"excellent narration"
excellent duration, it makes a real difference when the reader has a clear accent and good narration skills
"good story, bad narrator"
The story was a good follow up but the quality of the narrator took away from the story, especially after how good the last one was.
"Great read"
so very good. I love this series and the string character development. each story tied together so well.
"Ruined it"
They need a better studio/mic or to fire collins. Every single time he whisper-screamed or mispronounced a word(This book has a appendix JUST for pronouniation so i know he did) it completely ruined my mood. The performance completely ruined a good Weber book.
"meh story - bad performance"
Story has interesting roots and ideas, but the author is preachy and adds a bunch of what I consider to be fluff or filler.
The performance for this story is bad, above terrible, but definitely bad. The reader/actor has little in the way of range and often misreads sounds or intents (from how I suspect the author intended). If I had known in advance I would have read the book and skipped listening to the performance.
"Narration is bad"
Narrator does not keep name and place pronunciation consistent with other books. It was hard to keep characters straight because of this.
"Slow down"
Yes. I would change the performance. I felt I was running every moment He read. I finally as a chance to listen at .75 speed. Still felt I was being urged to run just a little slower. I will never buy another book that has him as the narrator.
Never Never Never.
No
"Love the series HATE the narrator"
he narrates this like a children's book, and it destroys the series. i actually listen to the first few, skip his by reading it, then pick up the next one.
"A frustrating addition"
Another new narrator means another new set of interpretations of places and people's names - does no one research before recording these books?? Narrator had a fine voice but turned the whole thing into an emotionally charged Japanese cartoon.
"Fanatical Weber fan, but still"
Weber's universes are so deep and rich. I love the complexity of his stories, and being immersed into that world.
Merlin.
Collins does great voices and clearly invests a lot in bringing out the emotions of the characters he reads, BUT he really annoyed me here. First, I understand someone jumping into the 6th book in a series can't listen to the prior 5 for the sake of consistency, but he pronounced almost NOTHING consistently with the prior 5 books. But he didn't even get the names of Nimue Alban or Charis "right," totally changing their pronunciation. Half the nations, places and characters -- all different. I was halfway through the book before I was either A) confused or B) totally annoyed or C) both. Honestly, if he'd listened for even an hour to one or two of the prior books before sitting down to record this one, he'd have avoided 90% of this. Plus, I honestly don't think I'd have made half of these mistakes even if I *hadn't* listened to the preceding works. :-( But what's even worse in my book is that he mispronounced at least a dozen common English terms. That's just not okay. If this is your job, then do your homework, man! And on top of that, he was very melodramatic, which was also a bit annoying. Sad too, because the prior 5 books were read so well.
Yes.
Many are complaining because Weber is taking a long time and going into a lot of detail. That's really okay with me. But I have a similar complaint... the names of both people and places in the novel are too similar and there are so many of them that it is very difficult for me to keep straight who belongs to whom, etc. I would recommend not planning to particularly this Safehold novel while you're doing other things. You've gotta pay close attention to this one.
Anyway, it's a great story and Weber is a genius. Enjoy!