perfect

I enjoy the author and the reader. I am so glad it is the same reader as the last books. I enjoy her character voices.

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Pronunciation is a problem

How could the performance have been better?

I really wish the narrator had taken the time to figure out how to pronounce certain of the words in this book. Other reviews have mentioned the mispronunciation of the word "mage", so I won't belabour that, but the narrator also repeatedly mispronounces "Sami" (She says Sam-eye instead of Sam-ee.) As with the word mage, you might think, "Well, but how often could that possibly come up? I'm sure it won't be a problem." It comes up a lot though. Probably almost as much as "mage." I've listened to, and enjoyed, other performances by Gabra Zackman, but this one made me want to shoot myself. I spent a lot of my listening time muttering correct pronunciations under my breath.

Any additional comments?

I enjoy the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, but this installment is merely "Okay." Were I to rank them in order of preference, this book would take the bottom spot.

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2 people found this helpful

Great story, but

Mercedes Lackey never fails in delivering a great book. My only complaint, is not with the book itself but with Audible advertising the book as a "sizzling" level romance in the romance package. That title would be better suited to Fortune's Fool. The amount of romance in this book barely qualifies as sweet.

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1 person found this helpful

Needed pronunciation help

Gabra is a very good reader. Unfortunately there one specific word she consistently mispronounced: "mage." It started grating on my nerves once I realized what she was saying. She pronounced it like the word "mad" with a "g" instead of like "may" with a "g." Did she even bother to look it up?

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Good Listen

I had read two or three other books in the 500 Kingdoms series. They aren't great works of literature but they are inventive and fun. I enjoy the author's work so I picked this one up.
It was good, the story pans back and forth between two areas of focus for much of the book, which was a little difficult at first because there's often no marker to indicate the switch. I was irked at the pronunciation of the word "mage," but other than that the narrator did an excellent job, even the accents were good.
The story was interesting and engaging, and I didn't see the ending coming. I would recommend the book to any fantasy lover as an interesting view on fairytales.

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8 people found this helpful

Great, except for the mispronunciation ...

I love Mercedes Lackey stories and have all her books. This story is very enjoyable, but the narrator mispronounces 'mage' as maj or maj-is (mages). That simply made me crazy and I can't figure out why the producers didn't stop it. Such a simple thing, but when it would irk the heck out of me every single time I heard another 'maj', I realized that much more and I would have stopped listening to the story. Now I'm worried about listening to another book read by this narrator, even though she has a beautiful voice. Although, her voices for the different characters seemed to change a bit as well. Regardless, I would still recommend this story for a light and enjoyable listen.

This book served me well while on a two month road trip, as it kept me busy while on a few very long days of driving.

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7 people found this helpful

Pleasantly surprised (and annoyed)

I've been a Mercedes Lackey fan, but hadn't read or listened to any of this series and was pleasantly surprised because I thought fairy tales??? It turns out that setting a novel in a fairy tale universe makes for an enjoyable fantasy novel. I got wrapped up in the story line which was fun even though it was fairy tale predictable. I've always been able to care about M.L.'s characters and these were no exception. I even eventually overlooked the narrator's frequent mispronunciation of the word "mage" which is a shame because she did a good job otherwise.

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6 people found this helpful

lazy narrator

Okay, I like the idea of this series, so I am continuing, and I have had so many people recommend Mercedes Lackey to me that I am giving this a go. The writing is better in this book than book #1, though she does have her darling words, which bug me. The story here is not a problem.

However, the narrator here is lazy. It's like she doesn't pay attention to what she's saying and gets the emphasis and cadence dead wrong too often. Preatchett's narrators actually read the book prior to recording and asked him for clarification when they couldn't make it out. I wish the reader had done so here. She just gets into a sort of sing-songy reading-aloud-in-class rhythm and plunges onward.

Also, this book in particular has clear references to the Kalevala, yet she can't be bothered to learn how to pronounce Sámi. I mean, there's a flippin' accent on the first syllable, so why would you think it was "same-EYE"? And the names... Gah. I mean, if you are Eastern European, book #3 is going to be like listening to Americans mispronounce your name all day long. She completely mangled Belarus in book #3.

Now, if some may argue that this is fantasy and the pronunciations are up to interpretation, but not when you are borrowing from an existing culture. Respect the culture enough to learn how to say the names.

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1 person found this helpful

Kind of hard to follow changes in chars.

If I wasn’t paying very close attention I’d find myself asking “wait, what’s going on?!” The chapter changes with different characters were somewhat difficult to discern. And another thing- it’s Mage like Sage or Page. Not Mage like Badge. It just annoyed me.

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A woven tale

While not my favorite Lackey book, it was decent. You have to get past the moodiness of the first chapter or two. The performer had a clear voice up until the characters all come together, which thankfully wasn’t for most of the book. Then it just got to be a mess. Not her fault but between the similarity in voices and the similarity in names, it got a bit jumbled for me.

Does have a nice tidy ending, which is to be expected given the plot line. Not a bad way to pass the time.

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