Mary Beth

Make it past the first story...

Revisado: 07-22-21

Three stories of uneven quality, although this is fairly common in any anthology. It's just unfortunately the weakest story is the first. Once you get past the long, rambling, tale read by a lackluster narrator, things do pick up. Both Anthony Head and Camille Coduri are excellent and make their stories enjoyable. When I relisten to this down the road, I'll just fast-forward past story one.

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Delightful

Revisado: 05-03-21

Another gem from Nathan Lowell. Like his Solar Clipper series, this is a low-key, gentle story focusing on character development and world building. The plot is absolutely present, and quite fulfilling in its conclusion, but it's the characters I've grown to enjoy and want to revisit. I'm very much looking forward to the sequel.

The narrator is perfect. He creates very appropriate and consistent voices and intonations for each character, which helps draw the listening into an already wonderful story. I have the ebook version and now the audible version; I find I like the audible version the best. Imminently re-listenable.

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I tried to like it

Revisado: 10-03-20

Fascinating premise, wonderful world creating, and an amazing, diverse set of primary characters. I love sci-fi, and I am always on the look out for new authors, so why was I unable to finish? The constant, unending foul language and frequent graphic sexual wording just got to be too much for my middle-aged self. I kept at it as long as I did (about half-way) in very large part due to the amazing narrator. She is incredibly gifted and gave each character his/her own accent and vocal inflections. It's an amazing performance.

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Very enjoyable

Revisado: 08-09-20

Pleasant review of the life of a minor German prince who truly left a large mark on the English speaking world courtesy of marrying Queen Victoria. The lecturer is himself British with a mellifluous voice that makes even dry facts a pleasure to listen to. I was already aware of most of what was described (yes, I'm one of those Yankees who loves British Monarchy history), but this lecture series is refreshing in its excellent organization and quick pace. Oh, and did I mention the lecturer has an awesome British accent?

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Disappointed

Revisado: 08-09-20

I love, love, love the St. Mary's series, and the main protagonist Max is my hero. I was hoping for a story along those lines with that wonderful Jodi Taylor snarky humor and amazingly talented gift with words. Well.... I didn't get it. This new series shares the same universe as St Mary's, but that's about it. The lead trio of characters simply don't mesh well. One is downright unlikable, another is boring, and the third is 'meh'. I would have walked away after the first hour except for two things: 1) The narrator Zara Ramm is drop dead amazing and could read a phone book and I'd listen, 2) I had heard rumor that some of the St Mary's gang made an appearance. At this point, I don't plan on buying a sequel unless the reviews from fellow St Mary's fans report the Jodi magic is back firmly in place.

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Disappointed

Revisado: 08-09-20

I love, love, love the St. Mary's series, and the main protagonist Max is my hero. I was hoping for a story along those lines with that wonderful Jodi Taylor snarky humor and amazingly talented gift with words. Well.... I didn't get it. This new series shares the same universe as St Mary's, but that's about it. The lead trio of characters simply don't mesh well. One is downright unlikable, another is boring, and the third is 'meh'. I would have walked away after the first hour except for two things: 1) The narrator Zara Ramm is drop dead amazing and could read a phone book and I'd listen, 2) I had heard rumor that some of the St Mary's gang made an appearance. At this point, I don't plan on buying a sequel unless the reviews from fellow St Mary's fans report the Jodi magic is back firmly in place.

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Incredible performance

Revisado: 06-22-20

Those of us of a certain age recall the wonderful, albeit at times cheesy, Classic Who episodes of the 60s-80s. Due to college obligations in a part of the US where the local PBS stations did not air Doctor Who, I missed out on the McCoy years. This is the most likely reason why this story did not engage me as much as it might have otherwise. It does fall under what I consider 'Doctor Light' given The Doctor is a supporting character, but this is not in itself a major flaw ('Blink' is one of the all time great Who stories). And the story itself is solid, and the performance is spot on. Sophie Aldred has an amazing vocal talent to sound like many different characters, keeping each distinct and believable. You can easily believe it is Jodie Whittaker is voicing her character. My problem? I didn't understand the basic reason reason for the conflict Ace holds against her Doctor. I almost stopped listening a few times, but Sophie's excellent performance kept drawing me back. I don't have much interest in listening to his particular Doctor Who story again, but I am absolutely going to seek out other stories narrated by Sophie. She is THAT good.

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Scottish accents? Really?

Revisado: 10-28-19

Wonderful story from my teen years that I was delighted to see in audible format. I have the first audiobook in the series (Arrows of the Queen), purchased years ago (with the cover image from the original book release) when it was read by another narrator who sounded much too old to be a young teenager and was very flat and lacking in much intonation. I did not buy any others of the series (even if they were available back then, I don't recall) due to the utterly lackluster performance. I was delighted to see a re-issuing of the series with updated covers. I happily started this book... only to be utterly stymied by the choice of accents. Scottish for Talia? One that sounds vaguely Australian? The BBC English for Seleney and Elspeth do make a sort of sense, and are the least jarring. And as for Alberich from Karse... shudder. The narrator herself IS good. A lovely voice that is easy to listen to, and I'll happily listen to her read another book, but not this this series. Still love the trilogy, but I'm not so sure I can endure book 3 done by this narrator.

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Fun story, atrocious editing

Revisado: 06-10-19

I very much enjoyed the premise and story. The heroine was compelling and well drawn, the supporting characters not what one expected, and all the more enjoyable for that. The narrator did a nice job with clear enunciation (I prefer when the narrator has the ability to shade his/her voice to make the characters distinct, which this narrator does not do). My main complaint is the editing, which is HORRIBLE. If possible, I would rate the overall book 3.5 stars just because of the poor editing. There are no breaks between sections, and often I was left wondering what had just happened until I realized we had jumped characters, location and/or time. I do not like to have to repeatedly back up 1-2 minutes of dialogue while exercising to replay a section to figure out what just happened (and I had to do this literally dozens of times over the length of the book). If there is any possibility of re-editing this recording to simply include brief pauses as just about every other audiobook I have does, I would rate this 5 stars. I'm interested in listening to the second in the series, but will read the reviews more cautiously this time to ensure I don't have to stumble through repeating multiple sections again.

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Good for a single read

Revisado: 10-31-18

First, I've been a fan since the 1970s and have every story, novella, and short story written by Anne McCaffrey about this wonderful world. I also have every audiobook available. Second, I'm probably one of those fans writers dread as 'nit-pickers' since I suspect I know Pern's history better than that of my own country. Saying this, I'm quite willing to cut slack for someone who writes with respect about this beloved world, and makes a good faith effort to broaden our knowledge and provide new insights into well-known characters. Unlike other reviews, it didn't bother me that Gigi picked established characters and events to write about. In fact, I greatly enjoyed the idea of looking deeper into the cracks left open during the events of The White Dragon. The very fair critique I've seen others make that there was a lot of 'talking about instead of showing' is true, but bearable as this is a first book (see 'cutting slack' above). I also quite enjoyed the hatching of the stolen queen egg as seen through Piemur's eyes.

So, what didn't I like? The liberties taken with established canon, such as casual nicknames which were never used in the canon books, and which seem just grossly out of character for such a formal society. I cringed every time Piemur was addressed as 'Pie," and calling Menolly by the shortened 'Nol' was equally cringeworthy. And while six-legged Pernese mammals might make biologic sense given the dragons physical appearance, NEVER did Anne McCaffrey describe the runner beasts as such. Having one character describe the dragons as 'designed' for their job well before this was known according to Anne's timeline is just sloppy. These are mistakes that are expected in fan fiction, but not acceptable in stories that are being put forth as cannon. A good proof-reader familiar with the original stories would have pointed things like this out in a heartbeat.

What is much more difficult to overlook is the flat characterization. Robinton is boring, Sebell is bland, and Toric was NEVER nice. Piemur is more-or-less as described in the Harper Hall series, and any differences can be chalked up to adolescence and young adulthood changes. The plot itself is adequate, but very thin, and would have been much better served in a novella, as in novel length the events of the story drag on and on and on... And the dragons! The very thing that makes Pern so beloved was where this book, for me, fell completely flat. For all Gigi has her characters recite how important the dragons are for fighting thread and for Pern's very survival, the dragons themselves on their rare appearances are uninteresting, one-dimensional creatures.

The narrator was serviceable, but did not add anything to the story. He certainly did not add any drama to what should have been intense scenes involving Sebell, Piemur and the events in Nabol.

I'm willing to read Gigi's next Pern book (if there is one) and give her storytelling another chance as it is clear to me that she respects the world her mother created. I just hope she can recapture some of the magic that her mother spun, otherwise I'll just keep rereading my well-worn, but oh-so-magical and beloved Anne McCaffrey stories.

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