Patrick Flynn

Fun light young reader's story.

The description of Apophis' shadow when they find it at the edge of the Sea of Chaos.

Dynamic voices tackling a variety of accents and dialects, they often perform the same characters from the perspectives of the primary character's they play. For those not familiar with how the Kane Chronicles are told, I can see how this might be confusing at first, but it makes for some more fun as the stories progress.The narrators really do an excellent job, and have some fun with the story, and the pronunciations are consistent all the way through the book, which can be hard with the very foreign sounding words and names from ancient Egypt.

No, can't say I had an extreme reaction, but I did enjoy the story and especially the narration.

The Kane Chronicles are a light fun fare, not quite as good or thought provoking as the Percy Jackson series, but still a nice read/listen. I did find a lot of direct comparisons and desriptions right out of Harry Potter, but I guess that is inevitable when dealing with a snake as a bad guy.

I did not read Ender's Game when I was younger, I remember my classmates reading and giving reports on the book, but I never thought it sounded interesting, but I have since discovered that most 11 or 12 year olds (or those who did not truly understand the impact of what happened in the book) didn't "get it".
The premise is this, in a not too distant future, aliens have attacked twice, some 60+ years before. An international military conglomerate had been formed to fight off any additional attacks (called the International Fleet or IF), but the IF also knew they did not have the type of military leaders it would take to completely defeat their enemies. In order to find this leader, the IF monitors all children with a small implant.
The story follows Andrew "Ender" Wiggin from when he is six years old to his recruitment into "Battle School" with the IF and beyond. Ender is subject to ridicule, teasing, bullying, and abuse, it is hard to go through everything with him, but it helps tell the story and leads up to the climax.
This is my favorite book because of the emotional investment we have in Ender and the things he goes through. The lessons to learn from this book regarding ethics, leadership, politics, war, fear and more are HUGE! And, it is an entertaining story to boot, stay with it, the first half may seem slow, and you may find yourself asking "What exactly is going on?" it will all make sense by the end.
The audio recording is great, done by an ensemble with a main voice for each character's perspective. When the chapter is focused on Ender's perspective, one man reads all of the parts. When told from Ender's sister Valentine's perspective, a female character read most (if not all) parts, and so on. I love this method of recording and each of the voice actors are fantastic.

I fully recommend this book even if you are not a big sci-fi fan, or if you are just a fan of quality storytelling and great audiobooks, this is definitely worth your money or credit!

I will only to see what the continuing books have in store.

No

Nothing, I think if the dialogue were more orginal and rich, he would have been able to run with it a little more.

Get my son into more sci-fi and fantasy stories, instead of pulp YA books, but real, invovled and challenging stories.

Keep in mind, Paolini was VERY young when this was written, he borrowed a lot of pieces from his favorite stories, so in a way this book is a homage to Lord of the Rings, Wheel or Time, etc. So for those who are young adults and looking for a entry into fantasy, this is a great book!

Very high, although not in my "Top favoorite" simply because it wasn't the type of story I love. But the book is very good and and recording performance is excellent.

By far Shadow was, but I was very intrigued by Chernobog as well. I found myself researching the mytholgy of all the characters from ancient and old civilizations the stories come from.

***SPOILERS*** From a character and cinematic perspective (I envision all the books I "read" from a movie standpoint) the scene following Wednesday's death, and the interaction of all the old gods and the new. And the mythological connotations of how his wake is handled.

NO! The story is far too intense in spots, and very long, but I did find myself listening very intently much longer than I would have under normal circumstances.

Great recording and voice acting, makes the story very cohesive and provides great context. This is a very intense book, much like how Pulp Fiction was upon first viewing. I hope Gaimain follows through and makes a sequel at some point.

I have read everything in the Ender and Shadow series, and to be fair, I haven't totally loved all of it. I do love the setting and the arching story. I have come to appreciate Card's storytelling, while not simple, and not for everyone, I love the way he does it.
This story does not have a lot of action even though there is much going on, discoveries being made, and pieces of a chess board being moved into place by Card and Johnston.
For fans on the Ender stories, this is a great book, for those not initiated with Ender and the Formic Wars, I suggest starting with Ender's Game, and go from there. I don't think this story would make much sense unless you knew what happens in Ender's Game, like a good prequel should be. Keep in mind, the book ends in a somewhat abrupt manner (although not as bad as some people have made it out to be) but it sets ups the next book nicely (due in June 2013).
The narration is once again wonderful. Using Card and Jonston's text, Rudnicki and cast use a different approach than most audio recordings and it breathes wonderful life and perspective into the story. The narrators take turns reading the chapters or sections to give a unique voice to the perspective of whomever the focus character is for that section, it works well and I wish more audio books did this, but it may take a special literary approach to make it work in the first place (Card writes with performance in mind).

Once again as an extra bonus, Orson Scott Card has a short interview at the end of the book. I love these "Bonus features" and honestly wish there were more!

Great book/story, great performances, and a great setup for a trilogy filling in some gaps in one of my favorite book series of all time.

Yes, it is chock full of nuances, information and mysteries that I love about this series.

The discovery of the mystery ship, and the processes Bean and the kids go through to determine what they should do.

The narrators are the same as previous Shadow and Ender books, and I love that they have kept it consistent over the years. I also love that the author has personal involvement in the production of the audiobooks.
Seperate voices for each character helps distinguish each point of view (since they are often so different) is great, the personality each voice lends to the characters is important, and a great decision made by the producers.

The end, I wont spoil it, but I shed a couple tears.

This is a short novel, according to Card, he felt he had to tell this story before telling another story (coming soon I presume) and the length is just right. If you have listened to and enjoyed previous Shadow or Ender stories, you will love this one, and I think it is as good as the best of these series. Even though it is shorter than most novels of Cards, I did not feel cheated or that the length was not worth my purchase, I might suggest just paying the purchase price, rather than your monthly credit, if you want to maximize your value.
I love the fact that Orson Scott Card has little "commentaries" at the end of his books, its like getting a short "Bonus feature" like you get on DVD's. I wish more authors did this (I think Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter did this as well). This bonus adds even more value to my purchase, thank you Mr. Card!

Yes, even if you have read The Hobbit, Inglis' performance is spot on, excellent pacing, he brings Tolkien's songs to life.
Those who have seen the Peter Jackson movies may be a bit put off by the difference in accents of the characters (although I feel Bilbo is coincidentally similar to Freeman and Holm's voices) especially the dwarves and elves. But if one keeps in mind that this recording was done before the movies were made, people will get over it.

In regards to the audio recording specifically is the scene in the mountain when Bilbo meets up with Gollum, the writing and dialog is very rich, and performed very well, and for those who have read all of the Lord of the Rings books, the weight of future events is hinted at slightly in these scenes.

A wonderful voice and performance. Was able to pull off all of the various characters, although almost all of the dwarves sounded the same, but Tolkien usually lets us know who is talking.
Inglis has a regal voice, being noble when it is needed, very common when called for. His baritone singing voice does great justice to Tolkien's songs, even though he is not a professional singer, it sounds as if Thorin and the group were standing in my dining room singing!

13 dwarves, a wizard, and a Hobbit, what could go wrong?

No, I don't re-listen very often, and Riordan does a good job of making the marking events memorable especially as you read next entries into the series.

Great historical tie-ins and doesn't give us the "lite" versions of mythology. The characters get to shine in seperate moments, allowing more of their personality to be revealed. I just wish I knew more about Jason!

He keeps things moving and engaging, He has fun with the voices, even if they aren't all that dynamic (you can always tell it's Swanson, you never get the feeling he "transforms" into his characters) He make distinct differences between his characters (with maybe the exception of the giants, but that is understandable) Swanson also handles all the difficult names and locations which could easily get butchered.

Simply because the book is relatively short, yes I would listen in one sitting. But the book isn't so engaging or edge-of-the-seat that I felt like I "couldn't put it down".

As a series, the Heroes of Olympus is not as good as the original Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but is fun, and continues the stories of the main characters, and the story is good enough, you want to know what happens next.

Unless it pays off in later books, the Lando/Kessel storyline didn't interest me much.

I would have lost the Kessel story arc, unless it pays off in later books, it was only a device to keep Han and Leia in the book.

No I haven't listened to him before that I know of.

Only because it was Star Wars, yes, but otherwise, I would wait until DVD.

From what I have read, the Fate of the Jedi series gets very good, but this is only a mediocre outing. I honestly got bored at a few points. I do like the production that goes into the Star Wars books, and Thompson's performance was good, along with certain elements of the storyline (Luke and Ben's "investigation") so that alone is worth the cost if you are a Star Wars fan and want to start off from the beginning of this series.

It can appeal to anyone who ever loved a movie, game, song or band from any era. There is a bit of geek/nerd in everyone and I think because of that anyone would like this book.
This book shows that heroes can come from anywhere and anyone, and the geeks shall inherit the Earth :)
Wil Wheaton's performance is heartfelt and passionate, fitting because he is one of the world's elite geeks. But you could really tell he put a lot into this performance.

It is such a unique mashup of genres, styles and interests, it's hard to pin this book down. But any story with a quest unexpected turns, dangers and puzzles can show some of what this story is like.

Spot on, couldn't think of someone better to do the narration.
There were times I could hear Wil shuffling pages, or pausing to swallow or something, this could have been taken care of in post production, but for some reason, was not. But it is not overly distracting.

The final few chapters, capped off by the last line of the book were very well done, very emotional, unexpected, and spot on!

Read/listen to this book, if ANYTHING about the summary interests you, get this book!