Stan

Good lectures, but felt disjointed

Revisado: 09-29-16

Professor Harl's lectures were packed with great information and details. No one who listens to this series of lectures will come away from them saying the lecturer lacked knowledge about the Vikings.

All of the information was communicated in a very clear and easy to understand voice, however the lectures were densely packed with information loosely organized in a chronological manner, and sometimes organized in a geographical manner. Unfortunately, this format made it difficult to absorb the information.

Professor Harl would often mention a historical figure by name, and then say "we'll talk more about that person in a later lecture" or "who I mentioned in a previous lecture." This left me scrambling to try to remember the name for later reference or to recall what was said about the individual from a previous lecture. In a classroom atmosphere with books and my notes available, this would have worked just fine. But as an audio-only lecture listened to while commuting or exercising, it didn't work out well as a way for me to mentally organize the material.

While I deeply appreciate the depth of Professor Harl's knowledge and his stick-to-the-facts presentation, at times it seemed as if I was just being read a list of facts. I believe the lectures would have felt more cohesive and it would have been easier to mentally organize and better-retain the material if there had been some minor adjustments to the presentation.

If this was to be re-recorded, or for organizing future lectures of this nature, I would recommend watching organization and pacing a little better in order to make the lectures fit a more clear timeline. I would also recommend rather than simply saying "we'll talk about this person later," or "I mentioned this person before," it would be incredibly helpful to have some anecdote or stand-out fact about the individual to assist with recall. Sometimes a name just isn't enough.

Overall, I enjoyed the lectures and believe I came away with a better overall understanding of the Vikings. I think it would be wonderful to have a series of Great Courses from Professor Harl, with this course serving as a general overview of the Vikings, and the other courses focusing in greater detail on certain geographical areas. "Vikings in Scandinavia," "Vikings in England," "Vikings in Iceland," "Vikings in France," etc. With what was presented in this course, it seems as if Professor Harl has the depth of knowledge necessary to create some great in-depth courses of this nature, which would help decompress and broaden listeners' knowledge and understanding of the material he presented in this course.

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A Great Collection of Novellas

Revisado: 04-20-16

I can't lie, I have become a huge fan of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books, so after finishing A Dance with Dragons I looked for more while I wait for The Winds of Winter, and found A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Going into this book with the highest of expectations, I was not disappointed.

I wasn't sure what to anticipate from an audio book in the ASoIF world that wasn't read by Roy Dotrice, but found myself pleasantly surprised by Harry Lloyd's immersive narration.

Lloyd's reading was excellent at making me forget I was listening to a book and allowing me to simply enjoy the story. The narration is strong and clear with the exception of the "mumbling" a handful of other reviewers have noted. Personally, that didn't bother me at all, as these were brief, infrequent and in-character for Ser Duncan. It was very natural for the character being voiced. Lloyd did an excellent job of giving these characters a voice.

As a fan of George R. R. Martin's writing style, I loved this book. t would make an excellent read for younger audiences who may not be ready for the ASoIF novels.

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A fantastic story with few audiobook shortcomings

Revisado: 07-15-15

This was a beautifully crafted book that was engaging from the first chapter and grew moreso throughout. As soon as I finish writing this review I will be purchasing the second book of the series.

I nearly gave this book a 5-star rating, even clicked to 5 stars several times before settling on four. The book was perfectly written for an adult audience, and very well told, both with George R. R. Martin's writing and the gruff, expressive voice of Roy Dotrice narrating. However, there were shortcomings in the audiobook that at times made me want to rush to a store and buy the paper book to re-read passages on my own. In the first few hours of listening there were many times when I became somewhat lost by the introduction of new characters, something which wouldn't have happened if I were reading the book on my own. Having such a large cast of characters makes it difficult to keep track of by ear alone.

However, Dotrice's reading gave the characters enough personality to their voices that after awhile I was able to sort them out easily enough, and over time I came to easily recognize the characters and learn new ones without a problem, even if I went a week or more without listening to any portion of the book.

As other reviews have noted, Dotrice's reading does lack in range, as his range does not cover youth well and characters in their teens and twenties are given voices and pacing that make them sound as if they're middle aged or older. This can make for a bumpy road at times as I found myself struggling to recall at times to recall the rough ages of each character. Dotrice's reading can also lead to inconsequential misunderstandings, such as my initial thought that he was saying "milk of the puppy" in reference to a medicinal painkiller rather than the actual words, "milk of the poppy."

These, combined with a few minor audio and editing issues in the last half of the book were what cost it that fifth star. All are very minor things that taken by themselves wouldn't have been any problem at all, but taken together, added up just enough to make me think that just a little more care should have been put into this production.

Despite the very minor flaws that kept this from being five stars across the board, I highly recommend this book. It has an engaging world that leaves you wanting to learn more, thrilling storlylines that answer enough questions to keep you interested while leaving enough mysteries to make your mind feast on the possibilities of how all the plots and subplots tie together. The characters make you want to smile and laugh along with them in their victories, to put your arm around them and cry with them at their defeats, and to at times you just want to smack them across the back of the head and make them see common sense.

I went into this audiobook figuring that I wanted to listen to a decent portion of it before I started viewing the HBO series. Now that I have finished the first book, I still haven't seen any of the TV series, and find myself just wanting to continue with the story by getting down to the next book, and if I happen to start watching the series as well, so be it. But if the books continue to be as engaging as this one was, I'll be perfectly satisfied to continue my journey in George R. R. Martin's world through the book series.

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Very good reading

Revisado: 04-30-12

Templar One is a very good book for anyone with a tacit interest in the EVE Online universe. It does help to know a little bit about EVE's lore in order to have a little background knowledge about some people and organizations, but that isn't absolutely vital. It also helps, but is not vital, to have read the previous two EVE books--The Empyrean Age and The Burning Life since there are minor tie-ins with those books.

This book is a perfect read for anyone who knows a bit (or more) about the current EVE Online universe and is interested in learning more about the backstory for the upcoming Dust 514 game that is upcoming.

One nice thing about the physical book was that it had QR codes scattered about with some minor supplementary videos to give a visual representation of some of the ships and such involved. They're absolutely unnecessary, but kinda cool. It would be nice for those who don't own the physical book if the audiobook came with a list of those URLs and appropriate timecodes at which to look at them.

Sean Runnette does a very satisfactory job with this material.

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