Dan Spengler

miscast voice actor

Revisado: 09-04-20

Story is great, voice actor struggles with female, feminine and accented characters due to a very deep voice.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Best among few options

Revisado: 01-31-18

I recommend this only because it's the only unabridged version of the monolith of the fantasy genre. The text is so great that it deserves to be read in its entirety, and the other dramatized versions edit out huge swathes of text.

The credits I'll give Rob Inglis (the narrator) are that most of the major characters are given recognizable voices, and he sings Tolkien's songs in a style very appropriate to the genre rather than simply reading the lyrics. I'm curious who developed the melodies of the songs, as they're all very distinct.

Unfortunately, the direction and production are pretty poor. While the songs are a surprise and delight, they're also a pretty minor part of the text. The dialog is frequently delivered in a weary, placid manner. Inglis is clearly not trained in voice acting or narration. He has poor breath control and takes frequent pauses in the middle of lines to take breaths,which are very audible on the recording as distracting, hissing inhalations. Someone in the production team should have caught that.

This book deserves a better recording.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Interesting for its influence, not quality

Revisado: 06-26-17

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Depends on the friend's tastes. I'd heard about the book for a long time before deciding to give it a listen, knowing it had influenced both Dungeons and Dragons, as well as one of my favorite obscure books that I read in high school.

The writing is pretty terrible, of the sort where it's clear that the author keeps his thesaurus close at hand. The names of people and places are silly gobbledygook, and rarely replaced with pronouns. Vance in particular writes with a stiffly formal excess of semicolons and a complete lack of apostrophes (about halfway through, I started listening for contractions, and I don't recall hearing a single one). It makes for the kind of laughably cheesy writing that post-Tolkien fantasy became infamous for. It often brings to mind the kinds of scenes you used to see on blacklight posters or airbrushed on the sides of old vans.

That said, the setting is interesting. The far future, with the sun slowly guttering out, provides a bleak setting that isn't often used in fantasy or sci fi. It provides a suitable reason for the barrenness of the world you so often find in fantasy, which is often hard to reconcile in a verdant setting full of functioning magic. The sections containing ancient cities full of long forgotten technology are chilling reminders of how fragile society is, and how easily we could collapse into an age of ignorance.

So really, not something worth looking at if you want a gripping story or polished writing, but if you want to see where a lot of more recent genre stuff was formed and you get a kick out of things like Mystery Science Theater and have a penchant for things so bad they're good, you might find something to enjoy here.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Not one ending, it's a collection of short stories.

Which scene was your favorite?

The scene with the magic flute. It was obvious what was happening, but it still had a good creepy vibe to it.

Did The Dying Earth inspire you to do anything?

No it didn't.

Any additional comments?

Read Nifft the Lean. It was directly influenced by this, but is better written and more nightmarish in tone.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña