Xander
- 27
- reviews
- 16
- helpful votes
- 88
- ratings
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To Shape a Dragon's Breath
- The First Book of Nampeshiweisit
- By: Moniquill Blackgoose
- Narrated by: Charley Flyte
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 290
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 277
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 277
The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Fantasy- 1 star indigenous peoples trials- 4 stars
- By Jim on 01-07-24
- To Shape a Dragon's Breath
- The First Book of Nampeshiweisit
- By: Moniquill Blackgoose
- Narrated by: Charley Flyte
Everything done well
Reviewed: 03-14-25
I have been waiting for a book like this for ages.
World building is good, story is good, a fresh take on the dragon rider school… but the best is the native perspective. Finally a book where a native plainly speaks up for their own civilisedness without preaching…
Fantastic…
Make a movie of this one!
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Ensaadi
- Warlords of the Sandsea, Book 1
- By: Elisabeth Wheatley
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Wheatley
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7
Ensaadi Talitha of Ilios is the warlord’s heir who dreams of peace. Finally, she has the chance to broker a marriage between two feuding tribes, but her efforts are shattered when her besotted cousin claims the bridegroom. The treachery forces Talitha and her warriors to flee back to Ilios. Only through an uneasy alliance with a band of mercenary Dunedrifters and their enigmatic leader can her people hope to make it home.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Unlistenable
- By Xander on 02-11-25
- Ensaadi
- Warlords of the Sandsea, Book 1
- By: Elisabeth Wheatley
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Wheatley
Unlistenable
Reviewed: 02-11-25
The story is nice and I like the writing…
But, please Author… hire a professional voice actor! You are not good at reading out loud… your books deserve a proper narrator and without it their audiobooks will never sell. I won’t get a refund to support you but.., Hire a professional!
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Service Model
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,053
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,892
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,892
Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away. Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Another banger from Tchaikovsky
- By J. C. Amos on 06-09-24
- Service Model
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Very relevant!
Reviewed: 08-12-24
Very well written robots perspective of the collapse of civilization (which as we are told has a negative impact on the availability of new updates...
The ending is a very apt explanation of how AI can be dangerous even (or perhaps especially) if it doesn't develop self awareness
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1 person found this helpful
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Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian
- The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus
- By: Robert E. Howard, Finn J. D. John
- Narrated by: Finn J. D. John
- Length: 35 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,474
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,270
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,259
This collection contains all of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian stories published during his lifetime, contextualized with biographical details of their author.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Reading!
- By Jackson on 07-19-17
- Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian
- The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus
- By: Robert E. Howard, Finn J. D. John
- Narrated by: Finn J. D. John
Awesome omnibus
Reviewed: 08-06-24
Conan is a very important foundation of modern fantasy... If you want to educate yourself as to why... Read this...
The prose is awesome, as is the pacing and storytelling... The stories are extremely tropy but superbly done
They are sexist and racist of course... How could they not be as they were written in the 30s... But to be honest... Not nearly as much as i thought they would be
If you are willing to suspend your sensitivity a little there is a great deal to enjoy and learn from in this bundle...
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All Systems Red
- By: Martha Wells
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21,434
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19,244
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19,227
All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I just wish all four stories were one book...
- By Garrett Stone on 11-05-18
- All Systems Red
- By: Martha Wells
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
Nice robo-autism
Reviewed: 02-20-24
I like murderbot a lot... And i recognize parts of myself in them...
It is a decent action story from a decently novel point if view...
Looking forward to the next one!
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How to ADHD
- An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It)
- By: Jessica McCabe
- Narrated by: Jessica McCabe
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 554
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 520
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Story5 out of 5 stars 520
Diagnosed with ADHD at age twelve, Jessica struggled with a brain that she didn’t understand. She lost things constantly, couldn’t finish projects, and felt like she was putting more effort in than everyone around her while falling further and further behind. At thirty-two years old—broke, divorced, and living with her mom—Jessica decided to look more deeply into her ADHD challenges. She reached out to experts, devoured articles, and shared her discoveries on YouTube.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Life changing
- By J & G on 04-02-24
- How to ADHD
- An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It)
- By: Jessica McCabe
- Narrated by: Jessica McCabe
Perfect…
Reviewed: 01-11-24
If you know and like her YouTube content… as I do… then this book is perfect…
Very well told ADHD support… tools, stories, validation, uplifting-ness… what you need basically if you have or suspect you have ADHD…
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1 person found this helpful
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The Way of Kings
- The Stormlight Archive, Book 1
- By: Brandon Sanderson
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer, Kate Reading
- Length: 45 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,529
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,252
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Story5 out of 5 stars 3,247
According to mythology, mankind used to live in 'The Tranquiline Halls': heaven. But then the Voidbringers assaulted and captured heaven, casting out God and men. Men took root on Roshar, the world of storms, but the Voidbringers followed. The Almighty gave men powerful suits of armor and mystical weapons, the Shardblades. Led by 10 angelic Heralds and 10 orders of knights known as Radiants, mankind finally won (or so the legends say).
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant
- By Robbie Lopes on 06-22-11
- The Way of Kings
- The Stormlight Archive, Book 1
- By: Brandon Sanderson
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer, Kate Reading
Decent militaristic fantasy in interesting world
Reviewed: 11-04-23
The story itself is a little run-of-the-mill. I would have given that by its self three stars. The world building is decent, but above all it is very well written so that ramps it up to about four stars.
The performance is very good. I like both of the narrators and I do a good job as always. They don’t make the story overly vibrant but it doesn’t need to be.
I wanted to listen to this book to get me through a very long and boring work project and it was perfect for that. I am honestly very impressed by how Brandon Sanderson managers to pace this story out for 50 hours and still keep you interested for more. I think the entire series at this point is about 200 hours, which is incredible if he manages to keep it interesting as he did here…
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Doppelganger
- A Trip into the Mirror World
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Naomi Klein
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 895
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 815
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 814
What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Elite Psychobabble
- By A Reviewer on 09-30-23
- Doppelganger
- A Trip into the Mirror World
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Naomi Klein
Very insightful, also… Something…
Reviewed: 10-22-23
I don’t quite know what to say…
This book very accurately puts its finger on the sore spot of today’s society… it is very uncomfortable to read at times, because it’s insights are so sharp…
I think it is the most important book I have read in a long while…
It is also very long, fairly scattered and the doppelgänger parallels are sometimes overreacting and, frankly, annoying…
The ending is a little unsatisfactory, I would have liked more handholds for change ( but perhaps there just aren’t any, so that may not be the authors fault)
The way it is written will make it impossible for me to recommend reading it to some people I would really like to discuss it with…
But I am very glad to have read it…
(Hope this helps…)
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The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
- A Novel
- By: Shannon Chakraborty
- Narrated by: Lameece Issaq, Amin El Gamal
- Length: 16 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,164
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,029
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,029
Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not City of Brass, A Fun Swashbuckling Adventure
- By Pele on 03-23-23
- The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
- A Novel
- By: Shannon Chakraborty
- Narrated by: Lameece Issaq, Amin El Gamal
Awesome book… tv series please!
Reviewed: 09-30-23
A well told story in a far too neglected setting…
I have never been more nostalgic for the al Qadim DnD campaigns of my youth than I am now right after finishing this book…
I want more… please write the next story… and if there are any streaming services reading this… make it into a series… absolute storytelling gold…
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Starter Villain
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12,770
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,326
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,320
Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Volcanic Lairs, Death Rays & Cats… Oh My! 😼
- By C. White on 09-19-23
- Starter Villain
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
Light on story but OK
Reviewed: 09-21-23
Story wise it is a little lacking… I don’t really care about what happens to the protagonist…
But the Scalzi dialog and the performance are as awesome as ever…
So… if you are new to this author… read something else by him… if you have read most of his stuff and would like another fix… go for it!
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5 people found this helpful