Tracie M. Lee

I love Ganser's voice, goes well with the story. As usual with a male narrator, the women often sound a little dippy, but he does better than most, and there aren't that many women. The series is full of the mechanics of physics and military rules, battles, strategy, etc - fascinating and informative, in my opinion. Not much character development, and in this particular book I had a little trouble believing the story line about one of the main characters falling in love, but a relatively minor plot point. If you enjoy dry/wry humor, lots of testosterone and good ol' boy/Brere Rabbit/aw shucks American/Southern ingenuity that kicks the butt of aliens with advanced technology, the occasional deus ex machina, edge of your seat battle scenes, and alien worlds which seem unremittingly to have unbreathable air and inedible foods, this series will appeal to you. I've felt that all books were equally good so far. I listen to them while driving, and often stay in the car after arriving somewhere, so I can keep listening - definitely engages the attention. In the Looking Glass and Live Free or Die series, the main character has a lot of similarities - a man with advanced degrees, non-military but works closely with the military, over-achiever, good ol' boy whose drawl hides a steel trap mind, somewhat megalomaniacal, and can't sustain a long-term relationship with a significant other. Very US-centric, which I found a little unrealistic given the premise of this story line, but hey, author's choice. Despite the small picky points, I can't wait to listen to the next book in both series.

Yes, it would be worth it just to hear the narrator talk through Pirun and Oberon's lines!

Any time Oberon claims he has been a great hound and deserves bacon...Just makes my day.

Too many to pick just one, although the tattoing sequences were a lot of fun.

I love these characters and have listened to every book in the series. The characters are flawed anti-heros, or better to say, the moral compass by which they live is slightly skewed from our modern American views of right and wrong, ethical and unethical. Drake has done a great job of world-building, creating an Imperial culture of aristocracy, purchased commissions in the military, landowners vs peasants, pocket universes and high tech gadgets (pocket-sized computers controlled by wands with holo-field displays) paired with steampunk-style space ships (sails, signals, and space suits, oh my). The narrator speaks with a sort of breathless hush - like something is always about to happen - but I swear, you get used to it and then you look forward to it, and then it just becomes part of the background.

Seriously, who would NOT enjoy these books? I've listened to them twice - and I never do that with audiobooks. The one small issue I have with this story is Atticus seems to so blithely ignore being all but told "if you kill Thor, it will destroy the world." It doesn't seem to jive with how he has approached problems in the past books. But I went with it, figuring Mr. Hearne will explain it in a future book. I'm glad the author wrote a longer story this time, and can't wait for the next book - there are so many loose ends to tie up!

The narrator used a British accent but it felt almost stilted or forced. The story seemed to lack an essential spark, found it hard to keep paying attention. It's not a bad story, just not a very exciting or interesting one. I'm 2/3rd of the way through and keep having to take breaks from it to listen to other stories. Perhaps this one works better for the YA audience than the non-YA audience.

Another very funny (I laughed so hard I swerved onto the side of the road) book, with great character moments. I gave it 4 stars because the scenes with the cops seemed more Keystone Cops than they needed to be, and some of the words are mispronounced, but we meet more wonderful characters and continue the worldbuilding. Atticus, Laksha, Oberon, the widow lady, Granuel (sp?), Leif, Hal, etc are back. Atticus begins teaching Granuel druidic lore, and his ears seem to be a target for every bad guy. Oh, and Oberon always deserves a treat!

Loved this story! The narrator does fabulously, I don't know how he didn't crack up when he was trying to get through some of the wonderfully witty scenes between Atticus and Oberon, and Atticus and his Irish neighbor lady. Despite the cover art (which looks typical of the recent rash of "romance disguised as supernatural science fiction" books), this is a smart and funny book, lots of world building, and the dialogue shines. Look forward to the next two books.

Wow, gotta take a minute to give props to the narrator, who does an amazing job with this book. His characterizations are excellent, and I love his voice. The first book in the series (The Warded Man) was better from a sympathetic character perspective. We were introduced in The Waded Man to the central characters of The Desert Spear, and they were not the good guys in the first book. In this book, Brett has done an excellent job with world-building, clearly this author's strength. You may not like the main character in The Desert Spear, but by gosh, you'll understand why he is the way he is, and why he does the things he does. Look forward to more books by Brett.

I enjoy listening to young adult / teen books, though I'm well past my young adult years. In this book, good guys are sometimes bad, and bad guys sometimes do good. The ending left me interested to learn more in the next book. Sherilyn Kenyon has done a good job translating her series for adults into the YA market. Lots of action, though sometimes the main character seemed a lot "older" than 14 in his reasoning and abilities, which was jarring. Lots of fun characters, including Bubba the genius-IQ, MIT-degreed zombie killer and his sidekick Mark. I'm not a fan of "we can't explain it with science, so let's just say it's magic," which occurred a good bit in the book. The relationship between Nick and his mom is central to the book, and SK does a very good job with it.

Other reviewers have mentioned that there's a lot of whining, and oh boy, there is. That's the drawback. It's also sort of one-dimensional on the characters. At one point, Stark says he's a "have a beer, then have another beer" kind of guy when talking about the kind of women he would date, but that's not really how his character comes across, maybe because of how the narrator voices him (very bass and commanding). Stuff I enjoyed: some good humor, interesting take on how the future could play out if technology allows officers to ride shotgun and interact with any soldier during a battle.

Live Free or Die, and Citadel, are both super-fun books. Humor, testosterone, space battles, humans kicking alien butt when we should be getting stomped by their superior technology...Fun. Love the narrator's voice - he doesn't make the women sound whiny. Couple of minor things that moved it to 4 stars: very US-centric, to the point of being rude about it - something you can sort of expect from this author, so you know what you're getting. Also, some of the technically challenging solutions they needed in the story to overcome the aliens were glossed over, you just had to accept that they figured it out - where I think the science doesn't exist yet to make them happen, so the author just used the old "the scene goes dark, and when lights come back, the characters are in their places" trick. However, neither of these detractions make the book bad, and I look forward to future stories from Ringo.