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.

Compelling beginning

Like the story. It moves along speedily, heavy in action. Didn’t realize I was jumping in the middle of a world and existing story. I will read the next one.

Narrator drove me nuts!

I have to agree with the above reviews. It wasn't the narration, but the mispronunciation of so many names and places. If you're going to use 2 different narrators for the same series, please please please have them listen to previous pronunciations! Every time the narrator talked about the Davidians (which she mispronounced as "daveyedians") or curare (which should be pronounced "cure-are-ey" but she pronounced "cure-rare") it felt like nails on a chalkboard. AND - suddenly characters who previously had no accents have thick Slavic accents (i.e., Jenko).
It was very distracting.
The narration was just ok (besides the inconsistencies, that is).
Loved the actual content of the book though!

Great Story but the Narration Ruins It

Story is great but the narration simply ruined it. She pauses every few seconds then over exaggerates everything it was highly annoying. I couldn't even get through the whole book.

Lack of pronunciation continuity with Magic series

It was jarring to hear the pronunciation differences in key words in common with the Magic series. Curare, Davian, Booruby and more. I prefer this actor to the Magic series reader but wish the pronunciation was consistent. The story is a nice continuation of Snyder's world.

DON’T READ THIS BOOK

This is a good book with a good story but it is part of a trilogy. The problem is that the ending of the trilogy is the worst ending of any book I have ever read and I read a book every day. Some reviews of the third book will tell you it’s great and it’s about redemption and bla bla bla… spoiler alert she chooses the evil villain over the hero. I personally believe the author sat in an interview with a sociopath and narcissist and decided to write him into her book. My sister’s ex boyfriend literally said the same exact words the author wrote for his redemption speech. That was two weeks before he threatened to kill her for leaving him and a month before he tried to steal her son and now he is stalking her. Leaving little things around the property so we know he’s been there… you get the idea.
This ending is so bad it would be like that moment after 10 seasons of Bones where Palant has prevented Bones and Booth from getting married and he has killed Bones friend and Booth’s FBI buddy in horrible gruesome ways and Bones is going to go to jail for the murders and they are standing out side the church after Christine was christened and Booth goes for the car and a car pulls up and Bones get in and drives away and goes into hiding. Well in her version it’s not her dad in the car it’s Palant. It’s just twisted

I think the author need needs to see a psychiatrist and get some counseling

Pronunciation Problems

If you're going to have a different narrator for a series set in the same universe, at least coordinate the word pronunciations!! I had trouble, coming from the Study books, figuring out what a few things were when pronounced--I have never actually seen the words written since I listened to the Study books as well, so it was very distracting. And the way that the narrator mispronounces "sai," the Okinawan weapon, as "say". If there is going to be a mispronounciation, it shouldn't be with a "real" word. Also, there seems to be a section missing--suddenly Opal's dreams take a major part in the story, but I don't remember hearing about them until what seems like the middle of a plot thread. It is right between the 2nd and 3rd sections of Part 2--it seems to jump and be disconnected. I am not sure if this is a book editing problem or an audiobook problem. The story is interesting enough to keep me going, though :-) Good light fantasy/mystery/romance.

Changing narrators was a serious mistake

Would you try another book from Maria V. Snyder and/or Jennifer Van Dyck?

Maria V. Snyder is one of my favorite authors, but Jennifer Van Dyck was completely wrong for this series, especially after Gabra Zackman's performance in the Poison series. So disappointed that I won't complete my audio set after Storm Glass.

Would you be willing to try another one of Jennifer Van Dyck’s performances?

No.

Did Storm Glass inspire you to do anything?

Go back to reading my paperback copies.

Any additional comments?

I wish an author would stick to one narrator, especially when the 2 series are set in the same world and use the same characters. It messes with your head to hear beloved characters changed so much - not just in voice, but personality too!

Not bad

I didn't love this as much as the Study series... but that doesn't necessarily mean it was bad. I think I enjoyed being in Yelena'shead so much, that it was weird shifting to Opal.
She was very different, which was good, as she's a different character, and bad, since I'm used to the world from Yelena's perspective.
As for the narrator, I agree that her voice didn't fit Opal, but she wasn't a bad reader. I wish that the pronunciation of words and names were consistent with Gabra Zackman's (hope I'm remembering her name correctly), but it didn't have a problem with the different voices for old characters. We're in Opal's head now, she hears/interprets things differently.
Overall, it was a good story, though not as compelling as Yelena. But it has potential.

Interesting listen, but not as good as Yelena's adventures

I had looked forward to Opal's story after listening to the first three episodes of Yelena's adventures. While I enjoyed this first book, it didn't hold the captivation for me the other series does. I still plan to buy the next book, though. I think I had just gotten used to Gabra Zachman's performance & this new narrator kind of threw me with her different pronunciations of some of the words. As I said - I still plan to listen to the series, so I do like it very much.

Narrator

Did a good job with the female voices but the male voices sounded creepy
It was a good storyline a few lessons in there about a 3 1/2 on the scale