The Sleeping Dragon

Guardians of the Flame, Book 1

By: Joel Rosenberg

Narrated by: Keith Silverstein

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Captives of Sorcery...

It began as just another evening of fantasy gaming with James, Karl, Andrea, and the rest ready to assume their various roles as wizard, cleric, warrior, or thief. But sorcerous gamemaster Professor Deighton had something else planned for this unsuspecting group of college students. And the "game" soon became a matter of life and death as the seven adventurers found themselves transported to an alternate world and into the bodies of the actual characters they had been pretending to be.

Cast into a land where magic worked all too well, dragons were a fire-breathing menace, and only those quick enough with a sword or their wits survived, the young gamers faced a terrible task. For the only way they would ever see Earth again was if they could find the legendary Gate Between Worlds - a place guarded by the most terrifying and deadly enemy of all....

©1983 Joel Rosenberg (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Such a classic.

Narrator was perfect, story is perfect, a fantasy classic that everyone needs to listen to or read.

As good as the first time I read the book

Where does The Sleeping Dragon rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

average

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I adore the whole concept of this story

Any additional comments?

Much like the book, it took me a while to get back into it. but Half way through it picks up and the rest of the series does not let down, you just have to struggle to that halfway point

an oldie but goodie.

I read these years ago and recently picked them back up. They were just as good now as then. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and of course found myself longing for younger days of Gaming.

Flashback

I read this book I would say around 1988. It was nice to reminisce. I look forward to hearing the others

The rape was a little much...

Overall, the mechanics of the world were interesting and reasonably complex. The characters were likable, for the most part, and seemed to grow appropriately as the story progressed. However, at a certain point in this story the tone becomes extremely dark in a way that made me more than a little uncomfortable. I don't think this necessarily ruins the book or anything. It just felt a little extreme to me.

Customer service fixed the bad playing problem.

Amazing book, great performance! Love it! Hoping they have the entire series. A must read!

A dark story about flawed people who make mistakes

I read this series as a young adult and enjoyed it, so I decided to take a stroll down memory lane and listen to it again as an adult.

It's a rare genre that I have a soft spot for: a group of college-aged kids who roleplay together end up in the game for real, no longer playing characters but actually living their lives, with the knowledge and skills from their own lives. It's a pretty awesome idea - take your average teenager and give them the body and skills of Conan the Barbarian, or Merlin the Wizard, and you have an idea of what fun it could be. But that's not what this book is about. The fun is temporary - the book focuses on how flawed everything is - the world, its people, and even the main characters.

The characters in it are all flawed people. They're not BAD people, but they're also not without problems. The novel stresses the idea that people can grow out of childishness and into heroes. But in the meantime, you get a group of people who can be self-absorbed, petty, and rubbing against each other in the worst possible ways. There are love triangles, unresolved issues, and lots more going on behind the scenes.

The whole book is full of mistakes the characters make - some accidental, some caused by their personality quirks, some because they are seeking to become heroes - that cause bad things to happen to them, from losing their spellbooks right away to a main character dying to the girls getting raped. THIS BOOK IS DARK. Bad things happen to good people. It's not always the fault of the protagonists, but they usually contribute to it through naivete and mistakes. While the worst events take place off-screen, the effects aren't just brushed aside - the book dwells on them and how big events change people, and not always for the better.

The book gets better the more you read, but it can be slow going. The first chapter in particular was a little painful to listen to - it introduced each of the main characters as they went to their weekly gaming session. With a whole group to introduce, you can't really get to know any of them, so they ended up feeling like two-dimensional stereotypes. That may have been on purpose, though - as the characters go through strife and suffering in the fantasy world, we see them grow up and become more three-dimensional. And the heroes begin to realize that the fantasy world they are so eager to leave needs someone from our world to bring some badly needed enlightenment - at the point of a sword. Thus beginning a series.

In terms of writing style and reader performance, both were a bit lacking at first. The reader had to speak dozens of different voices from different genders, ages, and races, and did a fine job of keeping them all separate and distinct, yet some of them sounded a little too comical. However, as the story went on, I began to notice this less and less. In terms of literary quality - well, this is no great American novel, but the writing style isn't horrid, either. While it is tough to get through the first two chapters, and while the group still seems selfish and childish halfway through the book, it all starts to seem worth it once the group meets the dragon halfway through the book. Then, the book takes the rug from beneath your feet, and changes everything in the last chapters of the book.

This is a book about growing up, about losing your innocence, and about redefining what heroism means. It's also a book about roleplaying rules, roleplaying groups and roleplaying quests. if you're not into fantasy or you're not into roleplaying games, I'd suggest giving this a pass. But if you're into roleplaying games, especially tabletop ones, and if you've ever wondered what it would be like to travel back in time or into your favourite movie, this could be the book for you.

the best

better this time around than the first time I read it. Joel Rosenberg makes the sights and sounds of a rendra come through with perfect clarity.

Meh

I've read this book and thought it would be a fun listen...it was not. I think the voices were completely wrong at every turn. Perhaps using two or three different persons to read would have been a better plan.

A great book and series

My favorite Book of all time! I Love the entire series you really should check it out.