Winter's Heart: Wheel of Time, Book 9

This is the worst quality of the Wheel of Time audio books I have encountered. The narrators are understandable, but significantly less audio quality than previous book. This was done by McMillan Publishers and cheaply. Audio Renaissance was much better. Now I understand the message in the beginning of the previous book about using the same narrators for continuity. Notable drop in quality from that book. The parts have 90 chapters about 6-7 minutes long. There is an audible and annoying pause between them. you can also hear what must be the spacing between CDs as words are repeated.

Dissappointing

If you read the first 8, does it really matter that this is really a bridge book? You will listen to it and then the next. Perhaps it was a little slow and lacking in action, but it really did move the story forward to the next book and connected a lot of dots. Kate and Michael were amazing per usual on the voice acting side. Whoever edited this, and whoever approved the edit should both go back to flipping burgers. It is almost comical how horribly this is edited. Constant repeat sections, and overlong pauses where there should be none. Crazy!

The editing is horrible. The readers are still good but the editing is horrible. The editing is horrible. If me repeating myself is annoying, be prepared to be very annoyed by this book. At first I thought my phone was shorting out and the pause and replay button were somehow being pressed. Either the editor was asleep or just didn't bother to do their job. The previous books in the series didn't suffer from the same problem and hopefully the rest won't. This book needs to be rereleased after it is corrected.

This was the worst audio book I have ever listened to. There are long pauses as a result of poor editing that make you think story ones are changing but there is no change. Inversely when there should be a pause indicating a switch the editor leaves no gap so several paragraphs later you realize you have switched characters or storylines. Very confusing.

Big chunks of text are repeated. Audio levels vary widely. The editor was asleep on this one. The publisher should give this free until they fix it

About the book.... Probably the slowest in the series but still good

I am surprised that there are complaints about the recording / editing of this book going back to May of 2011 yet Audible has not fixed the problem.

I am plowing my way through this wonderful series of books by the late Robert Jordan. I got hooked in the first book and cannot stop. According to Wikipedia, there are 419 hours and 30 minutes of performance by Kate Reading and Micheal Kramer with one more book yet to come.

My reason however for posting this review is because the recording was simply done incorrectly. Many times throughout the performance, you will have to listen to repeated sentences.. Extremely annoying and something that should be easily fixed.

So why hasn't Audible remeded this problem or at least provided a warning to their customers that this version has material defects?

I can't believe I'm doing this... I've made it through the first nine books and 2/3 of the way through the tenth, and I have to put it down... I've tried and tried to come back to it, but gone are the trollocs and myrddraal, and the good page-turning adventure from the start of the series (The "Great Hunt" is one of my all-time favorite books), to be replaced by incessant political "game of houses" suspicions/mistrust; the "gilded, jeweled, highly polished mother-of-pearl enameled matching serving tray and goblets filled with steaming effervescent rose petal-scented spiced wine" (take a breath); and "high neck, gold embroidered pleated riding dresses with lace 'spilling' from the sleeves". Way too over-explained in the detail department! No need to explain the full dress of every single character in the room. And, on the note of characters... There are WAY too many of them, and too many of those have too similar names (trying to discern between/remember the 300+ Aes Sedai he's introduced is becoming a real chore... "Wait, who was she again? Is she the little plump brown ajah that I haven't read about since book five? Or, was it book seven?"). Too many long-winded, overly detailed, full-page explanations of irrelevant things... Primarily, characters that have absolutely no bearing on the story (Really, that much content to explain a serving maid?) I get it... He's trying to set the stage/environment for the reader, but there's a limit to the amount of detail necessary. And, then there's the gender dynamic: Every woman is spiteful towards men, and every man is a dullard where women are concerned... Mr. Jordan was definitely letting his real-life experience show through in his writing, and way too often (in my opinion, anyway).

On the positive side, the reading is performed well. Well, except for maybe the male reader's incessant need to sigh at the end of the majority of the sentences -- I guess for emphasis. Creeped me out a little. But, that's a minor thing and both readers performed well.

And, like everyone else has been saying in these reviews... HORRIBLE editing. Content read and then repeated several times throughout. Definitely emphasized by the overly detailed, unnecessary content.

I will probably try to come back to it again, because I have a lot invested in the series -- and at one point in time I really enjoyed it. Not to mention, I want to see it all come to a conclusion... I guess I just wish Jordan had done it in, maybe six or seven books, instead of 13.

I was very disappointed when things were repeated again and again throughout the book. It has been done on previous books in this series, but this was the worst, so far.

I have read and re-read this series and love it, but this kind of spoiled the enjoyment.

Like all Robert Jordon books it's a good read but yes the editing was very poor. I wonder how much time they gained by the long pauses and endless verse repeating. I agee this book needs to be edited correctly then released.

I was surprised at the number of times lines were repeated and the long pauses between sections (too numerous to count). And these pauses weren't at the end of the chapter. Was this to lengthen the time of the recording?

A number of times though this book i found the last 30 seconds re-read. How off-putting!!!! .

The audio / reading quality is great, but the mixing leaves a lot to be desired. .

If some is repeated, was any of the story left out?