Time of the Twins

Dragonlance: Legends, Book 1

By: Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

Narrated by: Ax Norman

Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Sequestered in the blackness of the dreaded Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas, surrounded by nameless creatures of evil, Raistlin Majere weaves a plan to conquer the darkness - to bring it under his control.

Crysania, a beautiful and devoted cleric of Paladine, tries to use her faith to lead Raistlin from the darkness. She is blind to his shadowed designs, and he draws her slowly into his neatly woven trap.

Made aware of Raistlin’s plan, a distraught Caramon travels back in time to the doomed city of Istar in the days before the Cataclysm. There, together with the ever-present kender Tasslehoff, Caramon will make his stand to save Raistlin’s soul.

Or so he believes.

©1986 TSR, Inc., 2000 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Awesome story - terrible reader

What did you love best about Time of the Twins?

The story is still as entertaining as it was in the 80s. It's as interesting as the chronicles. The characters and storyline are great. I waited a very long time to get the unabridged audio versions of this series. Thank you. I hope we get more Weis and Hickman audio books.

How could the performance have been better?

I didn't think Dragonlance could get a WORSE reader than Boehmer from the chronicles, but this guy tops him. He reads all character voices the same. There is little to no distinction between the narration and the different characters speaking. His inflection is so flat-line, that it can even be confusing as to which character is speaking. During some parts, he changes the pronunciation of names from one sentence to the next. The story is entertaining enough, that I will still finish the series, but it could have been much better with a good narrator. I love this story and hope that Audible and the Dragonlance franchise will consider redoing the production with an performer worthy of such a classic series.

Terrible Narration, Great Story

Would you listen to Time of the Twins again? Why?

Yes, the book is amazing. Really such a great story (too bad the narration is so poor).

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I just cringe listening to Ax Norman. He speeds up when the narration is supposed to be slow. He speaks quietly when it's an exciting moment. It's almost as if he is reading the text for the very first time when he showed up to do this recording. Also, his pronunciation is simply atrocious. If you're not sure how to pronounce something, the authors could very easily help, as could a website, as could have the original (abridged) recordings.

Thankfully his narration improves in the sequels, but is absolutely horrendous in this first book. I know he's done other narrations in the past, my only guess is that he either had a very late night, they paid him bottom basement dollar, or he didn't bother (as I mentioned earlier) to read the text before narrating. And, so too, goes the blame to the editor as well. Who could've honestly been in the recording booth listening to him record, and not have him give it another go (or two, or three).

Please get a new narrator

I live the story of the twins but find it hard to listen to when the narrator mispronounces Raistlins name over and over. No emotion in the reading.

Great book. Terrible reading.

This is a beloved book of mine. I was excited to see it on audible, but the narrator made it almost impossible to finish. Between the poor pronunciation of names and the bland narration, this was by far the worst narration I've heard to date from and audio book.

Monotonous. I love the book. I hate the narration.

I love the story. I’ve loved it since I was a child. But the performance is lack luster. Most audiobooks now have different voices or accents, how ever subtle they may be, to differentiate different characters. This reader sounds the same throughout. The evil mage, the pious priestess, the ancient librarian, all sound identical, as if it’s a college student reading a thesis paper. More than anything else, this kills an audiobook for me. It makes me so mad, because I love this book, but don’t have time to re-read it. And listening to it is miserable and, especially when multi tasking, difficult to follow conversations since everyone sounds exactly the same.

Good narration terrible voice actor.

I wish it were possible to combine the voice actor from the Chronicles and the narration from Legends... then both series would be 5 stars.

Awful Narrator

I had to stop listening and just read the book, the story was great the reader was horrible. Said the character names wrong and made the main character who is supposed to have a raspy weak voice sound like a 16 year old boy. I don't k ow why they don't have the same reader from the Chronicle's series, he was amazing.

diffrent voices

kind of wish the narrator distinguished the diffrent characters like in the other books...however i still enjoyes the story

horrible narration

Ax can't be bothered to even change his voice out inflections. his feeble attempts at yelling just sound like a strained whisper. his pronunciations of names are often wrong and differ everytime he reads it. story is great and only reason for 4 stars

Good story. annoying narrator

the narrator pronounced the names differently. sometimes he would say the same name differently twice in the same paragraph.