Storm Glass

By: Maria V. Snyder

Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck

Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

As a glassmaker and a magician-in-training, Opal Cowen understands trial by fire. Now it's time to test her mettle. Someone has sabotaged the Stormdancer clan's glass orbs, killing their most powerful magicians. The Stormdancers--particularly the mysterious and mercurial Kade--require Opal's unique talents to prevent it happening again.

But when the mission goes awry, Opal must tap in to a new kind of magic as stunningly potent as it is frightening. And the further she delves into the intrigue behind the glass and magic, the more distorted things appear.

With lives hanging in the balance - including her own - Opal must control powers she hadn't known she possessed...powers that might lead to disaster beyond anything she's ever known.

©2009 Maria V. Snyder (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Narrator Van Dyck is good, but

She mispronounced words that had me yelling at Audible.
"Sais" is pronounced "sighs " and "curare" is NOT Q-rare, but Q-R-ray.
Copse is pronounced "cops" not "copes." etc. just distracts from a good narration.

Was decent

With a different narrator for this boom, certain words & accents of characters changed from the first 3 books in series making it a little odd listening to.

Good yet disappointing

3 1/2 star. Usually a writer improves with each novel. Ms. Snyder appears to be doing the opposite. Her first book, the award winning Poison Study is superb and the best of all she's written. The other two Study books are entertaining and tie things together. Now Ms Snyder focuses on a character from the first series. The heroine is called a one trick magician and for now, it seems to be somewhat fitting in comparison to the multi-dimensional skills of her first heroine. There are far too many characters in this new series and is confusing for the thread seems to stop and another starts. It is to be hoped that future books weave threads together and provide a hero as in Poison Study. I had additional difficulty with the narrator. Usually quite good, she does not measure up in this book. I guess I was spoiled by Poison Study ... be sure to ready that series first.

The Narrator is completely wrong for this book

What other book might you compare Storm Glass to and why?

This book takes place in the same world as the Study series, I suggest you listen to those books first and then READ this book series because the narrator will ruin it for you.

What didn’t you like about Jennifer Van Dyck’s performance?

Jennifer Van Dyck is the absolute wrong narrator for this book, she makes the main character (who is 20) sound like a 40+ year old. The mispronunciations compared to The Study series are atrocious and distract from the story. I'm sure she is a fine narrator but she was the wrong choice for this book/series.

Was Storm Glass worth the listening time?

Absolutely not! Read this book don't listen!

Storm glass

The book is interesting as are all of Maria's novels. But it the narrator that is making this painful to listen to. The voices she does for the characters don't fit them at all, her narration is awful!! I don't think she even understands the story she's reading... And it's ruining the story.

Awesome story. Enjoyed the book.

Awesome story line base odd the Poison Study series. Love the telling of how Opal magical powers grew before she lost them .

Narrator is a trainwreck

The story is excellent Snyder delivers an interesting and different tale, that not only expands on some of the more interesting side characters but reveals a great deal about how varied and subtle magic in this world can be. Only flaw in the story telling is the only real flaw with the Snyder's writing as a whole. She's not particularly good at writing realistic political maneuvering. So the diplomatic scenes feel a bit forced and kinda phony, aside from that the this book and the entire series is top notch fantasy.

Now the narrator... If you're being paid to narrate professionally and don't know how a word is pronounced, look it up!!!! Don't just guess and run with it. She mispronounces fairly common words and mangles a bunch of the proper nouns. It's even so much worse because she's following Gabra Zackman who is one of the very best narrators. Van Dyck's lazy performance sadly, hurts the overall quality of these books. Fortunately Zackman returns to the series after Sea Glass.

Interesting character, no Gabra

I thoroughly enjoyed the previous series, and really looked forward to listening to this one. I was intrigued by the story and the author does a good job with making the story original (albeit a tad slow) while remaining grounded in the interesting world created in the previous series. The most significant negative is the narration.
The narrator isn't bad, she just has an impossible act to follow. Gabra Zackman took a good story and made it great, this lady takes a good story and leaves it more or less on the same level. Annoying things like the way she pronounces names and events from the previous series add to the disconnect between the series.

Distracting Narrator

I loved the Study Series by this author and got used to hearing Gabra Zackman's voice and pronounciation of words. I can understand wanting to use a different voice for Opal than for Yelena, but this narrator's voice does not fit the character. Opal is supposed to be 20, but the narrator's voice is that of a much older woman. Her pronunciation of many of the words is really off too. If you're going to switch narrators, at least get some consistency in pronunciation. In additon to that, the voices used for characters from the Study Series was totally different, which also really threw me. They really should bring Gabra Zackman back as narrator for any future books.

As for the book itself, it was okay. I think that the lack of self confidence in Opal was a little too drawn out. I would have liked to see her gain in self confidence sooner as it grew very tiresome to listen to her constant self doubt. So, while I mostly enjoyed the story, I think Opal is too weak to carry the story as the main character. The romance part of the book was a real let down and should have been left out as underdeveloped as it was. This book was a real disappointment after the Study Series.

Enjoyable Listen, if a bit Tedious in Places

A previous reviewer already addressed the technical and reader issues with the book, so I won't re-hash that. While I enjoyed it and actually finished listening to it over two days (I've been laid off so I need something to keep my mind easily occupied while playing with my two year old.) what made this a three rather than a four star book for me was that, well it became tedious in parts, just going on and on, and on when I wanted it to get to the point. This is from someone who will only buy unabridged and greatly enjoys fantasy novels, which have a certain style that, if not edited well become, well, boring.