Sword Art Online 4: Fairy Dance

By: Reki Kawahara, Stephen Paul

Narrated by: Bryce Papenbrook, Cherami Leigh

Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Listen to the novel that ignited the phenomenon!

Kirito plunges into a suspicious new VRMMORPG called ALfheim Online to rescue Asuna, who never returned from Sword Art Online. ALO offers many features to entertain players in the wake of SAO: ultra-high-end graphics, action-heavy gameplay, a choice of fairy races, and a next-generation flight engine. Playing as a spriggan, Kirito heads for the location of Asuna's prison - the top of the World Tree, the final destination of every player in the game!

Along the way, Kirito nearly falls to a plot hatched by the enemy salamanders, just barely surviving the ordeal with the help of a sylph named Leafa and his Navigation Pixie, Yui. But just as Kirito and Leafa make it to the foot of the World Tree, the end of their quest in sight, each realizes the other has a very big secret....

©2017 Reki Kawahara (P)2022 Yen Audio

Cherami Leigh's voice and passion are saintlike

After Aincrad I skipped to Alicization for financial reasons but was excited to grab Alfheim saga for the true hero's journey story told from vantage of the angelic yet troubled sister. I love the baton pass between the narrators. The only unfortunate things was some of the retakes are jarring and took me out of the story. it's a shame they sounded so different.

Exceptional

Loved it! Both narrators do a fabulous job and it was a joy to listen too.

I <3 Sword Art

the characters are in dearing.. The story is like a fun wonderful roller-coaster. I hope they continue the story maybe with its own series of the full conquering of Aincrad.

Great Story, Fantastic Voices

Fans of the dubbed SAO anime will be very familiar with the story and the voice actors. I have been listening to these on long road trips, and have not been disappointed. For me, it feels like Asuna and Kirito are telling me their story. A very nice touch that Yen has the English dub voice actors read their books when possible. I hope it continues! Unfortunately, the production value of book four didn't meet the standards of the first three. There were frequent audio inconsistencies, as though audio was dubbed in during post-production that had been recorded on different gear and in a different environment. This is a minor quibble, and I am looking forward to the next release in the series!

Well Done audio adaptation!

I've already read the light novels to know they're good but the audio production with the English voice actors is really well done. Worth the listen for fans.

Can't Wait for More!

I love these audible adaptions of the light novels. The Narrators do an awesome job and this really brings a while other level of the story to life. I really do hope they continue to adapt all the books of this series. If you liked the anime at all, I highly recommend listening to these light novels!

A Fun Adventure with Uneven Performances

I love SAO and was glad to see audio versions of the light novels. The story is excellent and thrilling, but I found the performances of Cherami and Bryce uneven.

They each read different sections of the story and do voices for all the characters. This means that voices you get accustomed to when Cherami is reading change completely when Bryce takes over. This is distracting because you have to figure out who is supposed to be reading. This is a minor issue, though. If you are an SAO fan give this a listen.

In chapter 3

I realized if they had just told the hunters that they were trying to tame the beast. It would’ve been easier.

bad narration style

you would think the voice actors would stick to their characters voices instead they trade chapters and do horrible imitations of the other persons characters.

the price to length ratio of these audio books are pretty bad so asking for a better performance is not unreasonable