SS1983

Drunk is just an idiot.

Revisado: 02-02-25

Where in previous novels in the series, Daniel Terrance Drunk was a lovable foolish man who always managed to succeed thanks to great friends, charm, and really a little bit of luck. What I always loved about the series was the lack of 'plot armor' and that Drunk wasn't a total moron. In this one...well he is the worst thing a protagonist can be, clueless and stubborn.

Performance is very good, considering the borderline dribble that counts as dialogue. Took me three attempts to finish listening to the story. Not anywhere near as good as the previous three books in the series.

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Stupid Tax is painful. Where is the humor?

Revisado: 04-10-24

This series was recommended to me by people who knew my fondness for The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. Now, that is indeed high praise, perhaps the highest of praise. So I was skeptical. However I bought and listened. The Narrator, Nicola Bryant, does a fantastic job with the performance, however Mike Shackle's series is not like The First Law. Indeed it is dark, very dark. His characters' arcs are complete. Yet, they have almost no humor to them. They are a drain to listen or read. Where Abercrombie's are far more realistic with their ability to cope with stress, despair, and loss, Shackle's are just, 'meh'.

The characters are stupid...very stupid. Some of the dialogue is just as dumb, some of the dialogue is wonderful, but this is rare. It would be pardonable if they ALL were not so dim. I tried to like it, I wanted to like it, but alas I could not bring myself to enjoy the story no matter what was happening. Mainly due to the fact that what the outcome always was... by an large it was always failure. Not the 'chance to learn and grow' kind, rather the useless and painful kind. Pain for pain's sake was the most consistent theme that I took out of the story, especially the first two books. As a Historian and a combat veteran I am aware of that side of war and humanity, yet there is also a since of comradery and humor that develops, which is known as "Trauma Bonding", Shackle's characters display almost none of this.

Shackle's characters seem to lack any identity of the fantasy world he created. They are written as a current western civilization character being placed in an ever increasing horror filled environment where everything goes wrong because they are too stupid to recognize what should be done. Nearly all of the character's are annoying and endlessly complaining about almost the exact same things. Some subtle differences really helped me push through the second book, but that was about it.
So in closing, I will say that if you have not read or listened to The First Law, do so, however, listen or read this first. It might be good to you and you might like the work and not catch the major issues that I had with it. Great concept for story and characters, truly remarkable, but very poorly imagined vision/interpretation of how humanity varies in dealing with loss and hard times. Ultimately, the characters ruin the story for me, but I may be just too spoiled by certain authors.

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Jessica Threet to the rescue?

Revisado: 04-01-24

J.D. is one of the most annoying characters I have ever found to be the "hero". He is self-righteous and blathers on like some lost idiot who constantly struggles to motivate himself and to understand that he is different and that he is in a different world. J.D. actually lectures numerous species about humanity, which is really stupid of his character, if you think about that for a moment.
Cassius Lange actually writes J.D. with massive plot armor and basically says it repeatedly, so no real threat ever faces him or his team. This completely destroys the interplay and any real development. The foreshadowing screams at the reader nearly 10 hours before the actual plot payoff, Then there is the audiobook performance, I had to play at 1.2 speed to keep from cringing at every long drawn out South Cali. drawl from Gabriel Michael. Threet, as per usual, does a great job with her voices and makes the story listenable. I usually finish these books in one or two days, I struggled to finish the book, (5 days). While I am curious where the story may lead, I am reminded who wrote it and I doubt I will spending any credits on the future installments. Great concept, very poorly developed. Very disappointed.

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Crap...

Revisado: 03-28-24

I settled in to listen to a story and ended up only making it about 2 hours in before I was too insulted by the horrid writing. The performers try, but the writing is just that bad. What little I got of the story caused the characters to sound like they were created by a simpleton. Garbage character setup and an even worse presentation of the setting.

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Great Series... so far

Revisado: 03-27-24

Look, I normally hate LitRPG, it seems to always start with the MC being too powerful and too free to explore the unrealistic options presented before them. The humor in LitRPGs far too often falls flat and you rarely finish two chapters without having to convince yourself to continue reading. However, this series is a massive exception. While some of the same cliched tropes follow this story, it is funny when it needs to be and, actually had me concerned in a few areas for the characters of the story. Each of the MC's groups has a distinctive voice and tone. Fayeth is my favorite, along with Crimson. The whole premise is somewhat believable and except for one scene in the second book, I was always curious about how the characters would interact with each other. The plot is better than most LitRPG novels and as I said before, the humor lands more often than not in my opinion. I am definitely a new fan of the series but finished all four books in less than three weeks. I truly believe that Bruce Sentar should focus on finishing this series and maybe even build upon it with a series of prequels concerning the MC's parents and grandparents, or even Crimson's back story somewhat. As I said, the plot is better than many of this genre. Can't wait for the others in this series.

The narration is the same clean audio with the same tone that Lewis Alexander always brings, so nothing too great, but not bad either. Rozelyn Rader's performance however manages to capture each of the characters she performs very well and something an oddity in this genre. Wonderfully done by her and something I look forward to hearing her narrate other types of stories.

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Stupidly Good!

Revisado: 01-31-24

Ken Follett at what I believe is his best. The story is gripping and wonderfully paced. The narration by Samuel West is on par with the writing and perfectly paced as well. No complaints from me, if you do not know Ken Follet and you were only allowed one, I would tell you to pick this one.

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What a confused narrator can ruin.

Revisado: 06-09-23

As a huge fan and Abercrombie's previous works, the story is no less as good, though the characters are not to my liking as Ninefingers and Glokta were. The narrator seemed to not understand how to actually tell a story. While I understand not using Pacey, Keating is just confusing. I have little to no idea if the narrator is speaking dialogue or internal dialogue. His cadence is just a steady boring beat that does not lend itself to the action. One positive is that there are differing voices for the characters, but again, Keating keeps the same pace and it takes away from the story. It is almost as if he is reading the menu at some abysmal restaurant, everything sounds just blah and unlikable. I may have to just buy these and read them myself.

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Really?

Revisado: 03-27-22

Okay, so the narrator was a little uneven in the way he performed "some, of, the, dialogue, of the, story." With the story being as poorly written as it was I do not know if it was the narrator's or the writer's error that really harmed the performance. In book three the narrator's performance does improve enough to warrant me not avoiding any of his future works. The story itself was basic and blase. Some of the villains of the story were actually well-conceived and kept mysterious, but again I am unsure if this is intentional or just a happy accident. All the other development around the main character and his dialogue was so ill-conceived that I got a distinct feeling that a sheltered 14-year-old was the writer. The chief theme of the story seemed to be nothing more than a quest of processing and reacting with no insight or true reflection being considered beyond that of the "writer's purpose". in other words, the story rambled along without any sign of dignity or intelligence. With all that negativity said, the concept of the story was actually nice and though the world lacked any real detail it did border on being believable. I can not help but believe the author made the mistake of assuming that his audience was allowed into his mind as he wrote. So I do believe he missed out on a nice opportunity to expand upon this world. While I did not believe this was a series that would make a best-sellers list, I was unprepared for the letdown that it ultimately became. In conclusion, I do not believe that Jack Porter, the author, understands human beings, which is something of an issue for a writer who is writing about them.

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A must...

Revisado: 07-13-21

Performance:
John C Reily was an unexpected and delightful choice to narrate this story. His pace was nice and on point for the moments. While not the greatest narrator I have ever heard, he is well above the mediocre ones.

Story: If you have only seen the terrific movie, then you must experience the book. The story is roughly the same in many areas, but the words of Chief and the realities of the ward let my heart feeling a little darker. Also, the "combine" is something that can be seen today in 2021 and his words serve as a warning. Truly haunting and gracefully painful.

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Boring and predictable

Revisado: 07-12-21

I hoped for a story that would harken back to the Noir stories that I have loved for decades. Instead, this was garbage character development, predictable storyline, and just boring. The narration was solid, but hard to make something as boring as reading a phonebook sound entertaining. My verdict is this is something that you should pass up without a second thought.

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