The Thousand Names

By: Django Wexler

Narrated by: Richard Poe

Length: 22 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

With this stunning series opener, Django Wexler leaps to the upper echelon of today’s best fantasy authors. The Thousand Names opens his Shadow Campaigns series with a tale of bloody rebellion that will reshape an empire -- and a world. Captain Marcus d’Ivoire and Winter Ihernglass see their fortunes rise under the command of military genius Janus bet Vhalnich. But Janus’ obsession with the supernatural portends a dire fate for the realm.

©2013 Django Wexler (P)2013 Recorded Books

Masterful!

The author successfully created a novel of over 21 hours in length that involved a large military campaign that, ostensibly, involved restoring a corrupt prince who had been removed by a religious sect of zealots that had gained sway with the down-trodden masses. He managed this by creating several interesting characters and carefully crafting their story arcs in such a way as to be kind of standalone mini-episodes. There are lots of twists along the way, several of them quite poignant as they unfold. Another aspect of this novel that I enjoyed is the authors ability to creatively include a balanced mix of both male and female protagonists and antagonists.

The narrator was superb in voicing the multitude of players within the novel thus adding to the entertainment value of the book. Now, off to book 2.

Very good military fantasy.

Story: 4.5 Performance: 5
Good solid military writing and plot. Nothing incredibly shocking, but solid plot twists and excellent themes. Good lifelike characters, and some real nasty lifelike characters as well. definitely enjoyed the military writing.

90% battles and 10% character development

I like battles in my fantasy novels as much as the next person, but in this book, the purpose of the characters is to provide a vehicle for the battles rather than the fighting helping to define the characters and move the story along. Would have liked more character and plot development. Narration was pretty good. I'm almost done and not sure if I will go on to the second book.

A Great Story

This is a very good book. From the start I found I liked the characters.
The pacing is perfect, with just enough happening from scene to scene to keep you interested. But not so much you forget everybody's name.

I am especially glad for the great performance and the audio book format. Because I found some of the names I was mispronouncing. Not that they are overly complicated, just that my inflections were wrong.

Grab This Audio Book, you will not be disappointed.

if you love tactical fantasy, this is your book

enjoyed this book a lot. tactics and hard fantasy is a match made in heaven

Well Written, Just Not For Me

Overall, this book was well written and has some interesting premises. Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. The setting and characters are well described and fleshed out, which I appreciated. However, I wasn't all that into them. There was a lot of dialogue and believable interactions, but they didn't draw me in how I wanted to. Some of this may be attributable to the narrator, who was ok, but not great. He didn't do well distinguishing characters by voice/tone, so it was sometimes hard to follow who was saying what. The action scenes were well written, but again, they didn't draw me in. The magic in this book was somewhat interesting too, but again, too little and much too late to really be a factor in my overall enjoyment.

Overall, this is a good book, but for other folks. I do not regret listening to it, but I also do not feel compelled to listen to/read the next in the series. Django Wexler is great, just not in the ways I prefer.

Good start to a series that gets better

I just listened to this for the third time. I love the series, though I think this book is the weakest in a series that gets better with every book. The very beginning drops you into a story in a slightly confusing way, with minor characters you can't keep straight that aren't very relevant to the rest of the book, and introduces the fantasy element. However, that fantasy element is then put on the back burner for much of the early part of the book, and it focuses on 18th-century-esque military life and battles with muskets and bayonets. I like military fiction with a heavy focus on tactics and a sense of the realism of military life, but that section might be less engaging at first if you don't already like that sort of thing. It gets better as it goes on, in particular when it introduces more and more fantasy elements. I think the series is well narrated, and all of the characters' voices fit the characters.

Overall, if you find yourself feeling a bit "meh" about this book, please give the next one a try.

kind of boring

there was a war for nothing, someone got special powers, everyone goes home. was waiting for the book to "get started" maybe book 2?

bad romance subplot

The Winter and Jane love affair is unbearable. I don't know if I can make it through the series if it continues. It detracts from an otherwise interesting series.

Great Military Fantasy

I love military historical fiction. I love fantasy. I really loved Django Wexler's freshman outing in "The Thousand Names".

Rather than your typical fantasy setting, this one takes place in what could easily have been a campaign during the Napoleonic Era in a far away desert locale.

The characters are very well thought out, and the POV character do not overshadow other main characters at all. In my opinion, the most interesting character isn't even a point of view character.

The "fantasy" element, other than the imaginary setting, doesn't make itself really known until two-thirds of the way through the book and even then the magic system is much more subtle and mystical than I was expecting. Don't expect to find a lot of powerful "battle" magic here.

Mr. Poe's performance leaves little wanting. He has this deep rasp that just seems to go with the musket military setting. The only complaint I have is that I wish he had done a little bit more distinctive voices for the characters, especially the male characters. After a point, they all began to have the same inflection and tone and it became difficult to distinguish who was talking.

I look forward to the next in this installment.