The Rogue Retrieval

Gateways to Alissia, Book 1

By: Dan Koboldt

Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin

Sleight of hand…in another land...

Stage magician Quinn Bradley has one dream: to headline his own show on the Vegas Strip. And with talent scouts in the audience wowed by his latest performance, he knows he’s about to make the big-time.

What he doesn’t expect is an offer to go on a quest to a place where magic is all too real.

That’s how he finds himself in Alissia, a world connected to ours by a secret portal owned by a powerful corporation. He’s after an employee who has gone rogue, and that’s the least of his problems. Alissia has true magicians...and the penalty for impersonating one is death. In a world where even a 12-year-old could beat Quinn in a sword fight, it’s only a matter of time until the tricks up his sleeves run out.

©2016 Dan Koboldt (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

Fantastic story!

A really interesting take on portal fantasies with great characters and a fascinating world. Narrator does a great job as well.

Meh

It's a Portal fantasy / Wuxia for you nerds. The concept of the story is good, but in the end you really had no MC and if you read or listen to this. You will see know why.

slow, over-detailed descriptions

The author does a decent job world building but the story bogs down in descriptions of every little thing. They also explicitly describe the military "read back" protocol for every command, making even the action scenes slow.

Tha audio performance is clear, though some performance choices broke my immersion. The performer gave characters accents based on their names when their situation suggests any strong accents would have been weeded out. also the didn't make any effort to pitch their voice to distinguish genders of speakers.