Quinn

Well written book, but not an enjoyable one

Revisado: 06-21-24

The main character doesn't make any bones about what she is. She's just an unrepentant sociopath who is bored.

There's a lot of potential for a redemption arc, but I really doubt that will come. The difficulty with this story is that the character isn't relatable at all. Her motivations are somewhat random and she's just a situational chaos engine.

The author paints nearly every character with any development as some degree of a self-interested dumpster fire, presumably to make the M.C. pill go down easier. One of those worlds where everyone and everything is bad and corrupt, so you're left with apathy towards every action taken in that world. Homelander, Batman, et al.

The oddest thing to me is how the author takes pains to show where the lines are. Whether those are the character lines or lines he himself has is anyone's guess. It's all very arbitrary.

It's a well-written book overall, way better than most independent works, but as mentioned in the subject, it's not really enjoyable. Just a long, linear slog of emotional detachment that leaves the reader with no real sense of investment.

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going downhill

Revisado: 01-06-24

First a time skip plot wipe, then a school arc, now a half-length tournament arc. Series has descended into anime tropes. At this point I'm just in it for completion.

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Okay, but author obviously got bored

Revisado: 01-03-24

Without spoiling anything specific, there's a ton of plot that is abandoned and set up that is never paid off as a result of this book.

The MC has always had questionable ethics and many times felt like self-insert disconnects to promote the authors personal feelings. Some of the shameless plot progression in this volume though, fundamentally undermines character development and violates its own premise.

The next book is going to have to put in a lot of work to make me want to finish the series.

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Good overall

Revisado: 12-09-23

Generally enjoyable even if it drug on in parts. Story doesn't really have an arc or subplots, but cleans up its loose ends nicely.

Only thing I found odd was doing the same "in defense of monarchism" shtick twice using two sets of characters. Didn't really meaningfully slot in with character development or serve to build out the characters.

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Was on the fence until...

Revisado: 12-05-23

Jake and Villy suddenly insert themselves into the story to make it immediately 10x better.

Well played Travis, well played.

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Great story as always, so-so performance

Revisado: 10-02-23

Story is great as always, buy for that reason alone and to support the author's work 😁

It seems like audible didn't option this one for production, or the author wanted a bigger cut. I definitely don't begrudge her that as she is entitled to everything she creates.

That said, I have to critique the performance. The audio is inconsistent, ranging from reasonable to full potato, and in desperate need of de-essing. Narrator needs some noise insulating foam, a good quality mic boom and pop filter, and something to avoid smacking the mic.

Note for other listeners: the audio sounds significantly better with the bass turned up and audio configured to mono. This will normalize a lot of the less enjoyable mouth sounds.

Podium, Soundbooth theater, anyone please option the DFZ books! They're excellent and your audience would love them.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

it's just okay, read the Kindle book.

Revisado: 04-16-23

Pros:
- reasonably interesting characters
- shadowrun-esque world without all the nauseating machismo
- accurate depiction of Bellevue

Cons:
- Almost a short story, won't buy future audiobooks. Low value/dollar.
- narrator has maybe 3 voices
- recording quality ranges from potato to laptop microphone
- certain portions of the audio editing skip entire paragraphs, cut off words
- plot is full of holes that probably won't be paid off
- pointlessly horny in a way that doesn't contribute to the story
- mc is a rebel without clue
- the setup for the plot is specious, even for a magical mcguffinfest.
- The plot only makes sense if the goblin assistant is a plant, but that's doesn't seem to be the case.

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esto le resultó útil a 39 personas

Pretty good, short though.

Revisado: 04-14-23

Clocking in at 8 hours less than the previous book, this one is significant shorter than the last two volumes. The story is still good, though the value/dollar is lower. Enjoyed it.

Performance is high quality as usual, this time with no misrponounced words. Best book yet from that perspective.

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Mostly a setup volume

Revisado: 04-10-23

The addition of gaiden to pad out the novel in between significant segments more closely aligns this volume with light novels as a literary category.

The story is good, though some of the character development feels forced. Overall the novel feels like a wrap-it-up of several short stories that could have been entire books unto themselves to get to a bridge to the next major "arc" for the sake of progressing the planned storyline. A missed opportunity, but still fleshed out enough that it doesn't feel like the reader is cheated.

The voice acting is still spot on for the character, though at this point I assume we just have to live with certain words being consistently, jarringly mispronounced. Thankfully most of those words seem to be rearview from a story perspective, and as a result are less likely to crop up in future content.

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The book is great. Read it.

Revisado: 04-06-23

Story: no notes. Buy it, read it, listen to it. Inject it in your veins.

That said, for the love of Cthulhu: producers, editors, whoever, please someone teach the VA how to pronounce non-english words. Belial, Abaddon, Zacharias, zealous and a half dozen other words are consistently mispronounced. She's a great pick vocally, but this is a glaring QA problem.

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