Allen

Over and Over and Over

Revisado: 01-16-25

I’ve read other reviews of this audiobook that pointed out how overly detailed the narration is, and I thought they were exaggerating. They were not. This book is driving me insane, and not in a good way. The main character’s narration is so hyper-detailed that it feels like the author is stretching the story unnecessarily. Every little action, thought, and justification is dissected and presented to the listener in painstaking detail.

Here’s a spoiler-free example: At one point, the character is trying to open a locked door. The author spends several minutes describing three possible ways to open the door, including the pros and cons of each, only to remind us (yet again) that the character has no mana left to spare. Then, out of nowhere, a fourth option is introduced, analyzed, and promptly dismissed. Rather than acting, the character decides he needs to gather more information to make a plan—yes, a plan to plan how to open the door.

This endless loop of indecision doesn’t stop there. He lists the spells he could cast, laments his lack of mana (again), reflects on how much easier things were in his past life, and finally decides to cast a spell to determine if the person he’s looking for is even behind the door. After all that buildup, the person isn’t even there.

While the story might have some intriguing elements, the excessive focus on minute details turns what could have been an engaging narrative into an exercise in frustration. If you enjoy a fast-paced plot, this is definitely not the audiobook for you. However, if you like exhaustive analysis of every action a character takes, you might enjoy this more than I did.

The performance was fantastic, story was alright.

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Improved from the third brandy

Revisado: 01-25-23

Make no mistake, the brandy I drank to get me through this stunning book was all I need, in our lady’s name.

Book 3 Tomas was treading deep brandy and I felt that his intelligence ran away due to his fear of the Queen’s men and Vogel. This book it comes back into full force with tons of brandy, violence and brandy, and make no mistake more brandy. I enjoyed this book far more than book 3 and the ending left me satisfied. I wish an epilogue was made to cover other characters just to see where they end up but most questions were answered.

My only gripe was how much brandy Tomas drank and referenced. I know he’s an alcoholic but brandy this brandy that brandy here brandy there brandy everywhere.

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A disappointing second book

Revisado: 08-22-22

In the first book we followed Wen Alder and his growth from childhood to a young adult. Time passes by and while many said the story crawled at a marginal pace, it was enjoyable. This book the pacing felt like it was snail slow as the story happens over the course of the year.

In this book we follow 3 new perspectives. I do not mind new point of views but the biggest flaw is how jarring it goes from one perspective, Wen Alder, to three new characters told from a 3rd person narrative. For some, they will find some characters incredibly boring, and others will see it as refreshing. I was the former.

We jump from Foolish Cur’s venture into a rebellion. To Hand Pinion’s perspective as he runs from The Phoenix King’s encroaching army. We get glimpses of a new witch rising on the other side of the world. Then we get 45 minute segments of Wen Alder’s former teacher, Kora Hal, exciting story of… opening a school? I found myself at 1.5x the speed or even skipping by boring segments of Kora Hal trying to teach young student just so I could jump back to Foolish Cur’s far more interesting plot. In fact, I could argue you could erase Kora Ha’s whole character arc and write his backstory in a chapter. It was that boring to me.

Foolish Cur’s character progression practically halts in this book. His intelligence is still there but is mired by self-loathing. This gets tiring after awhile. You understand his perspective, but everyone walks over him because he believes he is guilty for it all. A slight spoiler but the ending will only make him even more self-loathing in the sequel, if I decide to get book 3 I do not look forward to more self-loathing. At least Hand Pinion sees growth and Kora Ha grows more into himself.

Overall I’m just disappointed with the book. The prose is still great, the narrator is great, but the story left me disappointed. I probably will not pick up book 3. But do not let this review dissuade you from picking this book up though, maybe you will like it.

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Brandy, levers, aye

Revisado: 11-12-21

I swear every paragraph he is drinking brandy. Too many times does the author mention brandy it drives me nuts. The amount of brandy that Thomas drinks is enough to fill oceans.

The story changes, no longer is Tomas the enigmatic leader of the Pious men, he is now a queen’s men. The plot and intrigue is interesting but it is distracted by excessive exposition from Thomas. Every thought must be explained and restated later in the story.

I felt some characters also changed far too much for my liking. Billy went from strange “possessed” kid to regular teenager. His mysterious past and abilities unexplained and forgotten. Thomas went from shrewd gangster to a whipped dog. He does change in the story, but the intelligences displayed in the first two books seems nonexistent.

Overall a weak third book to the series. I hope the 4th ends up great

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Good premise but suffers from one element

Revisado: 08-14-20

A Snake's Life has a great premise and interesting world. The main character isn't too much of a dunce and side characters while one-dimensional, are interesting. However, this series suffers greatly from power-creep and differing power levels. The main character's challenges are not very challenging at all. The abilities that he obtains and his growth are almost exponential. The powerful beings in the world are almost God's in terms of power compared to the average human (or elf).

If you want a story where the main character literally eats his way through the plot with no challenges, anime tier dialogue/descriptions, and insane power-creep this is for you. It's not a bad book, it's just unmemorable in the plethora of litrpgs that are churned out monthly.

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esto le resultó útil a 12 personas

Interesting but not interesting

Revisado: 04-01-20

I wanted to like the book, I really did. Enter the magical world of Kellen, an initiate mage who lacks any real magic. He hopes to be a mage so that he can avoid being placed in the servant class. The magic in the book is not explained that well, it consist of magic tattoo/bands that create a link between the caster and the element. The magic is controlled through a somatic gestures, will power, and incantations. There were many ways this could be explored but it just falls flat. The author does not go into any further detail and magic doesn't feel like magic, more like background noise. The book description had me believe Kellen would gain a unique new magical power and learns to control it. Instead you get little magic exploration, lot of useless running around, bullies that are so 1 dimensional it hurts to read (or hear) and a central plot that is so uninteresting I sped through it because it was dragging on.

The side characters, Rykus and Ferius were extremely disappointing. You expected some deep mystery behind them. I mean one is literally the combination of a squirrel and a cat. Instead it's just a talking, annoying, hyper-aggressive kitty.

I gave the performance 4 stars because I thought the voices were great, just a little odd. Every character had a different accent, the main character's accent was different than his parents and sister. That just seems really odd and off putting.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

A lackluster ending to a great series

Revisado: 04-09-18

I enjoyed the first two books in the series and felt that more could have been described. While book 3 was great with its storytelling I could only feel that the ending felt rushed. Some questions were left unanswered I honestly felt a little sad with how abrupt it was.

Simon Vance narrated perfectly and gave life to the characters.

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Cringey, but cool

Revisado: 03-13-17

A lot of moments in the book are really cringe worthy, it was hard for me at times to not pause or skip. The 80's references felt a little shoed in and 90% of the time I never got them. However Ernest Cline still managed to paint a vivid world full of imagination in the oasis. The egg hunt did feel thrilling and the Wil Wheaton managed to keep me in suspense on my 2 hour drives to work. If you look past the easily 1 dimensional characters, predictable plot, you have a good young teen's book. Just don't try and read to hard into it, turn your brain off and enjoy.

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