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Miss the jazz interludes

Revisado: 04-06-25

I love this series but this one feels like an important deepening into the through line characters. Don’t skip.

But I’m absolutely gutted that they didn’t include the jazz interlude between chapters. Why?? It helps add to the pulpy vibe. I hope it makes a return in future installments.

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Perfect combo

Revisado: 03-20-25

This series with this narrator is just so perfect. It’s smart, irreverent, and just the right amt of fantasy.

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Quirky, charming sci-fi

Revisado: 02-18-25

In the corner of the genre occupied by Douglas Adams, Tom Robbins, and Becky Chambers. Do not expect massive world building or a deep magic system, this is a story about humanity and belonging and has a lot of heart. As a GenX web developer, I found it to be familiar and utterly charming.

The narrator, however, reminded me of my 4th grade teacher reading A Wrinkle in Time to the class. Good enough for 4th grade especially the early chapters that feature the main characters as children. However, the sophistication of the writing grows with the characters, but the narrator didn’t come along. By time we get to sex scenes and adult pop culture references, her narration and voices go way out of alignment with the text. There persists throughout the production a lot of weird pauses and mispronounced words that aren’t serving the story.

All in all, I really liked it in spite of the narration. The story is good enough to overcome it.

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Sluggish and bleak

Revisado: 02-15-25

Overall this is the least successful of the books in the series. It drags and limps to the finish line. Even the epilogue chapters managed to make me feel impatient.

The intrigue and surprises that the sustain the other installments were sadly missing. Instead, we get gratuitous and unearned torture for the first third of the book. The remaining story is a mushy homage to Tolkien. We’ve got last minute armies, unbeatable odds, overwhelming setbacks following each tiny victory, and an ending that Maas actually tells us is coming about half way through.

Even the touching personal moments felt like we’d been in those same places with these characters already dozens of times. Nearly every scene with Aelin and Rowan was a copy and paste. Oh really, he smells like pine and snow? She’s in a dark place and he’s gotta bring her out of it? Ya don’t say.

Maas also really underdeveloped some elements that she spends so much time building up in the other books. Instead, we get a lot of brooding and incredulity that drags the story down. And don’t get me started on Aedion who just sucks. I wanted to punch him in the face.

It’s probably pretty hard to stick the landing on these epic series. I think the plot points are all there but the story just gets pulled under by so much navel gazing.

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Lots of set up

Revisado: 01-24-25

There is a problem with the audio file: it’s slightly too slow, making the narrator sound like she’s on Valium. Speed up to 1.1 and will sound normal and like the other audiobooks in this series.

It still drives me crazy that no one told the narrator how to pronounce wyvern.

This book is a bit like the first one in the series: lower on action and a lot of set up. But the backstory is finally filled in. Hopefully things pick back up in the next book.

Warning: there are spoilers in other reviews for this book. So annoying.

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Medieval Hunger Games

Revisado: 01-03-25

The overall premise is hard to believe, but easy to ignore in order to get into the story. I didn’t know this is YA until I was describing the plot to my teen who was like “that sounds YA.” Some YA plots are better woven than this, but I suspect follow on books will be easier to get caught up in.

The narrator is great at narrating, but iffy at character voices. Everyone sounds smug but doesn’t have to. It’s not necessarily written that way. One character always sounds like he’s really irritated for no reason (he isn’t described as having a chip on his shoulder and the context doesn’t warrant it either.). She also pronounces wyvern and faeries wrong, which is less her fault but still. Can’t someone give narrators a pronunciation guide?

Overall, this is easy to follow and digest fantasy. It’s not going to keep you up at night as you ponder the essential questions, but will entertain you while doing chores around the house. Lest you think I’m just poo-pooing YA, I think Hunger Games itself and Divergent are pretty great. The Grishaverse is exceptional. I’m hoping Glass Throne was just hampered by what is clearly a lot of table setting.

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Hampered by spotty narration

Revisado: 12-29-24

I’ve read all the Murderbot Diaries and completely adore them. I recommend them to just about everyone. While there are action scenes, it’s much more of a detective series. Some sci-fi fans may not like it’s more methodical pacing, but for me it’s a unique breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately, this audiobook loses something in translation. I can’t quite tell if it’s the narrator or just the nature of the text or both.

Part of the joy of reading the book is that it’s written in a way that evokes software code. Ex: Murderbot’s names for things follow object-oriented naming convention and some of his commentary reads like a code comments. This managed to not get in the way- my partner (not a coder) didn’t even notice that part. But, I can see this would be a challenge to narrate, but not impossible.

The narrator struggled, especially in the first 45mins, to do anything listenable with Murderbot’s inner monologue. I don’t think it was an intentional artistic choice (if it was was, oof), just that his inflection and pacing were off. There are upticks in pitch in places that shouldn’t be there. Or weird pauses in the middle of a thought, which makes me think he was pausing after (albeit unusual - see above) paragraph breaks instead of reading things more naturally. Reminded me of either a middle schooler reading aloud poorly or badly narrated non-fiction spiritual books, both of which is usually a result of the narrator not actually getting what they’re reading. He sounds a lot better when Murderbot is describing things outside himself such as the landscape or action sequences.

The problem is that the charm of the series is Murderbot’s inner monologue, so not nailing that really cripples the project. I laughed out loud a lot while reading the book, but just felt uncomfortable listening.

I listened bc I recommended the series to my dad who is only listening to audiobooks these days. I was surprised when he said it was too slow and not grabbing him. It’s the kind of thing he’d find funny.

Thankfully, it was available as part of membership so I could check it out. I can see why it put my dad off. This narration isn’t doing the series any favors. If this was my first intro to the Murderbot world, I wouldn’t get the hype.

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Tediously ageist

Revisado: 12-27-24

I’ve heard so much about this author, and I really wanted to love it. The story is pretty chaste, which I suppose is in keeping with the un-specified, but 1800s ish, timeframe. I was engaged well enough but it was all very predictable and a bit Hallmark movie.

What I take exception with is Hester being portrayed as someone closer to 70 in spite it being stated a gazillion times that she’s merely 50. People may not have lived that long all those years ago, but they died of infections and were probably still quite robust at 50. Hester tediously complains in every POV chapter about her age, her creaking joints made worse by the weather. Her friend’s hands are described as gnarled and blue veined. Being 50 as I write this in a year that a vibrant 60yo woman ran for US president, this outdated portrayal of women in middle age is unforgivable. I was surprised to then learn that Wikipedia lists the author’s age as 47. I might have been a little less annoyed had she been 30.

Recommend “The Priory of the Orange Tree” by Samantha Shannon for a better portrayal of middle-aged heroines.

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Convoluted

Revisado: 11-24-24

I really liked book one, but book two is weighed down heavily by everything to do with Caiden. There are hours in the middle where you really have no idea what’s going on. I don’t agree that it comes together by the end. I gave up trying to figure it out. I just figure Caiden will show up like a magical Chekhov‘a gun at some point.

I made it all the way through the Dune series including the ones written by the son, which are just this side of terrible. My tolerance, IOW, is high if the plot plugs along. I thought about skipping over the Caiden chapters. Opaque mess.

I hung in bc I love the original characters and their stories. More than a little disappointed that Caiden sucks the life out of it.

And I’m going to throw out a really hot take: I can’t stand Kramer on narration. He has three voices: breathy woman, bratty tween, and 80year old man. Considering that most of characters in this story are about 20, it’s a disaster that almost everyone sounds like old Harrison Ford. His female voices make me want to throw things.

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Fantastic Payoff

Revisado: 10-25-24

I love the Children of Time series setting, particularly the ways in which the books explore how different species minds expand when given the chance/help to evolve higher functions. “Memory” takes a turn and explores what it means to be aware. Are we “am” just because we think? Many seeds that have been sewn along the way come to glorious fruition.

Fans of Star Trek TNG and Voyager will find themselves in familiar territory as this story is clearly borrowing some of those shows’ most compelling “reality” plots. IYKYK. As such, I didn’t find the story wobbly or confusing, but there is a puzzle box that does make sense in the end.

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