Domes of Fire

The Tamuli, Book 1

De: David Eddings

Narrado por: Kevin Pariseau

Six years had passed since the redoubtable knight Sparhawk had triumphed over the evil God Azash and returned to Elenia with Queen Ehlana, his bride. And now a new danger had arisen to threaten the peace of Ehlana's realm. The trouble had started quietly. At home, bandits began to plague the hill country. In neighboring Lamorkand, the customary political unrest turned ominous with whispers that the bloody heroes of old soon would rise again. And travelers reported that the Trolls had all disappeared from the icy northern haunts of Thalesia. Simple problems, apparently unrelated - until an ambassador arrived from the far-off Tamul empire, begging Sparhawk's aid. These same dangers that stalked Ehlana's kingdom had already struck his realm full-force.

The fabled ancient warriors of Tamuli had indeed returned - intent on carnage. Monsters and fell magics had followed, and the havoc and terror they spawned were tearing the empire apart. The empire had sent for the Pandion Knight who had killed the God Azash. If Sparhawk wanted to stop this danger before it could savage his own land, he now must lend his aid. Sparhawk, Ehlana, and their daughter, Princess Danae, agreed to make the grueling trek to the far-distant empire of the east. They traveled in company with a handful of trusted companions: the stalwart champions of the four Militant Orders, the knight Berit, Mirtai the giantess, and the young thief Talen. With the child-goddess Aphrael to speed their journey, they began the treacherous traverse of the utmost reaches of the Daresian continent, to Tamul's distant capital. There, in the emperor's glittering court, they would encounter corruption, treachery - and a greater danger than any man had faced before!

©1993 David Eddings (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Narration is off

an author/publisher should never change the narrator without them listening to previous recordings. this narrator butchering of names made the story hard to listen to.

A good book.

This is a good book. I felt the story was not as strong as the first series. It was still an interesting read and fun. I don't know why so many people hated the narrarator a I though the did a very good job. I'd advise listening to the sample and coming to your own conclusion. it is nice to again revisit characters that you love. This one is worth a credit for certain.

I don't usually do this but...

I have loved this series for years now, but the narrators performance is terrible. If you haven't listened to the previous series, the elenium, you probly wouldn't notice that half of the names and places are mispronounced and that all but one of the characters voices sound almost exactly alike. so much so that I can't tell who is talking most of the time, even when the women talk. also, he makes the characters talk faster than when he is just telling the story, doing that terribly disrupts the flow of the tale.

Changed Narrator

Alright, so I really, really loved the trilogy that precedes the Tamuli. I got this book knowing that they had changed narrators and figured that I'd still give it a chance. It was so hard to get into this book. It's NOT that the narrator is different, it's that he pronounces everything so differently than his predecessor. The editors for this series should have listened to the first books and made sure the reader kept those pronunciations the same. Technically, Kevin's version isn't 'wrong'. After all, when we read fantasy books, we all pronounce things differently, however when you are creating an audio series there needs to be continuity so that you're not thrown from the story aspect due to a reader changing up key character names.

As stories go, this one is very different from the Elenium. Sparkhawk is older and married with a daughter. His wife has moved from the glass encased maiden to the strong willed monarch that she is. Yet there are still issues afoot in another continent and once again Sparhawk is forced to go save the world. If you want to continue the story past the Elenium, just go get the books. The jarring difference in readers really affects the way the story is heard.

listenable

Story: If you liked the first trilogy you'll probably like this one.

The narration started off weak, with a halting sort of cadence, but got better once the story started rolling. The voice characterization is fine. (Well, except for Ulath, who's a shadow of his former self...)

The changed pronunciation of some names was a bit off-putting at first, but not really that bad. I do wish the producers would pay more attention to consistency, but I'm over it.