Swordmage

Forgotten Realms: Blades of the Moonsea, Book 1

By: Richard Baker

Narrated by: J. P. Linton

Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Discover a whole new realm of adventure!

When a wandering swordmage, trained by the elves of Myth Drannor, returns to his boyhood home on the windswept shores of the Moonsea, he finds that corruption has taken hold, leaving his friends and family open to a devastating evil.Swordmage was the first novel to fully embrace the exciting new elements from the next edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game. This paperback resize releases fresh on the heals of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, and showcases a major revision to the Forgotten Realms world that has fans buzzing.

©2008 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Poor editing of recording.

The recording editing is horrendous. Lines in chapters 7, 8, and 9 are repeated several times. Chapter 8 is especially bad. I erased the book, and then downloaded it again, hoping to correct the issue to no avail.

Epic struggle...on a non-epic scale

Richard Baker first came to my attention as one of the authors in the War of the Spider Queen saga. On a whim I then decided to check out his Last Mythal Series and wow. That was an epic adventure spanning all around Faerun and the locations were beautifully described. With this series Baker brings down the stakes and the scale. Greater Faerun probably doesn't care too much what happens to the little city of Hulburg, but to the people who live there it is home and the stakes are very high indeed. Baker still takes us on a ride around the Moonsea and beyond (no spoilers). I quite enjoyed this book. I didn't enjoy it as much as the Last Mythal because I had issues with the main character. By the end of the first book you are thinking, "Okay...you are 30 now, time to take some responsibility. But he makes excuses, gets distracted, and refuses to see what is right in front of him for two more books until he finally comes to his senses. It was a bit frustrating (but likely necessary to the story arc, but it made him less relatable for me).

Passing on this series...

The story is pretty transparent and lacked significant intrigue for the type of story being told. The narration pissed me off! Orcs and other gruff subclasses sounded absolutely pathetic!! Ruined the immersion!

Narrator needs to wake up

I read this book years ago when it was first published. I am sorry for what I am about to say, but this narrator did a poor job. He sounds sleepy, out of breath, and constantly fails at using the appropriate dramatic inflection for numerous scenes. A great example, is when a dwarf attacks the orc climbing the wall. The dwarf yells out "Die, orc!". The narrator read this as "Die." *breath* "Orc."

That is the exact issue I took with the entire performance, played out over and over again ad nauseam. If I wanted to listen to a book read I'm such a manner I would hire an elderly alcoholic man to pretend to be my disinterested grandpa at bedtime.

I'm truly sorry that I come across harshly but I feel that it is important to note that I am also being sincere and earnest.

Quick fix

Any additional comments?

I know this may sound a bit odd but when I first began to listen to this book the readers performance was awful. His bad guy voices all sounded like they had marbles in their mouths. At one point I grew tired of how bad it was so I sped it up so that I could finish with it. But when I put it to 1.20 the performance actually became good. Can't say if they slowed it to add to the read time or what they are thinking. After this fix I'm now going to purchase the second book. I wouldn't even entertain the idea if I hadn't done this. The story has pulled me in now and I look forward to the next book and recommend it to any fans of D&D novels.

Rough listen

sorry to say it but the narrator ruined this adventure for me.
The attempts at voicing the characters was terrible, (for me).
The monotone reading and emphasis throughout was very rough for me to get into.
Again, sorry to say it but it was only the narrator for me that caused me to rate low.

Pretty good

Any additional comments?

The focus is more on the individual characters point of view and memories within a small town and an extended family of the Harmac (their name for city-state Baron). They are an earthy crew, no high-tea stuff, and it is a small town of mostly working class people. It does not confusingly jump around from past to present. The past is given to us in the characters remembering and commenting on what happened, which I thought gave a better feel to the local culture. It has strong male and female characters which seemed genuine instead of lame. I hate stupid characters and ones the audience is supposed to like, but given every reason to not even respect, much less identify with, and we don’t get that much here, thankfully. The bad guy dialog makes them sound dumber than they are because most do some decent strategizing and tactical thinking and this offset the dialog for me. The plot of this novel and other two of this series are about various forces seeking take control of this land between larger economic powers. Even so, it doesn’t have that huge scale, epic feel I don’t like in my D&D stories so I liked all three novels.

Middle of the Road

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This was more towards the bottom end of captivating Forgotten Realms/Audible books I've listened to.

If you’ve listened to books by Richard Baker before, how does this one compare?

This was my first book by Richard Baker. It was not a bad book by any means but it played it pretty close to the vest. Really, you knew what was coming, it wasn't too exciting and that was that. Not a whole lot of interesting realms lore or anything outstanding to say, "you need to read this!"

Did J. P. Linton do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

J. P. Linton seems like he would be good at narrating but not great at multiple characters. He's a one trick pony when it came to this book. Honestly, much of the dialogue ended with his tone rising (think of the rich guy from Caddy Shack who goes, "hmmm" at the end of his sentence in a snooty way). It was pretty off putting. Again, not a horrible job but certainly not great. The book is pretty relaxed in it's tone.

Did Swordmage inspire you to do anything?

I was bummed to see only a few fight scenes. You could count the number of action scenes on one hand. Also, Geran, who is the sword mage, never really goes legend during the story.

Literally, half way through the book you discover who the antagonist is and the story goes idle until the last battle. You know who is going to win and you certainly don't care about the characters so it was a trudge to keep listening.

Any additional comments?

I am not a huge DnD player, yet I have read/reviewed about 50 FR books and most of them on Audible. That being said, some of the things that came up during the story made you do a double take... like "mage shackles." These things are imbued and stop a caster from hurling spells while cuffed. Obviously, something like this is extremely powerful (how did they get them and who made them?).

Fun Story!

It starts as a fantasy murder mystery, but ends as an epic battle laden story. It's just pure fun and solid entertainment.

awesomeness

This book is a fantastic listen and read. I really enjoyed it. anyone who like a warrior and can sling up some magic as well will enjoy this. Just because it's called sword mage doesn't mean it's a fighter/wizard.