Sluggalot

Enough with the poo jokes

Revisado: 01-08-18

This book is for anyone who used to play D&D.. and has the sense of humour of a twelve year old. Ok, one or two fart, poop, snot or 'ya mom' jokes in a book I can live with. But this is constant. It's too much. It gets in the way of the story which is actually a fun, nostalgic and sometimes a creative romp through a "real life" D&D scenario. But the toilet humour lets the book down for me. So much that I don't think I can bear with listening to another one of the series even though the cliffhanger ending left me completely curious about what happens next. Some good editing could have saved this story and made it great, but as it is... urg.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Good story, disappointing performance.

Revisado: 04-27-17

It actually took me a while to be brave enough to purchase this book. Many friends have recommended me Robin Hobb's work but when I listened to the samples I just didn't think I could bear the narration.
I normally prefer books narrated with a British presenter, but as this book is written in a first person style the performance is spoken in a horrible upper-class English accent. H's are dropped ehverywhhere (!). Which is a shame because most of the other characters in this book are performed quite well and that's actually what makes the book ok to listen to.
The story is solid. A growing-up up story for the most part about a boy making his way in court as a royal bastard. And a few little adventures with a bit of court intrigue at the end. You can tell the author is just setting the scene for what's to come.
It's well written and the characters are multi-dimensional and interesting. Overall I enjoyed it - yes would have been better with a different narrator but it didn't completely ruin it for me.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Very satisfying

Revisado: 03-07-17

I really enjoyed this book. It starts out quite slowly but all the little details are wound very carefully into the storyline of the book. Events and characters are always there for a purpose and not just to bulk out the book.

Set in a fantasy world, the story is about a war veteran, Caz, who returns from war and hardship to royal court and becomes involved in the political intrigues that surround the royal family. He discovers the royal family have had a curse laid upon them for many generations which has resulted in many disasters and continues within the younger children of the family. Caz must endeavour to free the family of the curse before it taints the rule of the next generation.

This book has an unusual magic system in that all magic comes into the world through the 5 gods. So it is not so much magic as miracles and curses. The author has done a great job with this system. She makes the gods believable but not part of the everyday world. The gods are still marvels - aloof and capricious. But from time to time they step in and work their will through humans willing to open their souls to the divine.

The author also does a fantastic job with character and plot development. If you are after a lot of action and magic in your fantasy this book is probably not for you. But if you are after a really good story with many interesting characters I encourage you to give this a try. There is a little violence, but nothing at all gory or gratuitous. Romance plays only a small part with no actual sex scenes.

I had a little bit of an issue with the narrator. I'm Australian so the American accent came through really strongly to me. It's not a bad reading but I kept thinking he made Caz sound like a cowboy from a western because of it. He also wasn't great with the womens voices. But probably this performance would be fine for an American audience.

Overall, highly recommended!

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Where you all listening to the same book as me?

Revisado: 10-09-16

I really don't understand the positive reviews of this book. It's truly one of the worst books I've listened to.

The characters are either stamped good guys or bad guys. And don't expect any surprises or plot twists because the author tells you exactly what his characters are going to do before they do it.

The author takes a lot of pleasure in really making sure you understand his main bad guy is bad. Hence lots of rape scenes that are really unnecessary. Also some terribly written sex scenes between 'good' characters that go on for way too long and just become awkward to the point of nausea.

This book is so long. And not in a good way. And it has more endings than the lord of the rings. Just when you think the book should finish.. Nope 10 more hours to go! It also doesn't build pace, it just peters out and you're left thinking 'I went through all that for nothing??!'

Also, although I love medieval history - which is why I wanted to read the book - it feels like the author what's to lecture you half the time on medieval life. So as interesting as medieval monastery and town planning is, along with crop rotation, stone carving techniques, felting, baking.. Etc etc etc it really really slows down the story to the point of boredom.

I want 40 hours of my life back..

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Liked it, but slightly disappointed

Revisado: 10-20-13

This is the first book by Patrick Rothfuss I have read. Rupert Degas made this story an absolute joy to listen to.

Without giving to much away, the story is split into two, with Kvothe the mighty hero recounting his story of his path to becoming a hero to listeners in the present day. The action that happens in the present day is just as interesting, if not more so than the main bulk of the book - which is the tale of Kvothe growing up, discovering 'sympathy' (magic), becoming orphaned, living rough as a street kid before going to a university for arcanists and then having a short adventure with his love interest.

Rothfuss writes this typical hero story in an unusual way. Kvothe our hero, seems very mysterious in the present day - full of darkness and brooding. In recounting his tale he turns our mysterious hero into a very human character. One full of flaws and common worries and concerns. Half the book seems to be made up of Kvothe worrying about where he will find money to pay for his tuition and trying to impress a girl.

While there is a part of me that appreciates this honesty, I feel that this book could easily have been edited to half it's length and been just as interesting. Also, while you can easily anticipate things building up to future adventures and climaxes, nothing much really happens in the book. Seriously. And the little adventure that happens at the end seems kind of thrown in just to try and round off the first book.

Having said all this, Degas's performance made me not want to stop listening. Seriously one of the best audiobook performances ever. The substance he gave to all the characters was just amazing. I will definitely buy the next book and as I am the kind of person who listens to books more than once will probably give it another listen, but I am hoping that the story picks up in pacing and gets better in the next two books.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Just a bit too silly.

Revisado: 07-20-13

This is the first book I've listened to by Nick Harkaway and I didn't really know what to expect. The story is so ridiculous that I'm having trouble para-phrasing it. It's the story of a watch/clockwork maker (Joe) who gets embroiled in events that his crazy genius grandmother began when she embarked on a personal mission to make the world a better place through some kind of never really explained soundwaves (?) that mechanical bee's make when released into the world.

Joe gets thrown into a lot of different situations while being hunted down by various authorities and organisations and there is also a lot of background story about Joe's grandmother's lesbian lover (Edie) who happens to be a secret agent of some kind. This is to give the history of the mechanical devices and some background history of the characters. However the main problem I have with the story is that Joe is really hard to emphathise with. He's not an interesting character even though a lot of stuff happens to him. So I ended up not really caring whether he lived or died. And bizarrely his character changes with about a quarter to the book to go and he transforms into a gun waving gangster boss that his deceased father used to be. This shift doesn't endear him to me in any way nor did it's abruptness seem all that plausible.

I also found the writing style to be a bit awkward. It didn't seem to flow as well as some writers do. I am quite fond of Terry Pratchett books and I like fantasy and fiction. I think that Angelmaker could have been quite good if the way his characters reacted to events were a bit more believable and the listener could empathise with them more.

The performance of the book was really good and probably the main reason why I finished listening to it.

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Interesting food history

Revisado: 05-05-13

As a fan of the two fat ladies and deeply interested in the lost arts of the kitchen I really wanted to give this book a go and I did enjoy it.

Clarissa gives a good run-through of English cuisine starting from Medieval times. It is quite fascinating what she has to say and listening to some of the recipes she has un-earthed make me wish I had bought the printed book so I could try some of them.

There are a few disappointments however. For some reason the tone of her voice isn't as boisterous or excitable as she was in the Two Fat Ladies TV series. She is often quite monotone and only occasionally bursts out with her usual enthusiasm.

There are also a lot of "I supposes" and "In my opinions" so that although she has obviously researched her material there are quite a lot of educated guesses about her subject matter. Not hugely distracting but it happens so often you do start to wonder how much solid facts are in the book.

All in all I did enjoy the book, although I am not sure how many listens I will give it.

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Refreshing!

Revisado: 03-12-13

I read the other audible reviews before trying this book, and yes it's very different to her other books... But I really enjoyed it! It is meant to be a satire of the popular gothic fiction books of the period. I found the satire and the comedy quite refreshing and I loved the character of Henry Tilvany and his comical speeches to Catherine when they are dancing.

Yes, the book isn't as highly polished as her other novels but definitely worth a read if you enjoy classic Austen.

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Mushy... with some interesting bits

Revisado: 02-02-13

Ok.. I'm not a romance reader. I got this book because I looked at other peoples reviews and thought this book was going to be a historical fiction book with a bit of romance. I was wrong! It's a romance book with a bit of historical fiction.

So needless to say I cringed through most of the book because romance isn't really my thing. Having said that it is really well written and performed - I can't believe how many accents the narrator did, and did well. And despite my cringing at the mushy bits I did listen to it all the way to the end because I wanted to find out what happened.

So, all in all, If you like a good romance this is probably a good book for you. It's just not my cup of tea!

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Now completely hooked on gentleman bastards!

Revisado: 06-25-12

I bought this audiobook completely off others recommendation on audible and was really surprised. I'm now completely hooked on this series and am in high anticipation for the release of the third book.

As others have said: think fantasy mixed with a dash of oceans 11 with a plot line that is rarely predictable. Great characters but be warned there is a fair bit of violence and swearing - but nothing I found overtly graphic or gratuitous. The narrator is amazing and really hits the tone of the books. Personally I imagine this to be set in something like medieval Venice with its many gangs and political intricacies (with a bit of magic and alchemy thrown in). However Lynch is great at not making these aspects too complicated for his readers/listeners to follow.

Highly enjoyable!

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas