley's non-Cthulhu Mythos short stories. This is in many ways a good thing; while the Mythos has produced several great stories, time and familiarity with its themes and creatures has lessened some of the impact. Once you can think "Oh, it's a shoggoth!" the same way you'd identify a creature from a D&D monster manual, the creature is no longer quite so alien and horrifying. No such problem in this book.
The lack of an overarching theme to the book beyond "not Cthulhu" serves more as a strength than a weakness, allowing a listener to continue through several stories in a row without things feeling repetitive. The stories themselves fill the entire range between openly supernatural and completely mundane (in terms of fantasy elements, not excitement). In them horror is blended with coming-of-age, with tragedy, even with a touch of black comedy. Especially notable is Lumley's skill in evoking a real sense of place in a relatively short amount of page-space.
As a short story collection with a variety of character backgrounds and story themes/tones, the book demands a more adaptable narrator than the average novel, and Joshua Saxon is very much up to the task. Character voices felt appropriate for their stated background and personality and the narration's timing and tone felt consistently in sync with the words on the page. This is no small thing, as many narrators struggle to pull this off consistently with a single story, let alone such a collection.
As with any short story collection the included stories vary in quality. Some are genuinely excellent, but others (while none are outright bad) are less notable. Overall it is a very solid and pleasantly varied collection which in paper form would rate 4-stars from me (5 being reserved for those rare collections where every single story hits the mark), but as with "A Coven of Vampires" I feel the quality of Saxon's narration earns it an extra star in this format.
This audiobook was provided to me for free at my request in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
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A Coven of Vampires
- De: Brian Lumley
- Narrado por: Joshua Saxon
- Duración: 8 h y 57 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Narración:5 out of 5 stars 71
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 71
A Coven of Vampires features a collection of 13 classic vampire tales, including "What Dark God?", "Back Row", "The Strange Years", and "The Kiss of the Lamia"....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great collection
- De timj26 en 07-05-19
- A Coven of Vampires
- De: Brian Lumley
- Narrado por: Joshua Saxon
Broad variety of stories, very well narrated
Revisado: 07-23-19
A Coven of Vampires is decidedly not a collection of stories targeted at people who want to see only the 'standard' vampire. The central theme is vampirism but how that theme is expressed varies a great deal from story to story, with the vampires in question ranging from the recognizable sort to forms much more unusual. The genres of the stories are similarly diverse, ranging from standard horror to Lovecraft-inspired to Conan-esque sword and sorcery. If this sounds appealing it is very much worth looking into, but those who want purely traditional vampire stories should look elsewhere.
This diversity of genres (and accompanying diversity of point-of-view characters) provides an excellent showcase for Joshua Saxon's considerable talent as a storyteller/narrator. He smoothly and convincingly transitions between voicing everything from modern holidaymakers to fantasy barbarian kings. I tend to be quite picky about audiobook narrators so I do not say this lightly.
As far as downsides go, as with most short story collections the included stories vary in quality. Some are genuinely excellent, but others (while not outright bad) are less notable. A handful fall into similar patterns, so I'd avoid binging the collection all at once if aiming to maximize enjoyment. For the originality and quality on display in the best stories, the book would earn an overall 4-stars from me (5 being reserved for those rare collections where every short story hits the mark), but I feel the quality of Mr. Saxon's narration earns it an extra star in this format.
This audiobook was provided to me for free at my request in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
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