Paintedsheep

Ugh. Not horror. Pretentious tripe.

Revisado: 04-15-25

So bad.
I didn’t realize this was a collection of “horror” shorts. I wouldn’t have bought it.
There is NOTHING scary or even creepy in these stories.
Almost all of them are written from the perspective of the antagonist and they are all nothing but pretentious, annoying characters.
The authors bent over backwards in a desperate attempt to sound educated but just come off as arrogant and pompous.
It’s really amateurish writing.
Skip it. In fact, I recommend skipping anything written by Vandermeer.
I tried Ambergris a few weeks ago…
Terrible.

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What am I listening to?

Revisado: 04-06-25

Since this is a long story I’m going to give my review in parts, over time as I listen.
I’m about 6-7 hours in at this point.

I may end up changing my thoughts on this piece as I go.

I don’t mind Balki as the narrator but I also find his style and inflection kinda pretentious in this project. Still listenable though.

The story is…. I don’t know, just feels like random pointlessness up to 7 hrs in.
Oh and when you get to the 3 hour chapter describing the history of Ambergris SKIP THE ENTIRE CHAPTER!!! It is so boring and pointless that it is unlistenable.

I normally won’t read/listen to books taking place on made up worlds, involving made up countries, about made up peoples. It’s too easy, I feel, for lazy authors to make up silly sounding proper nouns instead of pulling from people, places and things that actually exist or once existed.
It can be done well, especially when mixed with here-and-now realism, ala Clive Barker.
So, at this point I’m leaning towards advising to stay away from this audiobook. Check back in though… I’m liable to change my mind…


Ok, I’m back after getting through about a 1/3 of this book.
I’m out. It’s just terrible. The decent narration can’t even save this boring, garrulous tripe.
Thus far the story is 70% narration from a history book about a silly made up place and silly made up people. The stories are boring, the characters are pretentious and nothing much happens.
Maybe the last 1/3 of the book is a masterpiece but iI’ll never know because I couldn’t bare digging through the first 2/3 to find it.
Skip it.

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Nietzsche is a self absorbed tool.

Revisado: 03-19-25

Narration was fine but super fast.
I had to slow the playback just so I had time to absorb the points.
Also, it’s annoying as $hit to have this translated from Russian to English, yet Latin and French are read untranslated. Kinda stupid.

So, what I learned about good ol’ Fred is that:
-He thinks very highly of himself.
-He HATES Christianity and Buddhism.
-He speaks in absolutes, as if his thoughts are the final say as far as humanity is concerned and everyone either agrees or are “pernicious blockheads”.

A very intelligent and extremely knowledgeable man who lacks wisdom and is absorbed by the type of distain that only the wholly excluded types of personalities are capable of…in my estimation.

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Amazing narration, great story.

Revisado: 03-19-25

I have nothing of substance to complain about…
Great story. Perfect long length. Likable and well thought-out characters. Believable dialogue. Good action. Few plot holes or wasted sub plots.
Narrator was just about perfect.
I’ll be looking for this author and narrator for other books.

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Couldn’t even make it half way.

Revisado: 02-07-25

Performance was ok. A little monotone.
Story and writing were boring. Themes were cliché. Characters were one dimensional and shallow. I’m almost halfway through and nothing exciting, scary, adventurous, interesting or fun has happened. I can’t get my credit back, but I also can’t spend another minute listening to this drivel. There is nothing here interesting

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Fairy Tale was very stale.

Revisado: 12-10-24

As others have said, this book is more interesting pre-adventure than during the adventure.
I didn’t get the fixation with the dog.
A teenager is literally willing to die for a very old dog, that he barely knows?? Come on.
The fairy land characters were simple annoying and their voices began to be unlistenable. Not because due to anything lacking from the voice actor… it’s just the way they were written because of deformities. Ugh.
I felt bad for the voice actor at times.
I never bonded with any of the characters and the whole thing kinda felt phoned-in.
It didn’t even seem like King wrote it at times. Maybe more like a collaboration.
Sometimes if felt like it was written for a teen audience, sometimes not.
I just didn’t like it. Wasted a credit.

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Yikes. Boring and forgettable.

Revisado: 11-15-24

I’ve read half a dozen of Cutter’s books and I mostly enjoyed them (The Deep being very good imo) so I pre ordered this one.
Wished I hadn’t.
It’s mostly the whining of a chubby high school girl mixed with oddly specific analogies.
None of the characters were well developed so I didn’t care about any of them. The bad guy was lame and the premise was silly and boring.
I made it all the way through but just barely. It got to the point that I kinda stopped listening and would just periodically check to see if it was almost done.
The female voice actor I find annoying. Her girl voices are always shaky and victim-like or just whining.
Her male voices are caricatures that sound nothing like how men sound.
Skip this one… it’s not scary, not fun, not believable and not worth a credit.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Wow, sooo bad.

Revisado: 09-16-24

This feels like it was written by a teenager.
Completely unrealistic dialogue and unimaginative writing.
I was able to get through about 3 hours before I gave up.

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Rediculous and poorly written,

Revisado: 08-19-24

I used a credit on this one despite the political bent because it has good reviews and I prefer long audiobooks to get more bang for my buck.
I got about 5 or 6 hours in and just couldn't listen anymore. I returned it.
I generally don't get too miffed about the pervasive leftism in books these days but this was just never ending leftist BS over and over. The author spews leftist talking points as if they were hard facts.
As for the story, it is silliness and poorly written. So many plot holes. Characters that seem completely opposite of what you'd think they would really be like, The main character comes off as a whining annoying brat. Nothing makes any real sense.
I even jumped ahead to the ending to see if it was at least a decent wrap up... nope. Got bored and just shut it down completely.
This story just really feels amateurish and not a well thought out plot.
I'd skip it....

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Oh my God… who would write this???

Revisado: 08-06-24

I wasted a credit on this simply for it’s length.
I have started and stopped this monstrosity 3 or 4 times now.
When I run out of credits, I chalk her up and try again. I usually get a few hours in then stop out of exasperation and boredom.
I tried to like it, tried to power through in the hopes that something of interest was about to occur.,. It doesn’t.
Every single minute is nothing but the dialogue of overbearing southern women gossiping about whoever isn’t in the room and discussing the minutia of their day in a small town.
Maybe it gets better. Maybe it’s a great novel. I will never know. Deleted from my library.

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