
The Barrow
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Narrated by:
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Michael Page
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By:
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Mark Smylie
When a small crew of scoundrels, would-be heroes, deviants, and ruffians discover a map that they believe will lead them to a fabled sword buried in the barrow of a long-dead wizard, they think they've struck it rich. But their hopes are dashed when the map turns out to be cursed and then is destroyed in a magical ritual. The loss of the map leaves them dreaming of what might have been, until they rediscover the map in a most unusual and unexpected place.
Stjepan Black-Heart, suspected murderer and renegade royal cartographer; Erim, a young woman masquerading as a man; Gilgwyr, brothel owner extraordinaire; Leigh, an exiled magus under an ignominious cloud; Godewyn Red-Hand, mercenary and troublemaker; Arduin Orwain, scion of a noble family brought low by scandal; and Arduin's sister, Annwyn, the beautiful cause of that scandal: together they form a cross-section of the Middle Kingdoms of the Known World, united by accident and dark design, on a quest that will either get them all in the history books or get them all killed.
©2014 Mark Smylie (P)2014 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















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It is an it isn't. This story has more sex, more violence, and more treachery (if you can believe it!) that kept you guessing up until the end.
If you like dark fantasy give it a try, but as my title indicates this story is definitely not for the faint of heart!
Not for the faint of heart...but a good story
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After the first half or so of the book, it becomes more of a typical gritty adventure.
The writing and character development are well done and the voice acting is excellent. I would recommend it to anyone looking for grimdark, but keep in mind it's very nsfw and has a few scenes that some might call misogynistic (but written in a way that fits the characters).
Pretty Good Grimdark
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I won't buy the 2nd in the series.
The good!
Michael Page was excellent. I really can't say more. The characters had their own voices and they were distinct. 10 Stars out of 5.
The story, aside from it's frequent one on one meetings to tackle a performance related task, was not bad at all. I'd tag it like a prequel, with all of the oddities and weaknesses that a prequel has. This book successfully launched the story of Stjepan Black-Heart, and introduced Erim, who needed a lot more scene time. Erim spends so little time in the story, that ultimately at the end, when Mark tries to hand the series contract baton to Erim, that I was intrigued, but left thinking, "I should know more about this character...?" not knowing if that should be a question or not. The reveals that occur during and after the climax of the book are jarring due to the lack of build up.
Do I recommend this book?
No, not to any friend or family due to the excessive and unnecessary rooster time.
HOWEVER,
If you don't mind a lot of distraction, the story was fun, so go ham. I prefer less sexual intimacy in my dark fantasy books.
The biggest disappointment (Not a spoiler)
Erim is an interesting queer character (I hope I'm using that term right). She's attracted to women, but dresses like a man to dodge all the rules that women are required to follow. The interesting part about Erim, is how mysterious and capable she is. Unfortunately, she spends precious little time doing meaningful thing, so at the end I didn't feel like I knew her terribly well. Additionally, some of the events in the book centering on Erim end up conflicting with the ending, indicating that either Erim was forgotten, or was modified at the end to potentially have a bigger role in later books. Either way the implementation was awkward.
A little less rooster, a little more story
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decent first novel a little too disturbing
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loved it
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I think the key thing to know about this book (which I did not know until after listening to it) is that the author is primarily a comic book writer/artist. This book is set in the same universe as a series of comic books by him. Once I knew that, the over-the-top violence and sex suddenly made a lot more sense. The cruel incest (indeed all the sex in this book is dosed with cruelty to some degree), the unicorn horn strap-on, the maggot-animated zombie, etc...all of these made much more sense to me once I knew they came from the imagination of a comic book artist.
Sympathetic characters are in short supply in this book. The vast majority of characters are shockingly cruel, and the villains are so stereotypically villainous they're beyond caricatures (although one character amusingly comments on that fact at some point). I wonder if the only reason the author manages to make two characters somewhat sympathetic is by telling us so little about them.
Despite all the revolting material, I found myself engaged by the story. The writing is not bad by any stretch. There are, as I say, two characters I found myself rooting for. There is quite a bit of intriguing mystery about curses and maps and hidden tombs and ancient evil kings. There's a believable feeling of history throughout. The world-building is pretty well done.
I can't say I fully understood all the mysteries by the end. I was left with several unanswered questions, and in fact I was a bit unsatisfied by the ambiguous ending. (This is apparently a prequel to the comic book series, but I certainly am not tempted to read it.) There are several revelations at the end in which we learn that many of the characters are not who we were led to believe they were. Some of these turn-abouts are quite fair (i.e. well foreshadowed) and some do not seem fair at all, as if the author decided to change the rules at the last minute. I was reminded of the movie "House of Flying Daggers", in which we learn at some point that the blind girl was just pretending to be blind all along--which raises the question of why the filmmaker chose to show her acting blind when she was alone. Something like that is going on here, I think. Or I just missed something. But I would have to listen to the book a second time to find out for sure, and I'm not sure I want to do that.
Oh! it's a comic book.
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Any chapter with Leigh is a good one. The narrator gave him the most interesting voice. The narrator also did very well with Erim who (as the book's description points out is a woman disguised as a man). That's a tricky one to convey but Page did this beautifully
I spent a few moments at one point wondering if there wasn't just a bit too much of the lurid and prurient in this story; it seemed gratuitous and there seemed to be one too many brothel scenes early on but this was balanced out nicely. The characters were surprisingly complex (which is an absolute rarity in Fantasy).
Scallywags and Ne'er Do Wells
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Masterpiece of Grim
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Distracted by the shiny
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hope to see more
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