Nevermore

Unbelievably Awful

Reviewed: 07-17-24

I can't think of an anything good to say about this. I guess it would have been even worse if it was longer? This reads, and sounds, like something an exceptionally dim 5th grader would come up with. The characters are completely flat, the plot like something out of a B movie (except the writers clearly didn't know they were writing a B movie), the relationships unbelievable, the actions of the characters idiotic, and, well, you probably get the point. If you want to torture yourself with a terrible reader reading terrible material, then definitely grab this one up fast!

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Black is fully in the grey zone

Reviewed: 01-04-23

These are *fun* books. It's an interesting blend of Noirish tropes and humor. The characters are enjoyable and seem real (in part due to the excellent narration). However, our main man Black is almost entirely reactive, and the books frequently rely on the Idiot Plot device to move the story forward. Maybe not idiot, maybe more like the Incompetent Plot device. After all four books I'm finding it difficult to put a finger on much Black did to actually resolve the particular case-issues confronting him (except telling Roxy to do research). It's more like he just waited for something, anything, to happen. Then he, mostly, resolves the cases by sheer luck. You might say 'process of elimination', but since he wasn't proactive about it most of the time, it's really more like blind luck. There are also quite a few very stupid decisions made in order for the plot to move forward. So keep your expectations in check. If you want a fun read these may float your boat. If you want good mysteries in a Noir style try the Amos Walker series by Estleman instead. Not as much humor, but a great series of modern Noir-derived detective novels with a much more intelligent (or at least competent) protagonist.

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As if Leonard Cohen had continued to write novels

Reviewed: 03-24-21

Wow. Simply wow. I was not surprised, upon doing some research, to find that ESJM is both a Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits fan; and far beyond a fan when it comes to LC, as I believe every one of her books has at least one secret little easter-egg nod to him. If you think of Leonard's Beautiful Losers, but put through the lens of time and experience, you might end up with something like the books of Emily St. John Mandel. Her writing style is hauntingly, achingly, exquisitely beautiful; and she uses it to tell stories that resonate along those lines and yet contain a certain brutal honesty about the human condition. It's if if she walks up to the dark nature of humanity, looks into it, and finds it not only ugly, but also beautiful, and then laughs. Of all her works, I think The Singers Gun may be the best. At the very least, it is my favorite thus far. I can't wait for her to write some more.

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9 people found this helpful

Good book ruined by Narrator

Reviewed: 02-20-21

This book is not quite up to Hiassen's other works, but since I haven't read the printed work it's impossible to know whether that's because it's hard to be funny about something as catastrophically terrible as Trumpism, no matter how hard you try, or if it's because Scott Brick narrated it. I wish I had purchased it in paperback. For those still uninitiated in Brick's 'style' of narration; it's always the same, no matter what the material is. And it has this kind of strange sing-song quality where words or syllables are incorrectly emphasized and/or lengthened. It's almost as if he's reading a poem. The only time his narration works is through pure luck; if the material he is reading somehow meshes with his one style of reading. So he hands-down ruins the vast majority of works that he narrates. I didn't notice that he narrated this or I would not have purchased it. There is absolutely no way Brick could ever properly narrate a work that requires comedic timing, as Brick is incapable of, or unwilling to, change his narration style even the tiniest amount based on the material. Note to whoever is hiring Brick to narrate; for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, please, please, please stop! Nine of out ten books he narrates need to be re-read by other narrators! He's really just that bad; the single worst narrator working in the business.

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Hang on for a wild ride!

Reviewed: 05-06-20

A great tale well told and well read. Neal does a fantastic job of making the reader feel like they are a part of history as it unfolds. Just wonderful.

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Classic fantasy tale let down by awful narrator

Reviewed: 04-18-20

This is one of those classic fantasy books that holds up reasonably well as an adult. It's not absolutely fantastic; I would suggest that Brandon Sanderson is certainly a more talented author - but that if grand fantasy tales of Tolkien, Sanderson etc. interest you that you might like these as well. Donaldson does get better as his career progresses, and this is an early work. If you want to jump in someplace later in his career then choose one of his other series, don't try to jump in later in the Thomas Covenant series itself. The protagonist is, as others have mentioned, a real piece of work. But literature is full of redemption stories, and maybe this is one of them if you keep reading. It is, unfortunately, read by one of the most routinely awful narrators working in the business. Scott Brick reads every book exactly the same way, with a kind of sing-song and bizarre inflection that has zero bearing on the content or tone of the work as a whole, the current scene, or the emotional state of mind of the characters. It's so random that the tone of his voice may actually be directly opposed to how a particular scene should read. Add to this a bizarre teeendENcy toooooo draw OUt and add totallyyy ranDOM EMphaSIS to entire words or syllables, and you've got a very strange listening experience indeed. One that detracts immensely from the story. It's a shame he's so prolific.

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3 people found this helpful

One of the great Sci-Fi Writers

Reviewed: 02-27-20

For those who don't know, John Brunner is one of the great Sci-Fi writers. His name should be uttered along with Clarke, Le Guin, Asimov, PKD, Bradbury, Adams, etc. Most of his books have been long out of print (it took me a good 10 years, starting around 1985, to collect them all), so it is wonderful to see a few of his works here on Audible. The Sheep Look up is one of his most notable works, along with Stand on Zanzibar and The Shockwave Rider (where the term "Worm" was coined for a particular type of computer malware). I was a bit worried that the format of the book might be confusing in audio form, but it works fine (he, more than any other writer I've ever read, predicted the hypertext world of distractions we now live in and the book is full of distractions meant to pull the reader's attention away from what is important, the same way the character's attention in the story is pulled away from the reality of the world in which they are living). Like many great Sci-Fi writers, Brunner now seems to have been prescient, but to a level beyond that of most others (even Clarke). The number of times Brunner looked at the world of the future and got it right, or nearly right, is simply staggering. Unlike many of his contemporary writers, his works never became repetitive or self-derivative - each story was fresh. It is well worth scouring used book stores to collect any of his works you are able to find.

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22 people found this helpful

A serious amount of fun.

Reviewed: 02-25-19

Like his other books, this one is just a ton of fun all along the way. A very enjoyable read with great characters. Only minor quibble (and the reason I didn't give it 5 stars) is that, like so much modern SciFi, the great discoveries just come to easily and quickly. It's an excellent adventure novel with SciFi elements and a SciFi setting, but it's definitely low on that "sense of discovery" that truly great SciFi should have.

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5 people found this helpful

The Aliens 3 of the series. Stay away!

Reviewed: 02-25-19

So, 14 was utterly brilliant and The Fold was maybe just a bit less original and engaging but was also excellent. This, on the other hand, is probably a story Clines originally wrote for his super-heroes-vs-zombies series and then just edited to pretend it was part of his Threshold series. It would have worked if his super-heroes had gone to battle zombies on the moon. That would have been just fine. But as part of the Threshold series it's a massive disappointment on every front (except the performance). It's so bad that it's like Aliens 3, or the Matrix sequels, or anything after the original Highlander, or the Star Wars prequels. In other words, it is bad enough to actually destroy your enjoyment of the works that preceded it. Really, if you loved 14 and The Fold definitely give this one a skip. Otherwise the Old Gods of bad story-writing will come and extract your enjoyment of those two novels. You have been warned!

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5 people found this helpful

Amazing (ly bad)

Reviewed: 02-25-19

I enjoyed one of Jeremy Robinson's other books (Infinite), so I expected to enjoy this as well, but I could barely finish it. This is more of a YA action/adventure story that is slanted heavily towards the action end. It's only SciFi in the sense that it involves aliens of a sort. Amazing discoveries and insights just fall from the sky (or from elsewhere) - there is zero sense of discovery or exploration. Imagine reading a mindless Michael Bay action movie. It's kinda like that, except it somehow manages to be boring as well. Quite simply one of the most disappointing books I've ever read.

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4 people found this helpful