Mystic Warrior

Book I of the Bronze Canticles Trilogy

By: Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman

Narrated by: LLoyd James

Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling master of fantasy, Tracy Hickman, and his wife, author Laura Hickman, offer the first book in a major, new, dragon-laden epic fantasy.

The Bronze Canticles is an expansive new saga chronicling the world-altering changes that take place as three connected universes, the Human world, the Goblin world, and the Faery world, are slowly drawn together.

In Book One, Mystic Warrior, young Galen Arvad, a human with magical powers, must avoid the ritual that puts those with such talents to death. It seems that in the eyes of the community, magic is a sign of lunacy, and in a yearly ritual the local "crazies" are offered up to the Dragon Priests. Galen is suddenly captured and imprisoned. Now, as Galen's wife, Berkita, and his friend, Cephas the dwarf, set off to rescue him, Galen learns of the fate that awaits him, a fate far worse than even his own death.

Don't miss the rest of the Bronze Canticles Trilogy.

©2004 Tracy Hickman and Laura Curtis (P)2004 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Impressive and provocative fantasy....This emotionally intense novel's meticulously crafted magical system and likeable characters evoke an atmosphere both timely and timeless. While lively action sequences and rich descriptive passages provide plenty of excitement, mature examinations of politics and individual responsibility lend philosophical weight and emotional poignancy....A fine example of socially conscious and unpredictable imaginative fiction." (Publishers Weekly)

Decent story

I'll start out by saying, I enjoyed the story. I wouldn't rate it as highly as most of the other fantasy I've read in the last 10 years, but it was still entertaining. The 'magic' system seems rather vague and for something purportedly so universally powerful, highly underutilized. Aside from being able to converse with crafted objects, Galen fails to be the usual strong, unique character that ends up leading an unpopular cause. All epic heroes start out as unwilling participants and eventually resign themselves to their fate, but Galen wouldn't hold a candle to a Rand Al'thor or a Prince Rohan. I don't know whether it's the way it's written, or the way the story is told by the narrator, but the story failed to get me emotionally motivated, or feel strongly at all about any of the characters.

I'll be purchasing Mystic Quest next, but I can't say these go on my top 10 fantasy list. If you've read/listened to most of the existing fantasy, you'll probably enjoy this as an idle read/listen. Just don't buy this expecting a story on the level of a Robert Jordan, George R. R. Martin, or Melanie Rawn.

I'd also have to say that the narrator, while doing an ok job, does choose strange and sometimes distracting accents and voices for some characters. I definitely wasn't expecting goblins to sound like Don Knotts or Jimmy Stewart. Who knew?

Story Great - Narration Awful

The story line is complex and character development fabulous. However, the naration is truly awful! I almost trashed listening to the book at all because the beginning narration was so emotive and overdone... However, I did attempt to overlook the narration because the tale was so good. Like the other reviewers, I am looking forward to the continuation of the saga but I sincerely hope the next book is read by a different narrator. I would have rated this book a 4.5 if it wasn't for the narration

Waiting for next book in series

I enjoyed the pace of the book. I found the characters interesting and the three part story line made it more interesting.

couldn't do it

The story was ok, but I just could not get past the narration style. Amateurish and contrived accents for all the non-human-males was completely distracting. Style was also very bland, little difference in emphasis between a shout and normal speaking. The reader may be fine for another genre but not for fantasy. I rarely put a book down but I couldn't get past the first hour. I can't imagine this was the narration the authors had in mind, perhaps it will be more engaging reading the book myself.

Mystic Warrior

This book had the makings of a good story. The narration was horrible. The accents the narrator used were very distracting and sometimes comical when they weren't meant to be. If you get as far as the appendix, only go further if you haven't been able to get to sleep in a while. The book was a waste of time.

Good Story

I liked this story. Listening to this and the new series by M. Weiss,I can tell who wrote what parts in the Dragonlance series. I thought the author was a bit uneven in the beginning and it was a slow starter. By the end of the book,however,I was totally enthralled and can't wait for more!

Fine story, horrible narration...

It is unfortunate for the authors of this novel that it has to be subjected to such horrific narration. I'm approximately 5 hrs into the book and I have struggled with continuing or setting it aside at least half a dozen times. This narrator has no talent in dialect whatsoever. Every character for which he attempts to alter his voice, other than the main character for which he uses his normal voice, sounds like a cartoon character. His attempts to modify his voice for the blind dwarf result in a completely unintelligible drunken slur of speech. But, nothing could be worse than his hacking of the Fae. The authors describe the fairies as beautiful, lithe creatures with smooth beautiful voices, yet this narrator has somehow chosen to represent the fae language as a hacked, sterotypically comical rendition of staccato Arabic. I'm sorry, but all I can think of when I listen to this supposed "melodious" race is Abu, the mini-mart clerk from the Simpsons. It's terrible! And what is worse is that this narrator is reading the words, yet not comprehending them. How someone could come to the conclusion that this was a /good/ dialect to use to represent the fairies is beyond me. I am agonizingly continuing through the listening of the book at present because the story itself is not bad at all. Unfortunately, the narration makes it almost completely unbearable. I really doubt I'm going to be able to suffer through his parage of cartoon voices for another 9 hrs. If I had the time to read the book I would have set the audio aside and gone to buy the book after the first hour.

Hickman Fails.

Anyone who Knows Tracy Hickman from the good old days will remember the collaborative works with Margaret Weis know as one of the greats Fantasy Sagas of all times: Dragonlance. It would seem, based on this confused, meandering and downright boring story of a blacksmith swept up from his home into high (or at least an attempt at high) adventure, that Margaret was the truly gifted author from Dragonlance. This story is banal, unfocused, and awash in cliche stereotypical characters with so little depth that it makes the story a regrettable waste of valuable life. Oh and nice Job stealing the Blind Dwarf who forges the Dragonlances to put in to this Book. SO pathetic, I am ashamed to have ever counted Hickman as one of the greats of Fantasy, all credit should have Gone to Weis! Oh and the "Election": steal much from Hunger Games, Hickman? Not to mention that all throughout, the author makes jumps into sections of the "Canticles" which were wrote AFTER the adventure would have been completed, ergo we find out right from the get go who lives and who dies, because they tell the history of the story in the canticles from the specific characters perspective.
It sickens me that this tripe, this adventure in to apathetic triviality is made into an audio book when Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance are left to die on some shelf. BAhh!
Maybe it got better towards the end, BUT I just could not finish it, so miserably awful.

Lloyd James did his typical excellent Job trying to breath some life into very dull characters. That was about the only Bright spot in the whole damned thing,

Overall, quite good

This book was an interesting and entertaining though it takes quite some time to hit its stride: I almost stopped listening after around 5 hours because the story was plodding along and worse yet seemed to be jumping between 4 different narratives - later you understand how these are linked and the story picks up a lot of speed.

I like some other reviewers did not enjoy the narrator very much. In particular I found several of the accents annoying - the faeries all sound like bad stereotypical, impressions of Indian (as in from India) accents. The goblins' voices are also quite annoying. I found the dwarf's voice interesting though.

Great story and characters

This is a wonderful book. I took it on a 9 hour trip, and I couldn't wait for the return trip to finish it!
I was a little confused at first, because of the way the story starts out, but once the story really got going I was completely entranced. I love they way the stories weave in and out of each other, developing each character individually, but not completely excluding the others. The way the characters see each other in their dreams is some of my favorite parts of the story. My only complaint was that the authors dropped off Galen's wife's tale.
The complexity of the stories intertwining give the story a lot of depth and I can't wait until the next book comes out.