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The Grail  By  cover art

The Grail

By: Robert Doherty,Bob Mayer
Narrated by: Martin Gollery
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Publisher's summary

The Grail is another knockout from New York Times best-selling author Bob Mayer writing as Robert Doherty.

The Holy Grail - is it the key to a miracle...or a terrifying truth? The Great Wall of China, the immense carvings on Easter Island, Egypt's pyramids, UFOs: What is the chilling connection? The answer, unearthed by an elite band of soldiers and scientists based at Area 51, is rewriting human history - to include the aliens who shaped it!

Now, in this heart-pounding novel, Area 51 personnel embark on a top-secret search for the Holy Grail, a glittering artifact with the power to save the world...or lead to its destruction.

Special Forces officer Mike Turcotte has paid his dues in battle and in blood. Now assigned to Area 51, he fights the toughest enemy of his career: the alien race who arrived on Earth millennia ago and have returned to claim the planet.

Mike has dodged bullets and faced weapons of mass destruction to give humanity another day of reprieve. But when his lover, scientist Lisa Duncan, falls into evil hands, Mike must decide which prize means the most to him - the woman he loves or the legendary Grail. It's a decision that could damn him...or damn us all.

©2012 Bob Mayer (P)2012 Bob Mayer

What listeners say about The Grail

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Martin Gollery (Narrator) should be avoided!

At first, I thought that it was just me. I have listened to probably over 100 Audiobooks over the past couple of years and have enjoyed most of them greatly - but THIS book......let's just say that after the first few hours - I HAD to abandon the effort and purchase the book on Amazon to read on my Kindle.

Martin Gollery narrated this book. And the result was HORRIBLE. This is absolutely the worst audiobook experience of my life, and I was quite impressed with how badly a bad narrator could destroy the experience of an Audiobook. The Author's story/book are amazing - and it is really a "page turner".

But Gollery's destruction of the Audiobook experience is unforgivable - to the point that for the first time - I actually will pay attention to the Name of the Narrator and will REFUSE to buy any audiobook Narrated by Martin Gollery.

The narrative style of Martin Gollery is best described as an inhuman robot with tones and inflections of voice that are consistently irritating. Specifically, he inflects his voice down at the end of each and every sentence - much like how a priest recites a sermon in those boring Sunday sermons at church you used to be forced to attend, where the priest was simply reciting a passage that he was just trying to "get through" and which the parishioners pretended to listen to while being all lost in their own thoughts.

It is hard to completely describe how such a totally unskilled and careless narrator can completely destroy the Audiobook experience. I had friends listen to it as well, just in case I was totally off base - and they ubiquitously upheld my opinion while no few of them simply shuddered at the terrible experience at having had to listen to Gollery's disastrous narrative style for even just a few moments.

I cannot believe that the publisher of this audiobook would consent to such a terrible destruction of what would ordinarily be a wonderful experience - and can only wonder if Martin Gollery is either a close friend or relative of someone in the Publishing company that was given a chance.

Maybe nobody will read this, but if you do - I hope that you will find this review helpful.

GREAT book - but Martin Gollery is to be actively avoided!

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21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Just painful

Would you try another book from Robert Doherty and Bob Mayer and/or Martin Gollery?

The first three books were great so, yes, I would buy another Robert Doherty/Bob Mayer book. The narration was painful. Halfway through the first half and I'm almost in tears. If not for the fact that I'm interested in the story, I'd stop listening.

Producers of audio books need to take more care in choosing narrators and to make sure that narrators listen to previous books in a series if there are any if for no other reason than to get the pronunciation of words and names. Some of the pronunciations are just brutal.

What didn’t you like about Martin Gollery’s performance?

The narrator needs to tell the story, not just read EVERY...WORD... DELIBERATELY. It might be a good idea to listen to a story before you tell one.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Most painful Book Ever.... to hear

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Not this narration of the book....

What did you like best about this story?

story was good.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Martin Gollery?

Anyone... ANYONE!!!!!!

Do you think The Grail needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

It has a follow up book

Any additional comments?

I am tempted to return this book..as i hate this torture.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Painful to listen to.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Where did they get this narrator? He may be a nice guy but he was a bad choice for reading this. I listened to it just to know the story but it was not enjoyable. I liked the first 4 books a lot but this was just brutal to get through!

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Audible takes the cake in Bad narrator list

I assume Audible has something against this author: why else would they use such awful narrators to narrate Bob Mayer's stories?

The story is excellent, especially starting with King Arthur being one of the Alien factions.
But the narration is like sand in a tasty meal. You want the meal, you eat the sand too !

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Terrible Narrator: PLEASE READ

Would you listen to The Grail again? Why?

No

What other book might you compare The Grail to and why?

Eh

Would you be willing to try another one of Martin Gollery’s performances?

Absolutely not, as his performance was atrocious to say the least. I have listened to quite a few audiobooks in my day, and good Martin's performance was, by far, the worst. "Monotone, emotionless robot" would be a good way to describe Mr. Martin. Every 3 syllables that he spoke, 12 innocent children began to cry. With a pace of approximately 40 syllables every 10 seconds, this means that, throughout the course of the audiobook, Martin directly caused the tears of roughly 34140 independent, innocent children.

He was terrible...I recommend you just suck it up and read the actual book.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

"This movie is awesome! As long as they didn't cast Martin Gollery for any role whatsover...seriously that is all it would take for this movie to not be terrible."

Any additional comments?

No...I feel better.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

What was this, Baby's First Narration?

What would have made The Grail better?

A different narrator. Or at least a narrator that pronounced the names in the story correctly. Editing of the narration when mistakes were made, instead of catching the mistake and restating. I couldn't believe the poor quality.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

By being the narrator. He was terrible.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

I thought it was being machine read.

I honestly thought this was being out through a machine translation program. Who hired this narrator? Completely ruined it. I had to stop after the first 15 minutes, it was that bad.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Ouch

Great story but the presenter should limit himself to reading tech manuals.
His presentation is mind numbing, and pronunciation of names is unrecognizable from previous presentations

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Do not buy this audio book. Read the paper version

Would you listen to The Grail again? Why?

I will never listen to anything by this narrator ever again. He sounds like a cross between a robot and a bad radio preacher. He can not pronounce any words other than normal conversational English correctly. Several times he makes mistakes in his reading and no one edited it out? What the hell? Does anyone edit or audit these books? I PAID MONEY FOR THIS PIECE OF CRAP PERFORMANCE!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Bob Mayer is capable of making all of the characters interesting and engaging, even the bad guys. Hard to pick a favorite.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Martin Gollery?

Um, anyone? I could have read this myself and recorded it and enjoyed it more than this mess. I could have dropped the text into a cheap text to speech engine and enjoyed it more.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Book 4 of the greatest Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory Ever Written.

Any additional comments?

I want my credit back. You didn't even edit this book for gross errors. This guy often misspeaks a sentence and starts over and says it correctly. I mean, what the hell? Do you people even edit these books? This guy can not do accents, voices or any kind of expression. Why the hell is anyone paying him to narrate? If anyone in the company that produced this train wreck had actually listened to it it should not have made it to the point of being published. I read this series a few years ago up to the book Nosferatu. Life got busy for me and I was unable to finish the series. When I saw that Audible had the entire series as audio books I was excited. I saw a chance to revisit an awesome adventure and catch up on some episodes that were not available when I read them. Up until this book I was very pleased. Sure, there are variations in narrators but this is unacceptable. This goes beyond gross negligence and onto near criminal disregard for any kind of quality assurance. Who the hell hired this narrator?

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