A book I could not but fall in love with.

I have never heard a narrator become so immersed in a character, I not only pictured Whitney in all his roguish annoying glory. but I also could picture the fun Narrator Luke Daniels had. The story and a full story (sometimes it can be frustrating when a story just ends to open the door for a sequel,, but in Web of Eyes, what Rhett C Bruno and Jamie Castle has successfully done is open the door to books that could travel forward and backward and to the side depending on the character you followed. (I thing Sir Knight may be busy a while.
The story was swift and entertaining, never in your face more sit back and watch in your mind as The. Worlds professional Theif. (not so professional priest) gets on with it, of as I recal, Plan, prepare, fail - improvise . Good book a definite time zapper.
Jim

3 people found this helpful

A good light-hearted fantasy story

I do try and keep an eye out for books narrated by Luke Daniels as he usually has a good range of voices for the characters. Overall it was a pretty good story and well narrated. Im looking forward to starting the 2nd book :-)

2 people found this helpful

Fantastic Book

I’ve long been a fan of Rhett Bruno and Luke Daniels, and newly acquainted with Jaime Castle’s work, who is equally impressive.

The story itself is a compelling epic fantasy, with the innate complexity to the world, and weight of history as say GOT, but crucially has the readability that series (for me, anyway) lacks.

The story itself has rolls between an almost heist style quest, and the shenanigans that brings with the undertones of something darker going on.

A word on the characters, and a compelling reason to listen to this on audio. Whitney, is a Sarcastic rogue - somewhat reminiscent of the Bard in, well, a Bard’s Tale. This is wonderfully balanced by Unger - the straight man. A fun dynamic adding levity to what can be a dark story at times.

Luke, as ever, is not just a simple narrator - his voice acting is truly excellent!

A great read / listen.

2 people found this helpful

A Web of Accents!

I enjoyed this story, it's a decent fantasy yarn even it doesn't stretch the genre in any sense. A cheeky thief, a sulky female mage and for us old gamers a Palladin in a fast-moving adventure with plenty of action. The story is well constructed and this first volume builds the world and its background very well.

I do hesitate to recommend it though because of the narration. Some people will love it but Luke Daniels really does go to town on the character accents and while for example he gets the tone just right with Torsten, our paladin. some of the other minor characters are almost unintelligible. Our young thief Whitney actually sounds like a seventy year old leprechaun and I'm really not sure what some of the other characters are meant to resemble though when excited some of them start sounding Irish too! It's a very enthusiastic performance but the character voices are maybe just a bit OTT a lot of the time.

The good news is that the audio sample will show you all you need to know and if you are happy with the narration then this one has a decent story to follow and we get a complete story arc plus the setup for the remainder of the series.

7 people found this helpful

Great fantasy story

I really enjoyed this story, it balanced a detailed world with fast action and fun characters. I really liked the thief character (Whitney) and the way that he was able to annoy everybody around him. Luke Daniels performs to his usual high standards and continues to be one of my favorite narrators. I have not read/listened to much of late but I really enjoyed this and I look forward to continuing with the series.

Please note that I was provided with a free copy to provide a non-biased review.

1 person found this helpful

Solid start to series with entertaining narration

Initially this feels like a fairly conventional fantasy novel, you have the main party being built along lines to carry out a vital quest for their monarch that will be familiar to anyone even vaguely familiar to the genre, but a conventional start can also be looked at as a solid foundation and that is what it seems to be with this one with the characters having enough characterisation to avoid simply being their archetypes of rogue, caster etc.

As this is the first book in a series there is obviously a fair amount of world-building going on, to establish things like the mechanics of the magic system, the people, history and geography of the world, but this is done in a fairly organic manner without disrupting the flow of the main story itself.

On the whole the narration of this book is extremely good, with the narrator giving drastically different voices for all the main characters to the extent that it is more of a performance. A couple of minor criticisms that I have, the accent he chose for Whitney, the rogue was a bit too over the top and could grate a little at times. Also, since his voices were all so distinctive there was no need for him to have read out what I can only assume were chapter headings put in by the author, they have their purpose in a text edition but not here as they disrupted the immersion created by the range of voices.

Overall, this is an enjoyable first book in the series that still manages to be a complete story in its own right too, so you do not feel like it has suffered to setup the rest of the series.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

1 person found this helpful

A Compelling tale

This tale is either love it or very good as we go on an unusual quest through a new land facing thieves to goddesses to save a kingdom.
Although this is very well written a few might find one of our main characters Whitney a bit too much although the talents of Luke Daniels make him quite tongue in cheek and very engaging. This is a great piece of work by LD but attention is needed for some of the more minor characters as the accents cam be a little too thick for easy listening. I will be keeping a keen eye out for the next in the series as i found myself having a wry smile by the end as i bonded with the writing and the story.
Overall the story is 4.5 and narration brings this up to a 5 .
I requested this audio and have left my thoughts on this for you to peruse.

3 people found this helpful

Wonderful

This is a book for all. It starts off slow but the pace picks up further along the story. The narration is amazing and there is a solid plot, sprightly and witty. The characters are entertaining and show great character development, one of the MCs is hilarious. The world is filled with magic and mystery, betrayal and friendship. The author has done a brilliant job setting the scene and as a result I will be continuing on with the series. I can recommend it to anyone who's up for some adventure!

2 people found this helpful

Just couldn't get on with the narrator

The story seemed good and the narrator read clearly and did some voices well but the 'Oirish' accent used for the thief was just grating to me and I couldn't keep listening.

One for me to read and not listen to I think.

2 people found this helpful

Just not feeling it

I got 3 hours in and it just wasn’t for me…nothing bad other than it’s making me day dream and not holding my attention.