Brandon

Weakest Entry So Far

Revisado: 05-21-23

I've been working my way through the entire Horus Heresy and this is the weakest of the series so far. I've read 90+ Black Library novels and this is my second least favorite of the bunch and by far my least favorite of the Horus Heresy. There was pretty much nothing about this audiobook I enjoyed.

My biggest complaint is that everyone is confused about everything while acting like they know what's going on and then somehow being surprised when it's reviled they don't have a clue. This isn't even the usual, kind of annoying, Dark Angel trope where everything is a secret because Dark Angels although there is still some of that here. It's just people who should know better constantly making questionable decisions and acting like it's their first time doing anything. At one point their is a battle in space where some ships get destroyed and Nemiel looks on in "awe" as a ship breaks apart. By now in the timeline he is a veteran of the Great Crusade and a legion Chaplin. He's taken part in numerous battels and has seen and participated in horrific things. He should not be watching in awe as a some random ship is destroyed, that would be a fairly regular occurrence and would likely have become fairly mundane at this point in his life.

I usually find Gareth Armstrong to be relatively inoffensive as a narrator but he really missed the mark with this one. Part of the issue is that he was also the narrator for the previous Dark Angel book in the series, Descent of Angels, and two of the characters are children so he voiced them as sounding pretty juvenile. This wasn't an issue in the previous novel but it's a real problem when those children are now several decades old super soldiers. They've taken part in numerous campaigns and have risen through the ranks of the legion to the point where they are now confidants to the legion's two my senior leaders and it just sounds like adults having conversations with kids.

I'd recommend skipping this if you aren't a planning on reading the entire series. I wouldn't even recommend this novel if you are a Dark Angel fan. You might not hate it as much but you'd probably still be disappointed.

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A Good Overview

Revisado: 02-08-23

Homo Sapiens Rediscovered is a good overview of Paleolithic humans with a focus on Homo Sapiens while also covering some of our evolutionary history in Africa and the other archaic humans who were our contemporaries as we began to spread across the the planet. Julian Elfer does a good job delivering the material so I have no complaints about the narration. The overall production value was good although an accompanying PDF would have been nice because there were a few times where it seemed like the book was referencing a figure that wasn't available. If you are looking for a decent book covering some of the current theories of early human behavior and the science being used to better understand who we are as a spices delivered in an easy to understand way than this book is probably worth your credit.

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Like a Phoenix

Revisado: 05-08-22

There is a running joke in the Ciaphas Cain series where the readers are forced to endure excerpts from the memoir of Jenit Sulla for additional context. The joke is that the writing is so verbose that it is almost punishment to get through. That is this entire book. I keep getting pulled out of the story because of all the stilted conversations between characters.

The narration didn't help the situation either. The accents were just bland and made it difficult to follow who was taking at times. For the most part the characters had some flavor of posh accent but you occasionally get a kind of Nigerian accent from the tank's second in command and what I guess was suppose to be an lower class accent from the loader.

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A Wider Perspective

Revisado: 09-03-21

In Ancient Bones, Madelaine Böhme delivers a fascinating and enjoyable journey through Hominid history. Dr. Böhme expands on the traditional story of human evolution through her work as both a paleontologist and a paleoclimatology with particular insight into her work involving Danuvius guggenmosi. All of the concepts are well explained and anyone who has an interest in human evolution, paleontology, or anthropology should find something here to enjoy.

Aimée Ayotte does a fine job narrating the story but her performance likely wouldn't keep someone listening if they don't already find the book interesting and enjoyable. I did find her reading to be a bit on the slower side even with the 1.3x speed I regularly listen at. I have no real complaints with her performance and the speed is easy enough to adjust and shouldn't be a problem for most listeners who know their own preferences.

Overall I found Ancient Bones to be an enjoyable listen and well worth the credit however, at the time of this review, Audible is missing the accompanying PDF so you might need to do some searching to fully appreciate the book. ​

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Solid Story

Revisado: 07-03-21

Overall this was a solid story with a brief look into an aspect of the 40k universe that is rarely seen. With that being said this is more of a book about political intrigue than one chock full of action, although there still is some action, that you get from some of the more popular GW books. This book also features very little actual navigation for something that is centered around a navigation house.

Helen Keeley does a good job giving distinct enough voices to the different characters without ever being distracting. She is a quality narrator and I would not hesitate in listening to any other books she reads.

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All Quiet

Revisado: 06-26-21

This is another quality addiction to the Gaunt’s Ghost story. Dan Abnett has a knack for taking familiar settings and putting them in the grim dark future of the 41 millennia while still doing something new. He did this expertly in Double Eagle and he does again here by taking our favorite men and women of the Emperor’s finest and places them in the hell of trench reminiscent of the Western front of WWI but with all off the futuristic horrors of the 40k universe. Toby Longworth once again delivers a stellar performance. Hopefully GW will continue to release the rest of the series because I’m a big fan of these audio books.

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These Books Are Not Good

Revisado: 08-21-20

These books are bad and the writing is no where near as competent as Game of Thrones. This series is more Twilight than A Song of Ice and Fire. If Mr Kong is the “Farther of American LitRPG” I’d fear for the genre’s genetic health. Do yourself a favor and skip this series unless you just want paper thin characters and a pointless plot. Nick Podehl does a great job but I’d recommend finding something that has better source material if you want to actually hear what he is capable of as a narrator.

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Great Stand Alone Discworld

Revisado: 06-02-20

I’ve been working my way through all of Mr. Pratchett’s entire Discworld series. This is no small undertaking considering the entire series consists of 40+ books. For those unaware Discworld can be broken down into a bunch of different sub-series that have more direct links to previous books in the series. All of this can make it a bit confusing about where to start which can be especially difficult when you take into account Audible not having ever been in the series. As I write this the first book in the series, The Colour of Magic, isn’t even available.

If you are looking for a place to jump in and give the series a try then I’d recommend this book. There a few of good reasons for this. It’s a stand-alone story that requires no background from the previous books. This is a prequel that takes place before anything else in the story so you won’t feel like you’ve missed something. The narrative is pretty straight forward compared to some of the other books, this is especially noticeable in The Colour of Magic which jumps around a bit with a cast of ever changing characters. Last but certainly not least is that the overall audio quality is pretty decent. Quite a few of the books earlier in the series have some pretty noticeable issues. These issues can includes a constant white noise, random volume changes, tiny narration, chapter break chimes, and poor a poor narrator choice in the case of Equal Rites and Equal Rites. These issues are present across every book but they do exist in a fairly significant number of the early ones. This series is wonderful and it’s a shame that production issues could turn someone off from even giving it a try. This book isn’t without its own quality issues, still has white noise, but it’s far less distracting.

All of the quality issues are ultimately worth dealing with because the books are just that good but I think it could be beneficial to get some understanding of what Discworld is as a series before starting one of the other sub-series that have more noticeable problems. Read this and if you enjoy it go back and start reading the early books knowing they will be something you want to invest time and money into.

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Diabolical Audio

Revisado: 05-06-20

This audio book suffers from both poor quality and poor narration. There are few examples where I just abandon an audiobook, I’m looking at you Wool, but this was almost one of them.

Celia Imrie may do a perfectly acceptable job with a different story but it just doesn’t work here. Her overall narration was so slow and languorous that I had to increase the speed to 1.5 to make it somewhat bearable and the voices she uses for every character aside from Granny Weatherwax were misguided at best.

On top of the poor narration is the inexcusably bad transfer. I don’t know if ISIS or Audible are at fault but this is one of the worst transfers I’ve listened to. The constant white noise and occasionally volume changes make this almost unlistenable. This could just be a case of a vintage recording but they should be able to remove the white noise and balance the volume at the very least.

The story is fun enough but I can not recommend listening to it. The narration and quality issues make what should be an enjoyable romp into a chore that you just want to be done with.

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Do Androids Feel Love?

Revisado: 02-06-15

This story does something that Science Fiction has been doing for a long time. It uses a futuristic setting as a social commentary on some of the issues we are facing today and it mostly does a good job.

The story is compelling and it moves along nicely. The protagonist is a somewhat morally ambiguous person with some rather dark shades of gray but his quest is still noble even if he isn't. My only real issue is that the androids are too human which could be a side effect of the author trying to make them relatable and their motives understandable even if we might not agree with them.

Luke Daniels puts in another quality performance and if you enjoy his other work then you will probably find little fault with his narration here.

Overall I'd say the story is probably not for everyone. The ending might be unfulfilling for some and the protagonist might be too unlikable for others. If you enjoy gritty, near future science fiction with a bit of a cyberpunk feel then you will probably find something to enjoy.

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