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T. B.

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  • 4
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Loved most of it...however...

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

Reviewed: 02-08-24

I'm 60 years old and have listened to, and watched hundreds of hours of audiobook and t.v. documentaries/movies about Caesar. This book is very detailed, and I've enjoyed it.

The however though....ugh...

The narrator...while most of the time sets a fine pace for reading, has a nice voice...was pronouncing a name in a way I have NEVER heard it pronounced in all those hundreds of hours of documentaries/movies and audio books.

It was like fingers on a chalkboard every time I heard him pronounce the name Cato "Kay-toe".... as 'Caht-toe"
I have never heard anyone pronounced Cato's name like that. It's just painful to hear every time he said it.
Again, I've watched BBC documentaries with English narrators, and movies with actors from various parts of the world staring in them and listen to a huge number of audio boos, both fact and fiction and never heard Cato's name pronounced so wrong.

It might be a minor thing for some listeners but for me, it's like a thorn being jabbed into my ear every time he says it.

Overall though, I am very pleased with the writing, and historical details of the book, and with only the one exception, thought the narrator did a good job.

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Ad nauseam political views almost ruined it

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

Reviewed: 02-01-24

I'm a 60 year old woman, I wore the masks, I got 'the jab' (and I still got covid).
So, I'm not against what King was postulating about, However, his anti Trump, and pro jab, masks, mentions of elbow bumps and the almost hatred that showed through towards those who didn't agree with his outlook - it got to a point where it just bogged down the story.

King is a master storyteller, but he was so heavy handed with his opinions that he wedged into the storyline that after the first few hundred mentions, I Was getting sick of it, as it just never ceased! The story was just utterly buried under it.

I felt like he showed a lot of disrespect towards his readers. He has the skills to masterfully weave his political opinion into the storyline in a more subtle manner, and done it in a way that, yeah, the reader would get it...it's His opinion, even if voiced through the character of Holly. I actually think Holly was created just for that purpose, and I'm fine with that.

But at least in all the other books with Holly, her obsessions about her health, her knowing her strong points, and her lack of confidence in other areas, and her dislike for Trump were all applied to show who she was and where she was at with her political views. King laid it all down with an even hand, but still one could see that King was using her to broadcast what his political outlooks were.

But in Holly, I think he treated us, his listeners/readers like we are stupid and needed to be reminded every other paragraph about the masks, elbow bumps, getting the jab and the boosters -- he was so heavy handed with it, that as I said, the story of the investigation wasn't the main theme and it was just buried under the politics/choices that covid brought about .

The Narration:

I like the character of Holly but hated that they switched to a female narrator that has almost the same tone of voice as about 12 other women narrators currently out there. I sometimes think that those who chose these women, just pluck them from the same area of the states as they all seem to sound the same.

Not only is this version of Holly sounding like 1 of dozen other women characters from other novels out there, she also sounded like she was in her early 20s, and Holly is suppose to be middle aged. I disliked the bland, almost accent-less voice Holly was given with the narrator, Justine Lupe.

Another thing too...she had almost no voice changes for other characters...except for the typical 'shaky' voice for elderly ones...and even those sounded like the same elderly shaky voice that so many other women narrators have.

I would have preferred the prior reader of the books that featured Holly. Yep, the man, Will Patton.
He at least made her sound so Unique and there was never a question about who was speaking when more than two people are having a conversation in the book. Justine Lupe...sometimes it was hard to tell who was talking even if one of the characters was a man and Holly and that man were talking with each other.

Patton gave Holly a speech pattern and tone of voice that is memorable, She didn't talk/sound like the generic woman that so many books seem to use anymore. Plus, Will Patton is really good at giving other characters their own voice.

I rated this book an overall 4 star, wishing we could do half stars...then it would have been a 3 1/2. I did like the story line, as it's creepy, on par with a lot of KIng's novels. I liked how King put together a wonderful detective novel that was just that, it had no supernatural stuff going on and Holly had go find all the threads that led her to the suspects.

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I Love this series

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

Reviewed: 08-13-23

Clever writing, stringing mysteries through centuries. I just Wish Audible would offer the entire series.

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Enjoyed the book, however.....

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

Reviewed: 06-05-23

Those who are involved in creating these audio books really need to research how to pronounce key words. I can almost imagine what it feels like to have a screwdriver plunged into my ear Every time I heard the narrator butcher the word 'parimutual ' And also, the name of the legendary jockey, Eddie Arcaro.

Still, the book was well written, and for me at least, fleshed out and gave me a lot of information about people and horses I heard about from the time I discovered Thoroughbred racing back in 1972.

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Wonderful trip through history

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

Reviewed: 05-27-23

Often with very long audio books I get tired with the narrator, and sometimes even irritated with some speech patterns. But this narrator did a fine job, I have no complaints with his reading, he did a great job, given the epic length of the book, and all of many characters in it.

The stories in the book were engaging, mixing history and fiction, and the author did a good job in developing twists and turns that flipped family fortunes, and sometimes even generations later saw an artist appear in a family that use to have a craft, then lose it, and once again gain it again.

I read this book back when it was first published, I think I liked it better this second time around. Maybe, it is because over the years my own knowledge of English history has grown, and I knew much more about the historical figures and events mentioned in this book. I am glad I gave it another go...worth the credit! Five stars in every category.

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1 person found this helpful

Myth based story

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

Reviewed: 03-13-23

I really had to struggle through this book. I am aware of a lot of ancient Greek stories, myths...etc...but didn't know about the one this book has it's roots in. It would have been so much better if the author had stated all of that Before the start of the book, rather than after the story was finished.

Still...even knowing that, I found the timelines confusing, and the narration as dull as a I've ever heard. I actually ramped up the speed of the narration to 1.20 to make is sound like the normal speed at which most people talk. Besides the super slow speech style of the narrator...the book's style was that of VERY LITTLE conversations...it was all pretty much descriptive....and I didn't find that style very entertaining either.

When reading the description of this book, I guess I had far different expectations than what I got. I was hoping for some kind of time travel, more detail about ancient Greek life...Conversations between characters, a little action/adventure. But mostly it was a long, slow, descriptive reading where I just could not get involved with what happened to any of the characters.

I'm not sure how this book was rated a 4 out of 5 stars. ???

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1 person found this helpful

Good story, but....

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

Reviewed: 02-03-23

Utterly Ruined by rock music. It was terrible. It's a period piece, and I wished to envision that - but to hear that kind of music for the background of parties and other scenes it just Destroyed what I had in my head when I was recalling all the various movie versions of Pride and Prejudice...the dresses, home interiors, the soft elegance that made up the world of the Bennetts.

I didn't have much hope for the poetic language to begin with, so was not disappointed there...wasn't surprised to hear straight forward modern sounding English. And, I just felt there wasn't much emotion when she suppose to be emotionally hurt, or deeply saddened by loss.

I did like the story, it moved along at a nice pace, with some interesting conversations and events in it.

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Interesting arc in this series

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

Reviewed: 02-03-23

Starting with Relic we got a monster, then later, an evil brother and a woman who hadn't aged for 150 or so years. And now parallel world time travel.

I love this series, very much miss Rene, and wish they could have got Scott Brick back. The narrator they have now is kind of bland, not a lot of difference in the way various characters sound.

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Detailed history I enjoyed this book. However...

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

Reviewed: 01-10-22

I don't know if this book's file was Compressed, and it made the narrative sound faster or if the narrator just read it super fast!
Even the breaks at the end of a chapter to the start of a new chapter was so fast, that It made the chapter number sound almost like a conjunction in a sentence. There also seem to be very little by way of pausing or the rise or lowering of tone to indicate a new chapter was coming up, or a new paragraph was starting on a new subject.
The whole reading ran so fast, it could put Usain Bolt to shame. This is unfortunate because the narrator actually has a nice voice, and the author kept the historical information interesting. Sometimes history can be dry reading, but I think this author just proves that a big part of that, does depend upon the writer.

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Bring back Scott Brick!!

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

Reviewed: 10-31-21

Scott and Rene Auberjonois were the best voices for this series. I loved Rene's voice, was so sad when I heard he passed away. He took over from Scott, and, I think, did a great job of picking up what Scott had done with the characters ' voices.

The last two narrators failed in that regard...and the guy who narrated this book, did a great injustice to the voice of Constance. He had her sounding like a screeching old hag. All his characters otherwise sounded pretty much the same, with the exception of a few who sounded like cheap knockoffs of Hollywood stars, such as Jack Nicholson.

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1 person found this helpful