Arrows of the Queen

"Arrows of the Queen" is the first of a three book series introducing us to the world of Valdemar. Each book continues the story but can stand quite nicely on its own. We are left wanting to know more about this fascinating world, but satisfied with the completion of each story.

Mercedes Lackey is an excellent story teller who has a fine grasp on human strengths and weaknesses. Her characters come to life with a skill and dimension that leaves you laughing and crying, celebrating their growth and triumph, and wondering what comes next.

I thought the reader did an excellent job. I would recommend her as well. I hope Audible provides the remaining two books of this series as well as other books of the Valdemar series.

This book is fabulous! I truly enjoyed it. I have read it in paperback form and listened to the audio as well. Unfortunately the narrator reading this does little to make the characters seem likeable and I often had trouble being able to tell one character from the next.

This is a great book, unfortunately the reader doesn't do anything to enhance the story. Still worthwhile, but not up to the quality I usually expect.

Perfect for those times when you want a simple story. I love Mercedes Lackey's work, and I like to listen to Arrows of the Queen as my 'bedtime' story.

I read this book ages ago and was thrilled to see this appearing on audible.

I agree with others about the reader, however. She sounds harsh and mad. I imagined she was throwing each word at me. I eventually adjusted to it and managed to usually ignore the reader and enjoy the story.

This book is a favorite guilty pleasure. It is part of the earlier Valdemar series and one of, or the, first of the ones depicting Queen Seleney's reign. The novel is a world builder, not bogged down in repetition that clogs the storytelling in this series. Familiarity makes it extra important to enjoy the reading. This narrator speaks in the cadences of the Northeast US. She bites the words and rounds the vowels in such a way that it may be disturbing to people who don't clip their words or rapidly tattoo a sentence. However, to me, it was a pleasant and enjoyable experience, as these are the tones of home. Many times I felt she was feeling compassionate and warm in her characterization. Overall, this audiobook will remain on the rainy day shelf.

The book itself is OK, but I just couldn't finish it. I do want to know what happens and might be able to handle it later. The narrator is the problem. Her narration just didn't flow. It was too choppy, and she often accented the wrong word/words in a sentence. She actually did better when she spoke in a dialect. Go, figure???

I have been waiting and waiting for books by Mercedes Lackey and the Valdamar series in particular to be available through Audible. I have read and reread these books countless times and I still love them as much as my first read, if not more. I can't wait for the rest of the trilogy and hopefully more of the series to become available as well.

I first read this book when it released in the late 80's, and was enthralled. Sadly, the book itself hasn't stood the test of time all that well, but with this reader, there's no hope. I wanted to like it, and I did, eventually, get to where I could listen to the end. But it never became a pleasure, and I was always aware of the reader as an interference. Good readers enhance a book, become part of it, and take you to the world of the book in a way that transcends. A book read by David Case or Wanda McCaddon (Donada Peters, Nadia May) is a joy to listen to, and I come away from the book with a deeper understanding and enjoyment. With this reading, I came away not wanting to read any more. Sad, really, because this book (and series) should lend itself well to audio presentation.

I am a longtime audiobook listener, and a huge fan of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, so I was excited to find this edition on Audible. However, the narrator was not a good fit for the book.

I've listened to quite a few good and bad narrators over the years, and so I'm a bit more forgiving than most, but I just cannot like this narrator. Her diction was fine, and she was passable at presenting different voices for different characters, and her accents were quite good. But she read the book as if she wanted to get it over as quickly as possible, making her sound continually angry or curt, which overshadowed the story very badly. One should not be thinking about the narrator when listening to an audiobook; the mark of an excellent storyteller is that you forget they are there and are drawn into the story. Her narration gets in the way of the story...I was forever wondering if perhaps she was having a bad day at work.

If that sort of thing doesn't bother you, then go ahead and buy this book. I, myself will be avoiding any books read by this narrator in the future.