Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Road to Neverwinter

By: Jaleigh Johnson

Narrated by: Fred Berman

Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Discover the thrilling origin stories of the bard Edgin, the barbarian Holga, and their whole adventuring party in this official prequel to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Edgin Darvis’s life is a mess. All that he has left are his lute, his dashing good looks, and his daughter, Kira. After a chance encounter with badass bruiser Holga, Edgin is forced to take a hard look at his bad choices. But the road to redemption is long and paved with unforeseen expenses. Fortunately, the world is full of rich fools begging to be parted from their money.

And so Edgin and Holga do what any sensible entrepreneurs would do—they form a crew.

Joined by the charming rogue Forge Fitzwilliam and Simon, a sorcerer with an intense inferiority complex, the team sets out to line their pockets with both well-earned and ill-gotten gold. Together, Edgin’s crew battles monsters across the realms: gnoll raiders, fey witches, and more fall beneath their sharp weapons and sharper wit. But when they encounter a new, more sophisticated villain, keen blades and piercing blue eyes may not be enough.

Their target? Torlinn Shrake, a wealthy eccentric known for abusing his servants and hosting lavish parties.

The plan? Play dress-up, sneak into the Shrake estate, and fill their pockets with as much loot as they can carry.

The catch? Shrake is hiding a terrible secret: one that could endanger the lives of everyone Edgin has come to care for—even if the loot is too good to pass up.

©2023 Jaleigh Johnson (P)2023 Random House Audio

A great read/listen for fun

A nice story with good characters. One complaint is that they don’t give very much in the way of character backstory. While this is far from a deep fantasy novel it was a fun listen and worth the credit. I wish the author had a bit more freedom but I’m guessing they were limited on what they could add before the movie was finished and out. Hopefully we’ll get more from Johnson with more freedom after the film is out

Exceptionally fun

The whole book reads like a well run D&D campaign if everyone stayed in character. Very pleasantly surprised.

Excellent movie tie in!

Thoroughly enjoyed the story and performance, nicely done! Based on the trailers I wasn’t expecting one of the characters to turn out like they did.

Really, enjoyable story, fun characters, and twists

I was pleasantly surprised by the story of thinking, maybe it won’t live up to my expectations and my experiences playing D&D. The characters were likable. The story was good and well thought out. I hope the movie is as good.

a solid movie prequel

Movie prequels are tricky to pull off, limited things you can do/reveal with/about the characters, and such. So I grade them with a +1.5 curve.
That being said, this was a good read.*
Not blow your mind and change your world good, but popcorn good.

There are certain things that I expect from a prequel.
-Introduce the characters in a "believable" and organic way-Check.
-Make me feel as though I know these characters and understand their modivations-Yep.
-Weave those things into a story that I want to know the outcome-Nailed it.

*I'm not sure how this would read after watching the movie, but I think it would be fine but a little less so.

Fun!

After reading the other prequel book, I expected a lot out of this one. I'm not going to say that I'm disappointed, because this was still pretty good. I am going to say that the other one is better.

Still, this was fun! It felt like a real D&D game that took place over several sessions. I could actually feel the rolls and see a party sitting around a table.

So, if you like the movie, I say give this a go. If you didn't like the movie, why are you reading my review?

perfect for the pre movie

Loved it, the description of Forge as having a very punchable face, then having Hugh Grant cast as him is perfect. Also the Narritor does a great impersonation of Michelle Rodriguez

Excellent story about how everyone comes together.

This was an excellent story. Unbeknownst to me in the beginning was the fact that it is actually the story about how Edgin's crew basically came together.
I know that it would have been a more expensive project, but I think that it would have been worth it had this story been done as a full cast audio drama with the actors who portrayed the characters on screen reprising their roles in this story.
Overall a very good "read."

Lighthearted and funny !!

An enjoyable precursor to the movie. I feel the narrator has done a good job of capturing Pine and Rodriguez in both infliction and character. The story is a lighthearted fantasy tale set in familiar Faerun. Great listening while working on miniatures for a D&D game.

was written way to familiar, Holga was cool.

the story was ok as a preper for the movie but not that memorable.
was narrorated very well I did enjoy the voice changes for the individual characters.
Kira was a little annoying.