CulinaryCatastrophe

A delight

Revisado: 04-11-25

Fry has such a good storytelling style, it's always a pleasure to listen to his narration. His delivery lent the perfect fireside atmosphere to the stories.

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A Very Special Episode

Revisado: 04-10-25

It's the after-school special on rape culture. Prepare for familiar cast members to act completely out of character in order to shoehorn in inane misunderstandings as prelude to moral grandstanding.

I sympathize with the challenge the narrator faced here, but her tone given the material was often extremely jarring. Disconcerting to hear a mother using victim-blaming arguments to assure her daughter she won't be sexually assaulted in the same amused tone she might say, "There are no purple monsters under your bed."

Shoddy treatment of Vespasia in order to make her "more vulnerable" and therefore, apparently, a better romantic interest for the increasingly ambiguously aged Narroway.

The series has gone downhill since the introduction of Special Branch.

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Flat characters, emotions, and humor

Revisado: 01-16-23

Narrator: You don't need to be breathy, voice breaking and on the verge of tears for the *entire* book. Hold some of it back, my dude, so the key moments have some impact.

It's a serviceable story, but the emotional beats are unearned, and the attempts at humor needed help. If someone's gonna laugh till they cry, try to write a halfway decent joke for them to react to. Laugh tracks are less effective in prose.

Major characters just infodump their entire backstories and psychological profiles, generally not because of any organic intimacy with the protagonist, but because the author wants you to know which stock characters you're dealing with and hasn't the time to faff about with development. The romantic chemistry doesn't take off. The most believable relationship is between the protagonist and the love-interest's grandfather, which seems accidental on the author's part.

The tear-jerker moments aren't intense, but they hit because the human condition does the heavy lifting. An insurance ad featuring a grieving mother would have more impact than the canned grief slapped onto the page here because at least there would be more showing than telling.

I'll ding it a few extra points for copious redundant adverbs and the weak anti-cat lines. But why leave out any cliches, eh?

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Rough around the edges

Revisado: 11-17-22

Not as strong as the last two books. Structure-wise, the story tries to end twice before finally managing it. There are a distractingly high number of grammatical errors that would have been caught by any competent proofreader. Doesn't feel like a final draft, but the narrative voice is enjoyable as always.

The reader flubs intonation in some places that make it sound like this is his first time reading the book, but studio time is expensive, and in the gig economy, whaddyagonnado. (I mean, you could pay your readers more so they can afford to read it once beforehand and do retakes, but...)

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Dragaeran fun despite the stiff narrator

Revisado: 09-15-22

For a first-time read, I'd recommend going with the text version if you can. Clark's narration style is so grave, his enunciation so fanatically precise, he sounds like he's being held at knife-point by his elocution teacher. Not the best match for the tone or diction of a wise-cracking noir assassin talking about shining punks. From book to book, and sometimes within a single book, characters change regional accents for no apparent reason (I assume the narrator forgot what accents he'd previously used). The voice he settles on for Loiosh sounds like Peter Lorre, though, which is fun.

The narration is not a dealbreaker, especially if you already know the series, but you might have a better time doing the voices yourself if it's your first foray into Vlad's world. (And if you haven't been to Dragaera before, start with The Phoenix Guards. The reader is excellent.)

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Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Revisado: 09-15-22

The book itself is good, although the tone is quite a departure from the previous books, since the narrator isn't Vlad. Clark, the audiobook reader, is... fine... same problems as before persist, but I can't stop laughing over Clark intoning "Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la" with all the gravity of a satanic ritual. The falsetto for the POV character begins to grate after a while, too...

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These audio versions are making my month

Revisado: 08-11-22

It can't be easy to translate Paarfi's style with all its asides into good verbal comedic timing, but Stillwell does an excellent job. Loved the book, love the audiobook. It's been a pleasure revisiting the world in this form.

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For those who delight in a well-turned phrase

Revisado: 07-30-22

I read the book 15 or 20 years ago and loved it. I had been wanting to reread and recently found the audiobook. After some initial adjustment to hearing the names outside my head for the first time, I thoroughly enjoyed the reader's performance, and look forward to the rest of the series.

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A pleasure. Hope to get the sequel soon.

Revisado: 05-29-22

Witty, engaging sci-fi noir detective story with a queer protagonist. Lovely to read one of my favorite styles of adventure with queer text rather than subtext. I really need answers about one plot thread in particular, so... sequels, please. Rigby's delivery is also very easy on the ears.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona