A Meeting at Corvallis: A Novel of the Change

The war promised in the previous book does come to pass. Familiar faces return and a few lesser known characters are explored in more detail. Story is split between 4-5 major factions as the action becomes more diverse.

This book seems more "comfortable" with itself and hits the mark promised by the basic premise of the series. Descriptions become a little less repetitive and some characters get a lot more interesting.

Narration is good and addresses some of the more common complaints about pronunciation found in previous books. Could stand to have a slightly longer moment of silence when a scene ends dramatically and before the next scene begins some time later.

Worthwhile reading.

A proper end to the first part of the change. I have listened to 7 books in this series and can't wait for the next one "The Sword of the Lady" which is supposed to be released in September 2009 in Audio format. I hope Audible.com has it as soon as it is available. Rudy Mckensie has the best of Mike Havel and Juniper Mckensie and keeps the story line moving ahead. I highly reccomend this series.

Repeated detailed descriptions of the local plants, animals, food, clothing, and locality get a bit tedious and detracts from from a really good story.

The story is great, have really enjoyed the whole series so far and the narrator has a good voice and a way of drawing you into the story, the only criticism I have is that the narrator has a disconcerting habit of mispronouncing some common historical terms, sort of like someone who's been given a script and read the words but not really understood them.
Apart from that its been a really enjoyable listen !

I can't compare the print and audio versions, except in one area: Print isn't plagued by mispronunciations. The narrator has a good voice, great phrasing and pacing skills, and wonderful character differentiatuon. But, and this is a big problem for me, he consistently mispronounces words. Common words such aa "ballista" and "bared'' get maimed. I don't know enough Erse to know if that's right, but based on what he does to Celtic, Cernnunos and Cuchailin I'm betting it's not. I can't say that the book is destroyed because of this, but it definitely jars the listener badly. I'm seriously thinking of switching to print for the rest of the series.

I like the character development, and that we get to see inside the PPA world a bit.

Learn to pronounce correctly! There's no excuse for these jarring and painful errors in professional work. Why has the editor allowed this through four books?

Finishes the trilogy quite well. I especially liked how the Dúnedain Rangers, more specifically how Astrid and Eilir come of age in this book.

It's simplicity

Todd McLaren is a masterful story teller.

no it's to long.

none.

I really enjoyed "Dies the Fire" and just had to know what happens to the characters I have come to know and care about. I was fascinated with how human nature and individual character responds to a complete change to everything we know and rely on to survive in our modern day world. "Meeting at Corvallas" is the next chapter to the chaos of the first book, and captured my attention and imagination, however the story seemed to drag out to the end. Oh, wait, it's not over, and now I have to get the next book to finally get closure to the story. When do I get my new credits.....Arrrrrg! I can't wait that long!

The Change novels as a whole have been an idea that has fascinated me since the first time I stumbled across them while looking for a good new series. A Meeting at Corvallis is good end to first trilogy of the series. I was left satisfied with the story, and looking forward to what would come later.
What I like most about this series is that it is what would have happened if Tolkien had written a post apocalyptic book.
I like...

I'm not sure how this series went so wrong. The first book "dies the fire" started off pretty good. Its just all downhill from there. I can't fully express how tedious the next two books are with this one being by far the worst of the bunch.

The author is just badly in need of a better editor. The books are filled with extremely lengthy descriptions of uninteresting things. Like do we really need the details of every meal eaten?

The Juniper character is by far one of the most annoying and unbelievable fictional characters I guarantee you will ever encounter. Every time she utters "Merry meet..." etc; I found myself unsure whether I wanted to vomit or punch myself in the neck. Maybe both. You'll also find yourself wondering how the "Protector" goes from being a fairly fearsome and effective demagogue in the first book to a complete dunce by book three.

I would think that anyone paid to read a book would learn how to pronounce the names of the places in the book. I guess this won't bother anyone from outside of the NW, but it sure grated on my nerves.