The High King of Montival

A Novel of the Change

By: S. M. Stirling

Narrated by: Todd McLaren

Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

In The Sword of the Lady, Rudi Mackenzie's destiny was determined. Now he returns to Montival in the Pacific Northwest, where he will face the legions of the Prophet. To achieve victory, Rudi must assemble a coalition of those who had been his enemies a few months before and forge them into an army that will rescue his homeland. Only then will Rudi be able to come to terms with how the Sword has changed him, as well as the world, and assume his place as Artos, High King of Montival.

©2010 S.M. Sterling (P)2010 Tantor

Some audio problems

What did you like best about The High King of Montival? What did you like least?

A good continuation of the series.

What did you like best about this story?

The way it showed what was going on by the questers and in the west

Was The High King of Montival worth the listening time?

yes

Any additional comments?

The audio is off in this one. Bad file or something causes shift that make it sound like Todd is speaking in a bucket or thru a tube.

wonderful

it was an excellent book in a great series. If the world has to end, I hope it turns out like this.

Juni's Kid

The Son ~ the Boy, the Friend, the Man, the Man's man, and our High King. --- love this series.

If your planning to read along:

chapters are inaccurate, bits missing from the book. if not reading along, nothing to worry about.

Great story

One of my favorite series.

The storyline is great overall, and the narrator does a good job. The only thing is that if you live in Oregon, the pronunciation of some of the towns and locations will drive you insane.

Problem with part 2!

Loved the book, loved the narrator, and couldn't wait for this book to come out. But, please beware, in download part 2 there are tons of areas where a phrase repeates more than 12 times, and at the end, most of the last chapter is skipped! I can't figure out why I should have to now go and pay for a paperback JUST to find out what happened in the last chapter! Audible needs to address this issue and re-issue part 2 to faithful Audible/S.M. Stirling listeners!

Enjoyable

I enjoyed this book just fine. It did feel a bit like a "bridge" book if you will. It's main purpose is to get you to the next book without a huge amount of plot development on it's own. Still pretty entertaining. My only real complaint had nothing to do with the book itself but with Audible's damaged file that even after multiple calls to customer service did not get fixed or replaced. Very unacceptable specially since another customer stated that she did get her damaged file replaced with a working one. Audible needs to deal with this immediately.

A Solid Entry!

NOTE: As another reviewer mentioned, there are definite quality problems toward the end of the second recording. In two different places, the recording loops repeatedly and you miss parts of the story. It didn't ruin the book because I was already so far into it, but this is a problem you should be aware of and it does need to be fixed.


I found this to be a better book than, The Sunrise Lands" which was my last Stirling Audible purchase. It had a much more balanced feel. The end did seem a bit less detailed, perhaps a bit rushed. The big action sequence had me on the edge of my seat. I was so engrossed that I almost didn't pay the lady at the tollbooth!

Overall, I thought it was a smooth listen. The characters are drawn well enough to make them interesting and there are plenty of of elements in the plot to keep it moving along.

The reader added to the telling of the tale by doing excellent voices and otherwise being unobtrusive. Todd McLaren will be a selling point for me on other books, like George Guidall, Scott Brick and Carolyn McCormick.

This one's a winner!

I really am hooked on this series!

I find this to be a very enjoyable alternative universe variation. I recommended this to all of my friends and family.

Weird audio issues

Seems like there were multiple recordings that were being mixed and matched throughout the book which meant it didn't feel so coherent. Audio quality could definitely be improved. Still some typically gripping seems, and a fairly high quality of narration (although some peoples accents change throughout the book...)