Excellent

One of my favourite fantasy novels beautifully narrated. Definitely one to listen to over again and again.

1 person found this helpful

fantastic book and good reading

there were some odd echos in this recording, with lines repeating quietly in the background as the reading continued. other than that, the book and the performance are wonderful

strange pronunciation of common words

I love this book. The narrator has an odd attitude; he sounds annoyed or sardonic a lot of the time, Words with the vowel la' in are sometimes pronounced very oddly, but the names and words unique to this imaginary world are spoken faultlessly. Odd!

Can I have more please?

I read it, and then read it again and then the audiobook was finally available and I listened. I'm so happy!

Katherine Addison builds a rich, compelling world with a brilliant assortment of personalities. We follow the story with Maia, a very likeable young man who is totally out of his depths. Or is he? He navigates a world he was never even supposed to be a part of, and through chance and tragic circumstances, he's now at the head.

Maia is a true outsider and through him we unravel the intrigues, lies, and corruption of the Elvish court.

Incredible world build, wonderful writing, and my only complaint is that I want more. Much more....

Glorious

I first read the book several years ago, but revisiting it as an audiobook really was an untrammelled delight. It’s a deeply beloved novel in my circles, with its cinnamon roll protagonist gradually overcoming the bigotry and Macchiavellian schemes of the court which he finds himself suddenly ruling, but I have to say the vocal performance really elevated the story. Cracking character voices and a crisp, engaging narrative voice; I’m horribly fussy about narrators so it is a real joy to find a beloved book so well served by the voice artist.

Engaging story line.

Enjoyed the story but the character names we're confusing as place names.
Narration was annoying.

Really good, but…

The faux British accent really takes you out of it, and if you listen to this, do yourself a favour and keep a notebook to keep track of all the names, titles etc.
And last thing is that the Elves really have nothing to distinguish them from Human except in name, and the Goblins are really just a bit foreign instead of being a different race. It’s just a bit of a gimmick.
Otherwise this is a really enjoyable story with a good resolution

Almost perfect

This is one of my favourite books and was happy to find and audio book of it! The only snag was that part of chapter 30 is missing, one of the better parts at that! Aside from that everything else was great

Loved it

I very much enjoyed this gentle story and thoughtful world building. The narrator was excellent and I now know how to pronounce some of the names properly.

Good book slightly flaky production

I love this book, and though in general I found the voice perform good. There were a few issues:

1. There is a section of text missing from the end of chapter 30, I have downloaded a number of times, and it is the same on all the copies. Fortunately I have read the book, so I spotted it. Annoyingly it is one of my favourite passages.
2. The pronunciation (of the English, not the Elvish) is bizarre, and not normal English English or American English, this was jarring at times.

In general, pay no attention to my issues and listen to the book, it is really good.

Jon