Death of Kings

Saxon Tales, Book 6

By: Bernard Cornwell

Narrated by: Stephen Perring

Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

The fate of a new nation rests in the hands of a reluctant warrior in this thrilling sixth volume in the acclaimed New York Times best-selling Saxon Tales series.

As the ninth century wanes, Alfred the Great lies dying, his dream of a unified England in danger and his kingdom on the brink of chaos. While his son, Edward, has been named his successor, there are other Saxon claimants to the throne - as well as ambitious pagan Vikings to the north.

Uhtred, the Saxon-born, Viking-raised warrior, whose life seems to shadow the making of England itself, is torn between his vows to Alfred and his desire to reclaim his long-lost ancestral lands and castle in the north. As the king’s warrior, he is duty-bound, but Alfred’s reign is nearing its end, and Uhtred has sworn no oath to the crown prince. Despite his long years of service, Uhtred is still loath to commit to the old king’s Saxon cause of a united and Christian England. Now he must make a momentous decision, one that will forever transform his life... and the course of history: take up arms - and Alfred’s mantle - or lay down his sword and allow the dream of a unified kingdom to fall into oblivion.

©2011 Bernard Cornwell (P)2011 HarperCollinsPublishers

sucks ducks

this narrator sucks. needs to go back and listen to the books earlier in the series. he mispronounced half the names of places and people, which made it really hard to follow.

glorious

captivating... the author paints scenes with succinct yet expansive description. I found myself braced in the shield wall

Death of Kings

I really dislike this narration of this book as compared to the other books in this series. he pronounces many words completely different than the others, and his English accent sounds forced at times. Now I question myself as to which narrator is more accurately "English." I wish they all had the same narrator.

Great Series

The narrator is fine, but is not as good as Keeble, but few are. I listen at 1.1x and gave it time between books to rid my mind of Keeble’s delivery.

Better than the last Narrator.

This narrator was decent and a lot easier to like than the last one.. but still now we're on about five narrators and its book 7 coming up..... Six books in not sure why he can't just call it Bebbanburg like the last books before though

Not the right narrator

What did you love best about Death of Kings?

Uhtread is back! Always a great story!

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Clearly he did not listen to the previous books, or study up on pronunciation. IIt was SO distracting to hear him pronounce it You-tread, of Bambray, not Utread of Bebenbergh. The pronunciation was so distracting that I got lost several times in the story, because I was trying to figure out which character or location he was describing. Perring has a great voice, but after listening to the deep, sonorous voices of previous narrators, I didn't connect this narrator to my image of the main character.

What's with the Hate on the Narrator?

All the bad narrator reviews almost dissuaded me from buying volume 6. I am glad I bought anyway. Don't be put off by all the hate on Stephen Perring. I'll grant that his vocal shifts for characterization are more subtle than some of Cornwell's other voiceover crew. I loved Tim Pigott-Smith's shifts to a brilliant scots brogue in the "Archers Tale" and John Lee's Uhtred in Book 5 was wonderfully over the top. But Stephen Perring grew on me as I listened. This whole series is written the first person voice of an old Uhtred recalling his glory days. I think Perring's approach actually works better in some ways to make it an authentic Uhtred voice that matches the book's intent better than a one man cast-of-characters would have.

I'll take a seventh helping please

Adventures of "You-tred" and "Fee-nan"

I focused so much on how bad the narrator pronounced names and locations and hardly on the actual story. Please re record every book with Johnathon Keeble.

I do not like to be this person, but this narrator

The story is awesome, but this narrator made it very difficult to get through it. I am sure he is good for other things. This is not it at all.

should be Jonathan Keeble

it's hard to enjoy after listening to Jonathan Keeble. Hope next reader is better for the rest of the series