Cold Iron is a Warm Start

I’ve been totally immersed in quality fantasy really and Miles Cameron has produced another quite absorbing tome for us to consider. It tells the story of Arunthur, a farmer’s son from a small and fairly remote village who left to study at a big city university. It bypasses much of the standard early coming of age stages and delves straight into Cameron’s world of magic, intrigue and colourful characters. War is steadily encroaching on the land and just while everyone should be uniting against a common foe a myriad factions compete based on their own priorities and designs. The worldbuilding is quite fascinating and the characters are cleverly built with no little depth in a traditional fantasy style.

At the heart of this story are a lot of issues that resonate in our current society and probably always have. The class and wealth divides plus racial and gender prejudices are all there in the core. In fact on some review sites I have seen the suggestion that the book itself is racist which I would reject totally and utterly. Some of the characters do show prejudices and intolerance of others but I think it’s always clear just what it is and it’s never glorified in any way. We won’t deal with prejudice and racism by pretending they don’t exist, that’s for sure. And it is an intrinsic part of this world’s mechanics, to be honest much like in a lot of other fantasy novels I have read.

The narration by Mark Meadows is well done. He’s not the most demonstrative but he has a good range of voices and accents for the characters.

All in all this is a promising start to the series and this first volume ties up plenty of subplots while setting things up nicely for bigger things to come. There is action, intrigue and a very detailed world to enjoy in Cold Iron and I get the feeling that things are just warming up . . .

21 people found this helpful

The stuff of which incels are made.

I feel like this book was written for 15 year old boys. Our hero is a bit of a dull character who still manages to sleep with most of the female characters. Talking of whom, one is a prostitute, another is effectively prostituted for the purposes of the government and the rest are all about to suffer arranged marriages. Fantasy books are rarely great at portraying women but this is just dreadful.

5 people found this helpful

Excellent story very well read. Great characters

Big fan of the Red Knight series this was very enjoable. Great characters , well paced opening and good plot. Part 2 felt a liittle short and hurried. Looking foward to rest of series.

5 people found this helpful

The worst cadence to narration

Only just started listening but I suspect I'll have to return this title. The narrator is awful beyond words.

Builds pitch in sentences with absolutely no reason, you think something dramatic is about to happen but it doesn't. If you measured the pitch I'm sure it would look like a sawtooth waveband: up, up, up, then drop. Then huge, unnecessary pauses.

Because of this, I just cannot get to grips with the story.

I see others have praised the performance, so I'll push on but it is such a struggle

1 person found this helpful

Difficult to hear

I like to do my work and listen but I couldn’t hear this narrator and had to have the device right next to my ear It was on full volume too. Waste of money

1 person found this helpful

Pause Read Pause Read

The narration is good the story is good

But. There. Is. A. Pause.

at the end of every paragraph or three I think I'm getting a call because there's a huge gap where the narration has paused while tea is brewed the record pressed once more.

sigh

1 person found this helpful

like a well worn sock

i have actually reviewed this book twice but the reviews never apeared. anywho. while i really liked this book miles / christeon cameron has used this greko romani world already. the book is very un imaginitive and just feels like rehashing of previously . magic + failed roman / greek influence empire. performace top notch though. im just disapointed in the auther

1 person found this helpful

Exciting and engaging

Thoroughly enjoyed this first title now for Book 2, good narration and story pacing quickly got me hooked.

Well worth a listen

Story excellent, narration good, the only downside for me is the constant use of foul language. This author is not alone though in the use of foul language in his novels. I will listen to the remainder in this series however. Authors take note , the constant use of foul language is not necessary ! Take a leaf out of Ben Hales novels. The second book Dark Force is even worse regarding foul language. I'm not a prude by any means , but there is no need for the amount of foul language the author uses, shame. I returned the second book and will not buy the 3rd.

Excellent

There’s a great many reviews that berate the cadence of the narrator, and whilst it is different to most it soon becomes the rhythm of the book and does not detract from the joy of the story. I will happily get the next audio book in the series as I thoroughly enjoyed this one.