Hard Magic

Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles

By: Larry Correia

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award, Paranormal, 2012

Jake Sullivan is a licensed private eye with a seriously hardboiled attitude. He also possesses raw magical talent and the ability to make objects in his vicinity light as a feather or as heavy as depleted uranium, all with a magical thought. It's no wonder the G-men turn to Jake when they need someone to go after a suspected killer who has been knocking off banks in a magic-enhanced crime spree.

Problems arise when Jake discovers the bad girl behind the robberies is an old friend, and he happens to know her magic is just as powerful as his. And the Feds have plunged Jake into a secret battle between powerful cartels of magic-users - a cartel whose ruthless leaders have decided that Jake is far too dangerous to live.

©2011 Larry Correia (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Exhilarating

I wanted to read something different and was searching various book's and reading reviews . I stumbled on to Hard Magic by chance. The reviews tickled my fancy at first but once I started reading the book, I was hooked and couldn't put it down. I'm about to order the 2nd book and can only hope it will be as riveting as the first visiting. Worth the read.

Poor narration

I honestly couldn't even get through the book. The narrator talks so slow it's painful.

Xmen in the roaring 20s

Before I start, this is one of my favorite books. Larry Correia is also one of my favorite authors, but as a point of keeping one's sanity I must keep the work separated from the man.

Larry's a right wing nut job. Poking around his blog, twitter or plucking whole scenes from his books demonstrates this just fine. He's a lot to take in and its frustrating, but his works mostly survived unharmed... Y'know until a gun shows up and he goes all gun porn about it.

That said, this book is amazing and even his transparent political bend can't ruin it.

The vibe is more Xmen than traditional modern day magic stories in this vein. There's an assortment of varied powers across humanity and they all have cute names like Gravity Spiker, Brute, Torch or Icebox. These powers began appearing on earth roughly around the Civil War and things are different.

It's in this world where an ex-convict and war hero Gravity Spiker named Jake is called to track down an old love flame who's in deep with a rogue element called the Grim Noir. His investigation sends him hurtling into massive danger as he ends up facing down a hostile invasion of foreign adversaries, a rival from his past and a danger that may bring to world into full scale war.

The first in a Trilogy, this book just bleeds cool and will have you chomping at the bit for more. And to reiterate, I don't care for Correia's views, but he has a right to be a kook if he wishes. Grimnoir was at least marginally unaffected and was all the better for it.

cool

can't wait to hear the next book. it's also good to hear Bronson Pinchot's voice again.

Good Action Story & Narrator! Steampunk???

Story set right after WW I with an alternate history line. Great action - "G Man" type of story line. Not sure I can really define Steampunk but that is probably close.

I really like this author's Monster Hunter series so I wasn't sure if this genre would hold my interest however the story & characters keep you wanting more. Really good action with an evil empire vs. the good guys theme. Without giving anything away this is like the X-Men story set in the early 1900s. Bronson Pinchot is really great & adds a lot to the audio version.

Better than most "blockbuster" movies

Great story, quick moving plot, just enough details to keep it very interesting.
Movie Worthy! Would love to see this series brought to the big screens.

A fun spin on history.

Guns, magic, physics, and the fight against good and evil.One of my favorite series. Thanks.

Amazing Reading. Holy-Freaktastic Book

This book was by far one of the greatest contemporary noir-style fantasies that I have ever "read."

I recommend it to pretty much every single person on the planet.

Comicbook heroes w/ magical twist & art deco style

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Definitely because of the setting. Its a pre WWI world and the use of historical characters is actually pretty nicely done. The concept is very nice and its nice to see superheroes with limits on their powers (I guess that's why Batman > Superman)

What did you like best about this story?

I liked that the powers were limited and finite. I also really like use of magic, it was like in Ghostbusyters when Egon and Ray talk about one of the books that has all the information on ghosts and demonology.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Bronson Pinochet was ok, some of the characters he did well and other not so much. Another caveat that annoyed me was his whispered screams.

I hope he has stepped it up for the sequel, Spellbound.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No not really but I have to say it once more. I love the setting and use of historical characters.

Any additional comments?

Definitely look forward to listening to the second one.

Best voice acting i've ever heard so far

Would you listen to Hard Magic again? Why?

This has been the best audio production book series I have listened to. The voice acting was superb!! The audio was well edited (no annoying discontinuities or pronunciation blips). I think this is what it would have been like to listen to the old radio shows of the 50/60s. Great story and great vocals kept me hooked through the whole series