The Innocent Sleep

October Daye Series, Book 18

De: Seanan McGuire

Narrado por: Raphael Corkhill

The 18th novel of the Hugo-nominated, New York Times best-selling October Daye urban fantasy series.

For one bright, shining moment, Tybalt, King of Cats, had everything he had ever wanted. He was soon to set his crown aside; he had married the woman he loved; he was going to be a father. After centuries of searching for a family of his own, he had finally found a way to construct the life of his dreams, and was looking forward to a period of peace—or at least as much peace as is ever in the offing for the husband of a hero.

Alas for Tybalt and his domestic aspirations, fate—and Titania—had other ideas. His perfect world had been complete for only a moment when it was ripped away, to be replaced by hers. Titania, Faerie’s Summer Queen, Mother of Illusions and enemy of so many he holds dear, has seized control of the Kingdom, remaking it in her own image. An image that does not include meddlesome shape-shifters getting in her way. Tybalt quickly finds himself banished from her reality, along with the Undersea and the rest of the Court of Cats.

To protect his people and his future, Tybalt must find the woman he loves in a world designed to keep her from him, convince her that he’s not a stranger trying to ruin her life for no apparent reason, and get her to unmake the illusion she’s been firmly enmeshed in. And he’ll have to do it all while she doesn’t know him, and every unrecognizing look is a knife to his heart.

For Tybalt, King of Cats, the happily ever after was just the beginning.

©2023 Seanan McGuire (P)2023 Audible, Inc.

Horrible narration

I was delighted to hear we were getting Tybalt’s perspective of events as they unfolded in Sleep No More with The Innocent Sleep. It allowed us to see what Toby’s love and friends were doing to restore Faerie and get her back.

I was shocked when I began listening and was greeted not by Mary Robinette Kowal, but by another narrator. Fine, fine, I’ve listened to him before. I’ll roll with it.

Dear reader, I did not roll with it. I hated it. With a fiery rage. Now, to be fair, Raphael Corkhill is a good narrator. I’ve enjoyed other works by him, including his pseudonym. But I am sure he did not even listen to previous audio sample in this collection. Audible Studios blew it when they changed narrators. Yes, I get that it’s from the male’s perspective, but Mary has done ALL the voices since the beginning, and Corkhill didn’t even get Tybalt’s accent right.

I felt like Toby must have felt in the pond. Like a fish out of water. Mispronounced words and no one sounded liked themselves. It absolutely ruined the story for me. I ended up buying the book, so that I could hear the characters as they should sound in my head. I highly recommend that those who listened to the entire series do the same. So disappointing.

Now, the story once read was brilliant, and I loved seeing the other side of things. McGuire is clever. I appreciated the gift of this perspective giving us a wonderful, complete story. Just don’t listen to it!

A wonderful surprise

Tybalt’s view of this story now seems absolutely necessary and, like the rest of this series, heart-wrenchingly wonderful.

Another amazing novel but a different narrator

This book was to from Tybalt’s point of view, which was brilliant since October had gone missing. It opens the door for other characters to get their own stories. I can’t wait to see what is in store for Toby and Tybalt when the baby is born. It took a bit to get used to the new narrator. I understand the reasoning for it, but it’s hard when you’re used to how Mary Robinette Kowal makes the characters sound, so you know who is speaking without being told. The new narrator did a good job, but their style is so different that it made it hard to tell who was speaking. Even though they did a very good job, it was still a bit jarring.

10/5 Stars!

I loved getting Tybalt’s perspective!
Wish I could give more Stars, this was ahhmazing, and Seanan deserves so much praise.
Narrator was good with the character voices, and definitely added to the whole experience.

A different voice

As many others have mentioned, the narrator for this book is NOT Mary Robinette Kowall. This makes for a very bumpy entry into the story, even knowing the ending already from having read the previous one, which tells the story from Toby’s perspective. This story however, is literally in another voice, that of Tybalt. The bones of the story are still Seanan’s writing, so the characters do and say the right things. But the sound of them is all different, and that’s somewhat jarring. The narrator gets better at Tybalt’s cadences with time, but when we finally hear Toby herself, it’s jarring all over again. I’d honestly prefer to listen to a reading by Kowall instead, possibly even if I needed to repurchase the book. This narrator isn’t BAD, mostly … just WRONG, after 17 previous novels.

With regard to the story, it’s interesting to hear from other characters that we usually don’t have the time to explore. Getting more of Tybalt’s backstory was particularly interesting. Some of the other characters get a chance to be center stage where they’ve always been relegated to the margins before, and it’s interesting to see them develop and change under the changed circumstances.

All in all, I don’t regret using my credit, but if I could have gotten it on a 2-for-1 I’d have been much happier about it, Buyer beware.

Excellent addition to my favorite series

Seanan has outdone herself with this one. I loved getting to know some characters better than we do from Tony’s pov. I can’t wait for the next book!

I am generally not a fan of having a new narrator and was afraid that would ruin the experience for me. I was very pleasantly surprised with the narration.

Fantastic

I loved having Tybalt’s side of the story. also This is how Tybalt is supposed to sound. The narrator did great with the male voices but some of the female voices were kind of funny. I look forward to the next one!

Tybalt's POV + Whining

This could have been so much better without Tybalt's whining. It would have been nice to go a few paragraphs without him whining and pouting about not being able to save October, rescue October, find October, just being able to be in the same room as October. I definitely get it that he wants to protect Toby and keep her safe, especially after his own related personal trauma but damn, dude. Eat a Snickers, you're whiny.

Other than that the story was very good. I liked seeing how everything came together to make one cohesive unit in the end which made Toby's version much more detail. I see why the stories were split instead of mashed together into one book. The timeline discrepancies would have been too hard to deal with

There were a couple of production snafus where the narrator went back and redid a line but other than that, he nailed Tybalt's voice and vocal affectations given us by Mary Robinette Kowall.

Overall: 4.5
Performance: 5
Story: 4

I love Tybalt

It was a neat way to fully flesh out the previous story. I had questions about so much but this answered them. Tybalt is just so interesting. I wish Mary Robinette Kowal could have narrated it but it does make sense a man could do it. I think he did an excellent job.

October Daye Story from a Different Perspective

I always love a story by Seanan McGuire. The October Daye series are in a well developed world that builds upon itself with each story. This is the first written from another character’s view, her husband Sylvester.
This story is also narrated by a male, another difference. I found the voices of the female characters dissident from prior books. Having listened to a female narrator in past stories, the male narrator’s voice was grating, especially for the Sea Witch. I hope future stories are played by the female narrator of past stories.