Robert

Cheap Ending

Revisado: 09-13-24

Overall a good story & excellent performance. The 2 star review for the story is because of how this book ends. Even if the next book in the series is out, ending a book on a steep cliffhanger is a crap way to push the reader to buy the next book. That's just not cool & despite this being a good story overall I don't know that I'll buy the next book in the Series because of this reason. I am sick of being pushed to do things, having things shoved on me and I'm likely not alone in feeling this way. Not only is the door open, the author is trying to push me thru it. Oh no! What will Cal do? Not sure I care enough to find out.

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Taking God's Name In Vain

Revisado: 05-29-24

I disliked the taking of my God's name in vain repeatedly. Why is is no one taking Allah's name in vain? Or the god of any other culture? Because those who believe in a a different god (especially those who worship Allah) would not tolerate it. And good for them. They shouldn't tolerate it. Yet those who profess to be Christians, aside from an occasional complaint, usually not made publicly, not only tolerate it but continue to buy & rent the offending movies, books, etc. And nothing will change until those who claim to be Christian take a stand. But that's not likely to happen. Christianity has been turned into a religion of convenience. Until Christians internalize a similar devotion to our God as those of other religions do for their god(s) then nothing will change. You don't have to believe in my God & I don't have to believe in yours. But I respect the beliefs of others who worship a different deity than I do. I would never blaspheme another's god. I expect reciprocity.

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Huh? What happened?

Revisado: 02-29-24

This was pretty stupid. Churchill outsmarts the forces of Satan, even though the evil forces have been doing this stuff for thousands of years somehow. The ancient evil folks never saw it coming because despite dealing with the Hitlers & others like him, Winston Churchill in his decades of life is more cunning & crafty than them all. The plot was thin, lame really, generic & just lazy. After thousands of years of dealing with making deals I would think that the Queen of the forces of evil would know how to cover her bases but she's pretty naive, trusting & just plain stupid. And this story is just like her.
Don't waste your time unless you're just really bored & need background noise. Performance was the only good thing about this syory.

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Great Book. Okay Narration.

Revisado: 01-30-24

W. Cleon Skousen was a brilliant religious scholar. His inspired commentary & insights are among the best I've ever read or heard. Really helps me to know Father Adam & Mother Eve, Enoch, Moses & other prominent men & women of the Old Testament as actual people and not just biblical stories.
While Adam Skousen's narration was okay, I would have preferred someone with a slightly deeper voice to narrate. The only negative about the narration is that when Skousen would speak as a specific person (the Lord or any one else) he would try to change hos voice, usually slightly lower as a male but sometimes try to speak in a female voice. It sounded almost like a child trying to speak in his father's or mother's voice & was distracting. He doesn't have the range for that, I don't think that this book needs different voices for different speakers because it's not a fiction novel, it's very much nonfiction, it all actually happened. It would have been better of he had just used his own voice throughout the entire book. It was at times very distracting. Otherwise he did alright. I would lile to hear a different narrator though.

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Misleading Reviews

Revisado: 01-31-23

The story of a middle age ex(?)-stoner's (think Fast Times At Richmond High) conversations with his cell phone. Obligatory taking of God's name in vain (why don't authors take someone else's God's name in vain? Try it with Allah and let's see how that turns out) and...other things. Wonder how many of the great reviews are from actual people who enjoyed this story? Likely substantially fewer than we are led to believe. This is a really idiotic story with idiotic humor and a real waste of time. Nothing against Will Wheaton, but his range as a narrator is very limited. He should try narrating nonfiction, where a having a wide range isn't as important as in fiction.

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Drood Fall Flat

Revisado: 10-12-22

There are things I like about the Droods, the family dynamics can make for some interesting reading. But there's no real sense of danger. As Eddie keeps reminding us every 3rd page, Droid armor is impenetrable. Droods are unstoppable. Droods kick a**. Droid armor makes the Dropd family pretty much unbeatable & there is no real sense that Eddie or any of his family are in even the slightest of danger except occassionally when some overwhelming force attacks en masse. I feel no anxiety for the welfar and safety of Eddie or Molly because the Drood armor will protect Eddie &, if necessary, Eddie will protect Molly.
And Eddie's violation of the sanctuary club, where Eddie beat his (Shaman Bond) dear friend to a bloody pulp because the man refused to allow Eddie to violate the sacred rule, that was disgusting and pathetic on Eddie's part and made him no better than the scum the rule was protecting. Eddie Drood views himself & his family as above the law minor gods who uphold the law of "do as I say and not as I do."
The banter between Eddie and Molly was cute at first. Now it's just annoying. Each book in this series seems to be a reworked version of the previous book. Might be good YA material but falls flat for me as an adult reader. Annoying juvenile banter between adult characters. No real danger posed to the antagonist, the same antagonist who upholds the laws that he breaks, and he doesn't even break them in any creative manner. He's just an overpowered, immature, hypocritical douche that's not in any real danger because of his godlike armor that no one I've read about so far poses even the slightest threat to.
Cringe worthy background noise.

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Language

Revisado: 08-10-22

I am sick of listening to potentially good stories ruined by taking my God's name in vain. Just because most of the people in America have forgotten God doesn't mean we all have. There are still a few of us left. Acceptance/tolerance of whatever happens to be popular at a given moment is forced upon all, yet acceptance/tolerance by those doing the forcing is not reciprocated. Audible publishes literally anything nowadays. No talent or morals required. Just $$$.

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Toot-Toot needs to learn sign language

Revisado: 05-03-22

Great stories. But the narrator doing Toot's voice sounds stupid. It was difficult not to be in a state of constant cringe. If I were Harry & had to listen to that voice I would either cast a spell of silence on Toot or cut out his vocal cords or put rat poison on the pizza. Otherwise really good stuff.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Meh

Revisado: 12-10-21

Had some good humor but some glaring inconsistencies and overt agenda. A quark beast is greatly feared and can lay waste to an entire city and yet no match for a lone man with a handgun? A resourceful person is too stupid to terminate a certain other person's employment? Got to launch into a lengthy sermon on environmental responsibility because readers aren't smart enough to work out the moral of the story?
Could have been really good but was only so-so. Definetly not Fforde's best novel.
And the narrator did fine on female voices but every male voice sounded like it belonged to someone with a traumatic brain injury.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

A VERY RARE 5 *'s

Revisado: 11-20-21

Some folks hand out 5 star reviews like youth sports programs give out participation trophies, but I feel that doing so makes it meaningless for those rare books that truly deserve 5 stars in all 3 categories. For 'The Stranger Times', both the author, C. K. McDonnell and the narrator, Brendan McDonald earn each and every star in this 5 star review.
The story is, for me, difficult to categorize. Magic, investigation, murder, intrigue, suspense, humor, and more are all there. Is this book a Fantasy, Mystery, or Thriller? Yes, it is.
McDonnell writes an engaging story and manages to get me to care about each of the main characters, and several of the minor characters, and does it without needless information and excessive wording. I wasn't conscious of it happening. It just did. Plot, character development, story arc...almost everything was done very well. The ending seemed slightly rushed, but even that was done in a way that didn't detract from the overall enjoyment of the book. And I like that magic was used in this book but done so somewhat sparingly. There was power to the magic, and also something that as largely been forgotten regarding magic: mystery. There is no explanation of a complex magic system, but it is clearly implied. That is difficult for any author to successfully pull off, but McDonnell succeeded wonderfully. Many fantasy authors detail magic excessively, as if teaching a class of graduate level wizards. Other authors seemingly have OP magic users breaking every law of physics and common sense to the point that suspension of belief becomes impossible. McDonnell offered very little explanation regarding the magic system but did so in a way that explanation wasn't needed and the magic was fairly believable. And this is obviously the first of a series. That is a good thing.

Narrators can ruin a good book or make a so-so book enjoyable. McDonald made an excellent book extremely enjoyable and very engrossing. He performed each character wonderfully. Each voice was distinct and I always knew, without being told, which character was speaking. Different dialects were spot on. And the American accent, which many English narrators mess up in a manner most distracting, was done very well by McDonald. (I've heard from my GB friends that many American narrators are equally terrible with British accents). I didn't cringe when the narrator spoke as a teenager or a female. Tone, pitch, everything was done very well. I hope McDonald narrates the next book in this series.
5 Stars Story
+
5 Stars Performance
=
5 Stars Overall

I highly recommend C. K. McDonnell as an author and I also highly recommend Brendan McDonald as a narrator. Very enjoyable audio book.

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