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Joyce Lively

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Time travel paradox

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-20-25

When this was written time travel paradoxes had been well established in sci-fi literature. Our heroine/author seems to be blithely unaware of this. As the description says, she goes back in history to try to warn the ancestor of a character in the book of his destiny, he disappeared from the historical record, hoping to help him. Well she is at an estate of a long noble line who inherited the property due to the disappearance of this individual. If she warns him and he listens the entire time line of the title and estate are changed, or have a high likelihood of change. The estate would not be owned by the same person who inherited to title/estate. It could have been sold off decades/hundreds of years earlier, etc. the history of the event she wants to warn the ancestor of may not have played out as it did in her historical record.

This means she would not have been at the estate at the place and time of the beginning of the story. The family history would have changed and the portal to the past may not have existed. If it did it would not have the same reason to exist. I could not get past the lack of understanding by this author.

I have 9 hours left of this 13 hour book and am not sure if I can finish it. The flaw of the premise is just too unbelievable in a sci-fi genre.

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Very sympathetic characters characters

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-18-25

There was very good character development giving a very deep understanding of the inner torment each went through from their differing experience and events and the effects on each. It was the same for Dana, the main character and the horrors she went through as well as understanding those who were affected by what had happened to their loved one. Though I figured out the “who did it” midway the development of the story before they got there was very deep.

Not until the end do you understand why the author had such a personal understanding of the demons each character had in them. The performance was a little weak with the male voices. Except for one with a Texas accent the men’s voices were a little hard to tell one from the other. But she had a very good voice for telling this story.

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Book 1, sequel, same story

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-04-25

I read Outland, Book 1, about saving humanity from a super volcano by time travel. So the first book was ridiculous at least it was novel and sort of funny in its stupidity. Book 2 is nothing than more of the same stuff without the interest of starting a new civilization from scratch. I can find no credibility, nor can I suspend belief, that a bunch of elite college students have every answer in a life and death situation and are even remotely able to create a new civilization. I could not get the past 2 1/2 hours and I’m not sure how I got that far. Oh yeah, I was playing backgammon on the iPad while I listened and got sucked into that. The only saving grace is Ray Porter whom I love listening to but even he could not save a dumb story.

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A really silly preposterous story but fun.

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-03-25

Most people are too young to remember Shirley Temple and Our Gang movies. A bunch of little kids get together and say “let’s put on a show”. They make the backgrounds they come up with the props magically get the songs together and put on a little play/musical. This is what this felt like. I bunch of college kids finding the super volcano event occurred and some kid who just created a time portal gets a bunch of people through and the major character decide to create a new society. Remarkably they have every bit of knowledge, technical skill and knowing everything thing that is needed to pull this off. I couldn’t imagine a whole college of students who would have the skills to do it. However, I loved Ray Porter’s performance as I always do. He has a way of putting subtle humor in his presentations like in the Bobiverse. This is the only reason I gave it the stars I did. Could not even imagine this story as anything but sillypuppy1 and have no basis in what would be most likely to occur if people in actual danger would behave in the same situation. I’m not saying culture would implode as in many apocalyptic stories but if you see the humor it made it really enjoyable.

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How can you not love anything read by Derek Jacobi

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 01-25-25

I like M.R. James sorties. Some remarked on his stories not being really horror but I think it depends on your idea of “horror”. These are ghost stories. Many of James’s stories are quite subtle in their mysteries. I cannot say enough about Jacobi. His normal voice is soft and almost melodic yet there were times, especially in the first story where he has to do immediate changes to very complex regional accents and back again. Book 1 had more than one changes to different accents. Rare performers can make such changes so dramatically. Pretty awesome.

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This is really sillypuppy1

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 01-23-25

First the AI generated voice narration is dreadful. Really gets on the nerves. Very little variation and insipid. The stories are mindless and really boring. I thought the first was bad and going nowhere so I ended it after the first hour. The second I couldn’t even get this far.

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Stupidity

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 01-21-25

Possible spoiler alert but since I would not recommend this book I guess a spoiler alert is pointless. So the story summary seems to show a story about a bog body with other stuff happening. Maybe 2 hours tops was devoted to it! That is if you count any mention of the bog body mystery. So here we have an archaeologist, Carmac, who is called in about a bog body plus Nora a forensic pathologist who is called in to determine if this was recent, etc. Cormac got a small extra job for the property owner, Osgood if I remember. Osgood invites Cormac to stay at his estate and Cormac decides to ask Nora to stay at the estate (?) also. Why does she have any business being there after supervising the removal of the bog body. So Nora and Cormac,, mostly Nora decides to get involved in some rumor that Osgood’s was responsible for his missing wife Nina and young son maybe 2 years earlier. What on earth are they doing deciding to solve this mystery. Nora goes roaming around the manor walking in and out of rooms, looking in a room where she hears noise and searches it. Makes you want to never invite anyone to stay with you! She even was very suspicious when a new lock was put on an outside building door. How dare the owner potentially lock them out. There was a legit story about a detective opening up the cold case of the missing woman and child but eventually he was interviewing the couple about someone seeming to threaten them but goes on to asking what they thought about various characters involved in the even when they barely knew them. Then there is the really dumb flirtation between Cormac and Nora. The little flirtation is described like a writer would describe it in a teenage romance novel. Nora has no redeeming characteristics and what the flirtation, potential bedding was based on. Is beyond me. Can’t tell if it the way her character was written or the performance. Any way stupid story, bad character definition, and Cormac and Nora are instrumental in solving this cold case. So far fetched.

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Too much endless detail of every step she makes

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
2 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-31-24

I know there is a big following of the Kate Scarpetta novels but I can’t see why. First, who is her medical doctor co-writer. There is no way the author would know the minutia of not just every procedure but every bit of equipment. It makes up such a huge amount of the book it can’t be just a consultant. The level of detail in most of the book about everything is simply tiresome and boring and takes up most of the book. I guess all her books follow the same structure. Do we really need to know that she is going to the first drawer in the freezer to get out her patient and that it is steel and as she touches it she can feel the cool metal under her hands. Does she say that in every book since it would be a usual procedure in every book. Every single thing has this worthless information. The plot of the book might be interesting but there is little attention paid to it relative to the length of the book. I was so disinterested in it that I just stopped with 1 1/2 hours left on the book. I just didn’t care about the result.

Characters. Of courses she’s got to be defined in earlier books as beautiful blonde. Yeah of course, they always have to be. She supposed to be in her mid forties. It would have taken her at least 10-12 years of college/med school/residency specialty so that gets her to about 30. Then she has a career of several different job yet at mid forties she somehow some leading forensic specialist. Yeah! Right! Her niece however seems to age around her without Kate getting much older. The husband Benton has the personality of a chalkboard, is boring and seems to just roll with her abrasive personality. Then there is Moreno. Yeah he is from New York but he is every cliche of a New York cop. He sounds and acts like he is in a 1940’s gangster movie. So the performer does a really bad job.

So not recommended.

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I was writing the review in my head half way through

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-19-24

What can I say. I had ordered the latest book but realized it was a series so went back to start with the first. This story is way too long. With the endless deaths and autopsies I totally lost track. The autopsies were so detailed that I was looking for the co-author. When she explained things to detectives she went so overboard as to what you would expect them to understand or need to jnderstand. I guess she felt she would need to go into such detail with the reader. Good thing I am interested in forensics. It could be sickening.

Yet when she sought information from an expert of fingerprints, information she should have had a working knowledge, she went into excruciating detail. Again, who was the coauthor?

So much was not believable. She would never have been so involved in all these cases as they were investigated. The fact that she was going along all of these investigations was also not believable. You almost got the impression that she was the only one doing autopsies. She was constantly making the detective look like fools. Only she could find the links and they just followed up her leads and end up doing the clean up to gather details. Not realistic. She is pretty stupid. Spoiler alert. She had cues that she might be targeted when she saw a picture of herself in a possible suspect’s wall. What does she, and the detectives do about it. Nothing! She goes wandering about trying to find the perp as if she is totally safe. In the dark! No detectives put on her? She refuses to sit around and do nothing disregarding her safety as threats against her gather. I would not want her to be responsible for my safety. There is no way the police would let her get anywhere near a case where she was a target as well as her friend’s dilemma. Only realistic thing was she did not do her friend’s autopsy. .


Unfortunately I already bought the latest book and feel compelled to read it.

Reader was appropriate as being a middle aged woman. Many performers are good but not age appropriate. Switching back and forth to French was seamless.

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Poor plot

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-09-24

I am afraid I could not get past chapter 9 or so. Since main characters are children, not my usual interest level, I thought the concept sounded interesting even if I thought it maybe was a late teen oriented book. Well judging by language it definately isn’t. I found it very confusing..while the story about the girl, forgot her name already, is pretty straightforward I found the Evar/library storyline completely confusing. Maybe after many chapters it becomes a rational storyline and I could learn about the library, I could not wait for that. So I quickly stopped reading as I just didn’t care what happened to Evar and if the same confusion about the library existed I would continue to be lost. And this is part of a trilogy?

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