Vowels

the novel was okay

Revisado: 03-19-24

I miss the original narrator, though this one does okay, even if, half the time, she sounds like she's got a wad of gum in her mouth. The audio quality sometimes was in and out.

The story was okay. I think Ell is too smart to participate in a proxy war for the USA, and that it is weird that she doesn't publicly support political candidates, but yet she's willing to be politically engaged in someone else's war. Also, I bet she could've stopped the war by just offering Russia an exchange deal of some sort with D5R.

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Enjoyable SF series!

Revisado: 02-15-24

If Lawrence Dahners' Ell Donsaii series and John Ringo's Troy Rising series had a child, this would be it, lol. The author obviously likes a few other series I like, too, based on what titles get name-dropped in the prose.

The characters are interesting and are all easily identifiable. I love "rising power/status quo disturber" type stories and this fit the bill pretty well. I did find it weird that the protag seemed to be as emotionally mature as he was intelligent, but not enough to break my enjoyment in the listen.

The narrator did a great job. He made all the characters distinct and had a measured rhythm and pace that he maintained throughout the novel. In fact, I've listened to all the available novels in this series on Audible and he was great throughout all of them. I might look him up to see if he did other novels.

Over the years, I've developed something of a critical ear for political leanings in other people's writings, and I was very entertained while noting which names and brand names got dropped, during the story, and which ones did not. Some of his views are fairly obvious, but I'll let the listener decide for themselves where the author is at on the political spectrum. I don't think anyone should fear that politics will ruin the story for anyone...the author is fairly careful to avoid outright declarations.

Enjoy this novel, and the sequels. :)

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

A surprisingly awesome novel!

Revisado: 03-21-23

I was surprised at how well I enjoyed this book. In this day and age of independent publishing and over-inflated numbers of novel offerings, I assumed that this one would be another read-and-forget. I was wrong.

The characters are all well designed and many of them demonstrate character development, often inspired by the protagonist. The protagonist is, despite her foreknowledge of events, a flawed individual and while her experiences from her previous timeline inform her decisions and actions in the new timeline, I never get the impression that she runs around being perfect because she's already been a long-lived adult. There are periods where it *seems* like she has all the answers, and then it eventually gets demonstrated that she missed something, or didn't think something through, and the author also demonstrates how she learns from her mistakes, but not always perfectly and occasionally getting the wrong lesson out of things. The protagonist starts out as an emotionally stunted person, and the way she learns to make and enjoy connections with other people in her "do over" is heartbreaking in many ways, but also very compelling.

I saw someone make a "Mary Sue" reference, and while it does feel like the author self-inserted to some extent--and almost BLATANTLY TELLS US THAT IS WHAT'S GOING ON--the other elements common to the so-called "Mary Sue" trope appear to be absent. The protagonist does not perfectly fix everything and do everything. She pushes herself to focus and fix her situation, and has to constantly redirect herself to stay on track, and then deal with consequences she can't foresee. She literally fails an environment awareness check at a critical moment and nearly loses everything she had achieved in the new go-around. This novel seems, to me, to be the actual goblin story that the protagonist is in the process of writing, minus the fantasy elements other than time travel.

While this may be written for a young adult audience, it does not read like one, other than limits on topics better left to adults. The adults are adults, the kids are kids, and the protagonist, despite having an extra 60 years of real life experience, has all the limitations of any other 13 year old girl when it comes to how adults treat her and control her life. The protagonist even comments on the differences between her life and that of the average young adult character.

I was very impressed and urge more readers to pick this one up. :)

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Fun "Crafter-Reincarnater-OP Protag-Harem" Story

Revisado: 01-12-23

I about spit out my drink when I heard the narrator's choice for Aria's voice, lol. I've reread this series every time a new book came out, and I would have NEVER guessed a southern belle accent would be used for Aria, rofl. Admittedly, she's chosen a number of odd choices for accents for various chars, but she has always made them interesting. :)

Like all harem stories, there are a few unbelievable elements at work to provide justification for why a group of people--ANY people--would be able to manage a poly-amorous relationship of this size without destroying each other, but at least they all chose to be brainwashed into behaving with each other, unlike a number of other stories in the same genre, heh.

In any case, the story IS entertaining, both in the protag's continuing development and his attempts to deal with women constantly throwing themselves at him, and while reading/listening to his progress in adapting modern Earth concepts to a magical society.

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Excellent novel, audio stuff needs work

Revisado: 10-28-22

The author, undoubtedly, would never remember this, but I got his autograph at a S/F convention during the late 80's. It was most likely his influence which eventually started me on the path toward critically thinking, about anything. I have often found it amusing, while reading his novels, to realize he is using the teaching+entertainment tactics on me that his characters talk to each other about in several of his novels.

Despite this novel being published slightly after I was born, in the late 60's, it has aged relatively well. There are certain references to technology that is now old, and a lack of some technological items we're familiar with, that injects a smidgen of dissonance while reading--I can think of a number of places where current technology (for 2022) would have made it easier or completely solved problems for the protagonist--but the plot is good, you learn a few things about styles of government and what leads up to their institution, and the good guy wins in the end. And the occasional puns and other bits of dry humor are always awesome.

I did laugh at the end of this re-reading, though, when I realized that the protag, after discussing with other characters the supreme importance of using telepaths as the answer to instant long-distance communications between the stars...sends off a "warp comm" message to his organization that results in one sent back--complete with a decision that was most likely created by a committee--in under a minute of narration. I never caught that before, and I have no idea if that was intentional or not, or if I'm just too amused at my own cleverness. It is possible that it was intended for the reader to understand that the warp message was sent to somewhere relatively local, while the desperately needed telepaths were intended for comm between, say, here and 100 light years away or something, resulting in a message that took months to arrive. I just found it funny.

I listed to the audiobook version, this time. I wasn't pleased with the voices being set at individual volumes, and I think all the added sound effects were more distracting than helpful. Despite that, I am also irritated that there are no other novels of the series in audiobook form.

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Great novel from a great author

Revisado: 01-28-21

This has to be one of the most common-sensical, tragic, and heart-warming approaches to the vampire legend I've ever read or listened to. I really wish the author hadn't passed away not long after publishing this, as I'd really like to read more stories based on the premise. This story seems to have many layers which appealed to me. It addressed and portrayed unusual relationships, cultural baggage, loss, triumph--often loss and triumph were intermixed--love, difficulties in getting past appearances and personal paradigms, courage under immense pressure, evil, complacence, duty, and sense of duty. It is a complex story from a complex author, but without the author talking down to the reader, and well worth the read. There were a number of social and psychological lessons to be appreciated here, though the story does not appear to be written primarily as a message-novel. In addition, the narrator was excellent. I enjoyed her voice(s) and her narration was fluid enough and passionate enough that I often forgot I was listening to someone read the story. I'll be looking for more of her work. :)

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Well written, awesomely narrated

Revisado: 10-26-20

Great story, for the most part, and the narrator was/is one of my favorites and delivered awesomely, as always.

I did have issues with some of the character development, as it seems that one person in our romantic pair appeared to have to grow and overcome emotional issues to get anywhere, and the other woman basically just let it happen and then threw a tantrum at the first sign she might not get everything she wanted, failed to communicate, then threw her girlfriend out of her life for failing to immediate acquiesce to demands to get over her fears THIS MINUTE...and then got everything she wanted, later, without any effort on her part. Honestly, on further thought, this was realistic for many couples, but it left me feeling that our romantic couple weren't going to last more than a year or two, by which point the giving, growing, and more self-aware woman would eventually figure out how much more effort she was putting out. The imbalance left me feeling like it really wasn't the happy ending I'd hoped for them, and that our wedding planner was going to get wrecked again, just like her first marriage.

I still liked the story, though, and I have generally liked Georgia Beers' works, so I'd still recommend it to others. I loved how she worked in references to many of the various romantic stories I've enjoyed in the past, and used them to further her story.

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Gave me something to think about

Revisado: 04-04-19

This novel was fairly well written. I enjoyed the characters, and the flow of the story kept me wanting to know what would happen next. The whole idea of people being asexual was a bit weird for me, even though I'd run into it in a web series I'd watched, a while ago. I have trouble not thinking of asexual people as being handicapped or having suffered psychological trauma to put them in that state. I suppose that I find a naturally occurring asexuality to be unlikely, considering it's not something likely to be passed on through genes, for obvious reasons. I will say, though, that this story made me think differently about relationships in general, and I like novels that give me something different to think about. I actually found myself semi-analyzing my own relationships to see how they held up, with different standards of intimacy, and whatnot. I'm grateful to the author for giving me a new way to look at things. Also, the narrator was really good...hoping to hear more from her.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Couldn't stop listening!

Revisado: 03-31-19

I have to admit, this is one of the best novels I've ever listened to, or read. I was surprised, but very pleased. Usually, romance novels, of whatever stripe, tend to be "light reading," where the plot is merely a casual vehicle to get two romantic possibilities together, but this felt different. The journey along the Oregon trail felt real. The characters were all complex, interesting, and developing, throughout the entire novel. The narrator was very good, and was careful to use different voices for every character, adding to the immersion. She seemed to mispronounce a few words, here and there, but there wasn't any stumbling and I figured out what she was saying easily enough, so it didn't interfere with the experience much. For all I know, perhaps she just used less-used pronunciations, so that may be on me. In any case, I was happy with her performance overall, and look forward to further productions she is involved with. Overall, for the novel and audiobook...I was very impressed! I couldn't put it down.

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It's just...boring

Revisado: 02-14-19

I've spent a lot of time being a die-hard fan of David Weber, but I just haven't been able to really get into this book or the last. Too many main characters. Too much political bullshit and not enough character-oriented story. Not enough HONOR HARRINGTON. I get that he's trying to show us a bigger picture and how complicated a universe it is, but that's not what attracted me to the series in the first place. The narrator is a pretty awesome, and does well in creating all the different voices as different and interesting, and I enjoy listening. I just couldn't focus enough to follow along, and kept having to back up and listen again. Finally, I just gave up. I think I made it to a third of the way through, and just wasn't interested anymore. He really does seem to put a hell of a lot of effort into this novels, so I hope others enjoy it more than I did, but I think I'm done with Weber, except for the earlier works that mattered to me, which I'll probably still re-read and re-listen to, from time to time.

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