Children of Fire

The Chaos Born, Book 1

By: Drew Karpyshyn

Narrated by: Phil Gigante

Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Drew Karpyshyn has made his mark with imaginative, action-packed work on several acclaimed videogames, including Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, as well as in a succession of New York Times best-selling tie-in novels. Now Karpyshyn introduces a brilliantly innovative epic fantasy of perilous quests, tormented heroes, and darkest sorcery - a thrilling adventure that vaults him into the company of such authors as Terry Goodkind, Brandon Sanderson, and Peter V. Brett.

Long ago the gods chose a great hero to act as their agent in the mortal world and to stand against the demonic spawn of Chaos. The gods gifted their champion, Daemron, with three magical Talismans: a sword, a ring, and a crown. But the awesome power at his command corrupted Daemron, turning him from savior to destroyer. Filled with pride, he dared to challenge the gods themselves. Siding with the Chaos spawn, Daemron waged a titanic battle against the Immortals. In the end, Daemron was defeated, the Talismans were lost, and Chaos was sealed off behind the Legacy - a magical barrier the gods sacrificed themselves to create.

Now the Legacy is fading. On the other side, the banished Daemron stirs. And across the scattered corners of the land, four children are born of suffering and strife, each touched by one aspect of Daemron himself - wizard, warrior, prophet, king.

Bound by a connection deeper than blood, the Children of Fire will either restore the Legacy or bring it crashing down, freeing Daemron to wreak his vengeance upon the mortal world.

©2013 Drew Karpyshyn (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Sufficient and Agreeable, a simple story.

To preface, I don't mean "simple" in a degrading way, sometimes simple is good. Not overly layered or complicated, easy to follow and not pretentious or overly ambitious.

Overall?

That's what this story (and this series as a whole) is: a good, simple story with a nice linear trajectory. A perfect relaxing read (listen) with a few intensity moments to keep your interest throughout. Fairly likeable characters that can be relatable at times, setting is familiar and welcoming while also being strange and hostile in its own way.

This book, Children of Fire, is by far the strongest of the series, and in many ways this mirrors what the Mass Effect videogame trilogy would have been if Drew had been allowed to write 3 as well.

Narration?

Phil Gigante does a good job with different male voices (naturally), but he does struggle with female voices. He can create one or two believable female voices but the rest are like Skyrim NPCs, different names but the same voice.

Performance?

Like the title suggests, I found the production (narration, music, editing, pacing) to be agreeable and simplistic. For those who are looking for more grandeur this will leave you wanting, but if you go into this fairly unassuming then you will be pleased with the outcome.

Brutal yet excellent

I love the writers work in general. Extremely riveting, looking forward to the next one.

Be patient, it starts off very slow...

Please bare with it, this book starts off veeeeery slow and takes a while to pick up the pace, but just give it a chance, it'll be worth it.

I understand why people who quit in the middle of this book find it so disappointing, the entire first half of it is back-stories and details about characters that have not yet been properly introduced, I didn't pay much attention in the first part and so missed out on a lot of that information.

The one thing that kept me going was "this is what Karpyshyn left Star Wars and Mass Effect for, it has to be worth it" I was almost 75% into the book and still forcing myself to bare with it just a bit more.

But then at the end it finally started picking up the pace and I finally started to enjoy it and follow along with all the details, I wouldn't say it's better than Karpyshyn's other sci-fi books but it is still quite enjoyable.

And despite Karpyshyn's attempt to move far away from his other works to create a brand new saga, this book has the Star Wars feel all over it, it even has friggen' Jedi's in it, well they're not called Jedi's but they still are Jedi's and since Jedi's are awesome, this book is awesome.

I don't usually read book a second time but I think I will make an exception for this one, not because I liked it so much but because you'll miss out on more than half of it if you only read it once.

And I am definitely reading the second book as soon as it comes out, I think it will have no problems with pace as all the ground work has been set up in this one and so the second should have no problem being just nonstop action...

Solid Fantasy

Where does Children of Fire rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's decent, a middle-of-the-road quick read fantasy epic.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

The book definitely gets better as it goes. The 4 (!) origin stories drag quite a bit, but eventually the characters flesh out some, even if they are pretty much standard tropes. I'm hoping as it goes forward they will get some dimension. The story is pretty straightforward and the lore is confusing at times. It's basically Dragon Age meets Game of Thrones with some Star Wars mixed in.

What three words best describe Phil Gigante’s voice?

Terrible female voices.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Gigante's female voices almost made me quit. He is great with male voices and making them distinct and full of performance. But every female and child is the same breathy damsel-in-distress the takes away from powerful female characters.

It's a solid fantasy epic.

Any additional comments?

Looking forward to the next two.

Better than I thought it would be

I think it could be a solid 4.5 stars with a better reading and some good background music for the mood of each scene. It's probably better when you read it than listen to it. The narrator isn't horrible but just doesn't have the experience and range of depth to pull off the reading with a voice that is so monotonal. Needs a better voice actor or multiple readers for the different characters. You can't help laugh at some of the derivative and cliché narratives in it but novel books that really break the mold are far and few between. Darth Bane as others have mentioned stands out as this authors magnum opus. Great trilogy that I would rate 5 out of 5. I do recommend the Chaos Born trilogy even though I have yet to listen to part two as of this review but I have already purchased part two...

worst narrator ever

i found the narrator's voice extremely distracting which is such a shame because it's a great story.

As with Darth Bane, Drew storytelling is amazing

Even in the same guideline as all epic fantasy, his world is build with originals ideas. Can't wait to start the second book.

Simple. Interesting. Okay.

This was a pretty unremarkable book, and I mean that in both good and bad ways. It was a simple story about magic in a fictional land. It had a number of the standard fantasy tropes (chosen one, wise wizard, orphan, etc), and didn't really do anything too new with it. I enjoyed the storyline, and some of the characters were very well developed, but the work as a whole was just simple.

The performance was awful. There are apparently only three voices in Gigante's repertoire: man, woman, and child. It was good that I was following along in the book, otherwise I would have been incredibly lost.

Great story as expected from Drew Karpyshyn

I have nothing bad to say. I plan to purchase the rest of the series.

An Awesome Book

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

The story was very well written and very in depth with an entertaining twist. This is not a fast read. This is a book that you need to take in and savor. Its nice to read a book that you can not predict chapter to chapter.

What other book might you compare Children of Fire to and why?

It's like a cross between Star Wars and and Fantasy. In a good way. This is a slow developing story with good background and information. There are many characters to keep up with and if you speed read it, you will lose out on the best parts.

Which scene was your favorite?

I loved the character development. It's nice to get in on the ground floor. Lot of favorite scenes but dont wanna give anything away.