Jay Vanderwood

I'm not a big fan of this kind of literary shift in a story. I'm invested in the story for Miles and I found this story to be frustrating to wade through. I will grant that the author did a good job in evolving Mark's character, but in the end she failed to get me to care enough about him to justify all the time spent listening to him whine about his lot in life. Unfortunately, this story has such a dramatic impact on all the characters that it is not something that can be skipped.

The Narrator, as always, does a good job of voicing the characters and makes the story bearable despite my issues with the characters.

I have really enjoyed the Takeshi Kovacs stories. From a story quality standpoint, it does not disappoint. It's gritty, it's violent, it's sexy. All the good stuff.

The biggest complaint is the narrator. I don't mind that they changed (though it does make continuity harder), but I do mind that they didn't QA this guy's pronunciation, especially of the main character's name (which the author went to some trouble to explain in the first book). Also, the flashback effect made it sound like the narrator was reading while going to the bathroom.

I enjoyed the stories themselves. It was kinda cool to see how Ender's parents got together. I also enjoyed the glimpse at Ender as a young man. The short story Ender's Game was fascinating to hear and compare to the book.

The one thing that I could not stand was the LOUD music playing over the storytellars at the begining and end of each story. Whoever it was at Audio Renaissance that thought this sounded good needs to have their head examined. Not only was it difficult to hear, but it was terrible music. Personally, I would prefer it if they never did this again, but if they had to, at the very least it should be set in the background and low enough so that it doesn't interfere.