Anonymous

Narrator renders the audiobook unlistenable.

Reviewed: 03-13-15

Good story. Breathless, over-dramatic narrator who mispronounces many words. This series has been plagued by a constant changing of narrators (none have yet voiced more than two books in a row). Fortunately, most of the narrators have been acceptable. This one wasn't.

This is the book that taught me the importance of listening to the audio sample before buying the audiobook. I don't think I'd buy even another audiobook in this series, which I'm pretty invested in, if he's the one reading it.

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Imaginative, genre-defying sci-fi. Good narration

Reviewed: 03-04-15

David Weber's first book in the Safehold series is, despite the author's trademark wordiness, a lively and well-paced novel. Later novels in the series are less well-paced, but fans of Weber (of which I am one) will keep slogging through the endless exposition to see just where the story might go.

Difficult to define by genre, "Off Armageddon Reef" blends Science Fiction, Space Opera, Alternate History (thematically, if not exactly in fact), and Age of Sail naval action. Oh, and swashbuckling. There is swashbuckling. Buckles are swashed. While that may be a confusing melange of stuff to cram into a story, it works pretty well. Be forewarned; what is effectively a prologue spans the first few hours of the audiobook.

Oliver Wyman's narration is excellent. I wish he had been the narrator for the entire series. The others are a mixed bag, although none are bad. Wyman, though, does a superb job of bringing the disparate characters to life through accent, tone, and pitch.

I definitely recommend this to fans of Weber, fans of military sci-fi, or those who have the time and patience for a long, but entertaining, novel. If your tolerance for lengthy exposition about technical minutiae is low, this probably isn't the novel for you.

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Bring Back Marsters to Narrate the Next Book

Reviewed: 10-15-12

John Glover is a good narrator. His voice sounds markedly older than James Marsters', which is a bit jarring, and of course he presents a slightly different characterization, but it's still quite good as a stand-alone effort. If he'd been narrating the series from the beginning, I would probably have been okay with that. My review isn't a criticism of Glover, it's an acknowledgment that James Marsters' narration was something special: That rare circumstance where a narrator actually enhances the material he reads. That's not something you find easily or often, and when you do the result is pretty spectacular. I enjoyed reading the previous books in this series, but I enjoyed listening to them even more.

Honestly, I'm probably going to buy the next Dresden audiobook when it comes out no matter who narrates it, because I'm very invested in the series. But my respect for the producers, and my hopes for the improving standards of quality and craftsmanship in audiobooks as an entertainment medium, will plummet if they don't bring back Marsters.

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Mediocre effort by a generally good writer.

Reviewed: 05-27-11

First, the narration was quite good. Boyett does a good job. The books sounds fine.

It's just... a weak effort on Ringo's part. Feels almost more like a continuation of "Citadel", the second book in the series, than a separate novel. Few new plot threads are introduced. Fewer still are resolved. The first half of the book is functionally a diatribe against South American cultural values... and I haven't the slightest idea why that needed to be in the book. Lots of didactic "This is why you're wrong" speeches. Worse, this all has basically no effect on the the space battle at the end of the book. The book ends suddenly, without much in the way of resolution.

I like this series. I hope it gets better again. If it doesn't it won't be worth reading (or listening to).

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4 people found this helpful

Great book, good narration.

Reviewed: 01-01-11

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books are some of the best things I've read in recent memory. Fun, exciting, tense, witty and well-written. Storm Front is a great start on a series that only ever seems to get better.

Marsters' narration is solid and engaging, although he seems to have a few problems with breathing and reading. Very minor, not really an issue. This disappears in later books, and his narrations go from solid to superb. I really couldn't imagine anyone else as the voice of Harry Dresden. This series is almost better to listen to than read (almost).

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Mediocre narration of a good, fun book

Reviewed: 01-01-11

It was not a terrible narration, just not very good. The narrator's idea of giving each character a unique voice tended to come down to assigning them random bad accents.

For those who've read the series: He gives Mahoney a bad British accent. That's gotta be some kind of sacrilege to commit on an Irishman. And apparently the Eternal Emperor is an Aussie now.

It doesn't ruin the experience altogether, but it does detract from what ought to be a fun military SF action-adventure. I probably won't get the second in the series, unless it's free or cheap. "Sten" is a better read than a listen.

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5 people found this helpful