The Grail: Area 51, Book 5

The first three books were great so, yes, I would buy another Robert Doherty/Bob Mayer book. The narration was painful. Halfway through the first half and I'm almost in tears. If not for the fact that I'm interested in the story, I'd stop listening.

Producers of audio books need to take more care in choosing narrators and to make sure that narrators listen to previous books in a series if there are any if for no other reason than to get the pronunciation of words and names. Some of the pronunciations are just brutal.

The narrator needs to tell the story, not just read EVERY...WORD... DELIBERATELY. It might be a good idea to listen to a story before you tell one.

At first, I thought that it was just me. I have listened to probably over 100 Audiobooks over the past couple of years and have enjoyed most of them greatly - but THIS book......let's just say that after the first few hours - I HAD to abandon the effort and purchase the book on Amazon to read on my Kindle.

Martin Gollery narrated this book. And the result was HORRIBLE. This is absolutely the worst audiobook experience of my life, and I was quite impressed with how badly a bad narrator could destroy the experience of an Audiobook. The Author's story/book are amazing - and it is really a "page turner".

But Gollery's destruction of the Audiobook experience is unforgivable - to the point that for the first time - I actually will pay attention to the Name of the Narrator and will REFUSE to buy any audiobook Narrated by Martin Gollery.

The narrative style of Martin Gollery is best described as an inhuman robot with tones and inflections of voice that are consistently irritating. Specifically, he inflects his voice down at the end of each and every sentence - much like how a priest recites a sermon in those boring Sunday sermons at church you used to be forced to attend, where the priest was simply reciting a passage that he was just trying to "get through" and which the parishioners pretended to listen to while being all lost in their own thoughts.

It is hard to completely describe how such a totally unskilled and careless narrator can completely destroy the Audiobook experience. I had friends listen to it as well, just in case I was totally off base - and they ubiquitously upheld my opinion while no few of them simply shuddered at the terrible experience at having had to listen to Gollery's disastrous narrative style for even just a few moments.

I cannot believe that the publisher of this audiobook would consent to such a terrible destruction of what would ordinarily be a wonderful experience - and can only wonder if Martin Gollery is either a close friend or relative of someone in the Publishing company that was given a chance.

Maybe nobody will read this, but if you do - I hope that you will find this review helpful.

GREAT book - but Martin Gollery is to be actively avoided!

I assume Audible has something against this author: why else would they use such awful narrators to narrate Bob Mayer's stories?

The story is excellent, especially starting with King Arthur being one of the Alien factions.
But the narration is like sand in a tasty meal. You want the meal, you eat the sand too !

A different narrator. Or at least a narrator that pronounced the names in the story correctly. Editing of the narration when mistakes were made, instead of catching the mistake and restating. I couldn't believe the poor quality.

By being the narrator. He was terrible.

The narrator, he sounds like automaton with very staccato narration. Also he has not done his homework with regards to pronunciation of the names and places.

The storyline..

Jeffrey Kafer

Yeah, but the narrator almost made me skip this book.

never would i listen to martin gollery. the voice just didn't agree with me.

unfortunately, it was when the narrator made a mistake, then backed up & repeated the word correctly... 3 times in 15 minutes... no editing? seriously? lol.

just doesn't sound like this is his thing. not believable, poor voice impressions...

love me some audible

Its a good story. Through out the series Bob Mayer makes several technical mistakes, ie. F-16's cant take off from an aircraft carrier, the Pave Low is an MH-53, not an HH-53, there were many others, you would think a guy who used to be a green beret would know these kind of things. However this is something I can live with, its still a good story. I don't like how the author seems to minimize religion.

Those are only the MINOR issues over come by a good story line. You remember the robot voice from the '90's answering machine, I would rather have that thing read the book. This guy has to be the worst narrator EVER!!

"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." The only thing good I can say about this title is... Never mind, can't think of anything. The narrator was awful, the story has taken the Area 51 storyline and absolutely jumped the shark. Fo anyone considering spending money or credits on this pile of manure - DON'T!!!!

No, I enjoyed this story, but are they for real with this narrator? I have heard elementary school kids read better than this.

I have really enjoyed the series and cannot wait for the next one to be released, but it was torturous getting through this one. Not because of the story which was great but because of the performance, I drive all over the country for a living so I don’t have time to sit down and read, so I had to get through it in order to complete the series. Perhaps they will record it again with Eric G. Dove as the Narrator.

I love this series, Mayer is simply amazing. I look forward to listening to each and every book.

However, Gollerys "performance" was so bad it was a struggle. I found myself shouting at the iPod on more than one occasion. He doesn't seem to feel the need to read ahead and often stops himself and repeats sentences. His pace is almost always totally off and he... draws sentences... out... making it... very tough... going.

Very much looking forward to the next instalment in the series.