M. Eglestone

Catherine Asaro writes fantastic science. She obviously puts much thought into her story plots and expends exactly the right amount of effort developing the character population in each book. The only problem that keeps her from being a great story teller is that Asaro writes about military behavior with the experience level of a lifetime civilian; which doesn't work very well.

An example of this can be seen In "The Last Hawk," where she has a high ranking military officer disregarding even the most basic sworn oaths of office that every service member (officer and enlisted) must take. She even has him committing treason by swearing loyalty to the enemy in exchange for privileges and favored treatment. That blatant disregard for military behavior seriously flaws what would otherwise be an excellent book in an outstanding series.

Now, having said that, I must add this. If your only exposure to proper military behavior is what you see on TV or in the Movies, then you will more than likely have no problems with anything Asaro writes in that department. I'm critical of her treatment in that area because I spent the majority of my adult life in a military uniform and I expect authors to be, at least, slightly familiar with the subject when they use it in their stories. Unfortunately, very few of them are.

I enjoyed reading this book, and the series, because the science was so well thought out. I expect that most of you will as well.

I also recommend that you listen to the books in the order in which they were written, not in the order recommended by Audible.

Burning Lamp is a fine story and a welcome addition to the Arcane Society series. Unfortunately, this audio book is the beginning of the end for narrator Anne Flosnik.

Somewhere along the line Ms. Flosnik decided that her performances were Shakespeare plays and that she must over pronounce her words by dragging out the endings of words in an overly dramatic stage voice. Nearly every one of her works after April of 2010 suffer from the same problem. Simply put, she destroyed herself with that process. I do believe that's one of the main reasons that Recorded Books picked up the Amanda Quick books. Of course, Barbara Rosenblat isn't that much of an improvement.

As usual, The Ladies of Lantern Street Series is excellent. The Mystery Woman story is well constructed and follows the standard Jayne Ann Krentz formula. The only problems I ever have with her books is her need to explain every mystery down to the last detail by having her villains confess to each criminal action or her by having her leading characters lay down every single fact. It gets very, very annoying. The other flaw in her otherwise great stories is her aversion to firearms of any kind. You will not find a single story by the author where guns are used to an advantage by any of her leading ladies or gentleman. She just flat won't allow it. Of course, in real life guns are used daily to both save lives and take them. It's an aspect of life that will never go away; except in Jayne Ann Krentz, Amanda Quick, or Jayne Castle stories. If you didn't already know, they are all the same person.

With these exceptions in mind, I highly recommend this paranormal series. They are outstanding stories!

I keep listening to this series to see if any of the characters wise up. Unfortunately, none of them do. They keep secrets from each other even if the knowledge will save a life. I have no clue why this is. When my friends and I were that age, we did NOT keep secrets when someone was in danger, and we certainly did not allow others to distract us when passing on critical information that another needed for decision making purposes.

I like this series, but I think Kelly Armstrong needs to take a closer look at today's teens. They seldom act the way she is depicting them in this series, and they certainly aren't as paranoid about life.

By the end of chapter 7 I was fairly well insulted by the author. Making her leading lady appear to be Brain Dead was bad enough but, adding insult to injury, she also had Janet totally IGNORE every screaming sign thrust in front of her nose that things were very, very wrong with Nick.

No, folks, this was a badly written story. Allyson James should be ashamed of herself for submitting us to this sham of a story. I am done with this series.

One of the biggest flaws in First Person narration is the lack of perspective. The reader is locked into the thoughts and sights of the primary character. We have no clue what fits and what does not fit unless the leading character figures it out for us.

In Firewalker, the author tries to weave many story lines together. But, she flounders around and fails to pick a primary line which the reader can lock onto. Personally, I have no problem following five or six story lines at a time as long as the author follows a logical progression from time to time. This offering fails to do so in any meaningful way. The result, for me at least, was a total let down at the conclusion. Put another way, the means did not justify the ending.

Hillary Huber is, as always, Hillary Huber. Everyone sounds the same and each character carries the same vocal inflection regardless of the authors intent. I put up with it - but I don't enjoy it very much.

Quite a bit of explicate sex followed by a fairly predictable story line. I was less than impressed by either. I would have had no problems with the sex if it wasn't the only vehicle the author used to present the story or, if the story was unique in any way. Unfortunately neither applied. Suggest Christine Warrens "Others" series or the "Psy Changeling" series for a proper mix of sex and unique story lines.

First, let me say that I love this series and follow it closely. However, I'm not exactly sure what went wrong with this addition. I wasn't necessarily unhappy with the events as they unfolded, but I was not thrilled with the way they related to the ending. If I had to put a label on tale, I would have to say that it was poorly constructed and left me feeling unfulfilled and relieved that it was finally over.

As always, Lorelei King did an outstanding job with the narration. I have always said that in the hands of an accomplished narrator, even a mundane story will shine.

I wish every audio book producer would pay closer attention to the people they pick to narrate their stories. There are hundreds audio books that I just flat will not buy, or listen to, because of the person they picked to do the narration. Loved the books, but hate the acting ability or voice of the narrator. I end up reading the hard copy edition of many, many books that are currently available in audio format.

The Honor Harrington Series used to be action packed and fun. Now, it drags on and on like a half dead sloth. David Weber's new writing style seems to be, "Never use ten clear concise words to make a point when you have 900 available." He has also managed to Cut and Paste entire chapters from previous books into his new offerings. This book is short on story but abundant on words.

The Talbott Quadrant audio books have always been narrated by Jay Snyder. He has established the voices for everyone in the Quadrant and that section of the series belongs to him. Why they spoiled this book by substituting Allyson Johnson is beyond my comprehension. If they HAD to use Johnson, they should have let Snyder do the male voices and Johnson do the females. That mix, at least, would have made slightly more sense.

I agree with most of the reviewer's assessment of this audio attempt. The story is not one of Nora Roberts finest. The biggest gripe that I have though is not with the story, but the quality of the recording by Brilliance Audio. They have always added a bit of reverb to the voice of Susan Ericksen, but in this recording they went too far. The audio quality is so thin that it hurts my ears at times. Frankly, I gave up on the Audio Book and finished the story in written format. The story wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be when I started the Audio Version. My recommendation is to read the book in written format. You may like it a lot better.

This is book 8 in the Pip and Flinx series

I'm not sure where the recording company got their copy of Flinx's Folly, but my first addition hard cover is very different from the production they have offered here. There is quite a bit of added material in their version that isn't in the hard cover book. I doesn't change the story in any significant way, but it's still not what was published.

As with the entire series, Stefan Rudnicki's voice has too much basso to do proper female voices, and he can't maintain them when he tries. You end up with a female talking in a basso voice lower than most men can manage. It's off putting. A good audio book takes a full range actor who can manage every voice in the story and make them unique.