Lorri A Karn

Very disappointed with the ending to this "cycle." It seemed as though the values of the people (Rider and Elves) changed for this book to have tragic ending.

I know it's popular to have unpredictabilty in a story, but it almost seemed as though it was forced that way and the decisions made would not be logical to the person that made them.

SPOILER ALERT!!! Really? Would Aria really have made he decision she did after the history of the Riders? The dragon she aquired needs formal training and so does Aria. Here's your dragon Aria, you can be the acception to rule that you need Rider training because you ae now the ruler of your people.

Aria finally cares for Eragon, but she will give that up as well to be the ruler of her people with an untrained dragon at her side.

I was really hoping that Glaida got Sephira pregnant during their last training session, which would have been logical being that they didn't remember about the remaining eggs. Okay, your race is about dead and you have the chance to increase the gene pool before you risk your life in battle, but you don't do it...why?

Anyway, no point to go on. Didn't make sense. I'm over it!

The writing was not what I expected from an author that has written so many books. I HATE listening to books where every other word is “I” e.g. “I went to the kitchen where I looked and I saw…” The entire series was written as if for 10 year old kids that wouldn’t notice the superficial writing style. There were multiple spots where the story was written from one person’s point of view explaining the feelings of another person. There was at least one chapter where the point of view was a non-existing person watching a scene.

This comment is not so much about the narrator, but the cheesy background music in all the books.
1. It was too loud and drowned out the narrator’s voice at times.
2. The beat of the music didn’t match the narrator’s pace and enthusiasm.
3. The timing was off and the cheesy music would start before the scene started.

Overall, the series was annoyingly childish. SPOILER ALERT: What happened with Dillin? Was he just cool with Max choosing Fang? For the last book in the series, it would have been nice to know what happened with the characters.

I was really excited about this trilogy and had really high hopes with the good reviews it was receiving, but when I heard the juvenile speech of these supposedly “smarter than average” teens I was reminded of some five year olds sticking their tongues out at each other. !!!Spoiler alert!!! With the amount of times that Thomas promised his 12 year old friend that he would get him home safe I just knew the kid was going to die. So many things wrong with the books that I don’t even want to bother listing them all. This could have been a GREAT story if the maturity level was on par with the situation these kids were in. Also, there were too many “secrets” kept. It’s nice to keep the audience wondering about the BIG picture, but there were so many secrets to keep track of that I stopped caring. When the secrets finally come to light it left me wondering why they were secrets at all. So disappointed :(

As for the reader; he was just okay. He made all the Hispanic characters sound like ghetto Mexicans going to a Raider's game. The interpretation of these characters added to the misplaced juvenile type speech that was driving me crazy.

So, I am only about 1/2 way done with this first book and IT IS AMAZING! The story is very interesting and the characters are very easy to relate to. I like the narrator except for the fact that he doesn't do the female voices very well. It actually takes away from the amazing story when there is a woman, sounding like a man, saying something about a man. I am thinking a gay character came into the story, but it's really just a bad female impersonation. He does bring a lot of drama into his voice, which I like, but a lot of the characters sound similar so it's hard to tell which character is saying what until it is announced. The narrator gets 3 stars from me because the drama is great and sounds authentic; he just needs to work on more of a variety of voices and most definitely female voices.

Although I LOVE James Marsters in the rest of the Dresden Files books, this recording was terrible! I don't like to hear the narrator swallowing and breathing. I could tell that he was trying to make it quiet and un-noticable, but really stood out. I blame this on the recording equipment since the following books do not seem to have the same problem.

Other than that, I thought the story was a solid 4 stars. I really didn't start getting into the Dresden Files until the second half of book 3. I was hooked after that and all remaining books have a solid 5 stars for the story.

Although I would have liked John Glover as a narrator of another series, there is NO replacing James Marsters for Harry Dresden. John did a fairly good job at trying to mimic the voices that James brought to life, but he didn't capture all of Harry's personality. I swear, if they ever make movies of the Dresden Files, James better get to acting class or at least voice over the person getting cast as Harry. The narration is the only reason I give this book 4 stars. I WOULD TOTALLY BUY THIS BOOK AGAIN IF IT WAS RE-RECORDED WITH JAMES!!!

Narrator was terrible. I found myself mocking the narrator instead of listening to the story. I am not sure if this was the entire problem though. I felt like the story progress was slow and didn't keep my interest. I liked the storyline of the Belariad and Malloreon triolgies better.

Wow! Unlike New Moon, this book get straight to the drama. There were so many suprises, most of them I guessed right, but they were still amazing to listen to.