King of Duels

The Wandering Inn, Book 16

By: pirateaba

Narrated by: Erin Bennett

King of Duels marks the passing of the torch from our beloved Andrea Parsneau to a new narrator. Erin Bennett, a Golden Voice narrator, will continue to bring the magic of The Wandering Inn to life.

The world is full of adventures, big and small.

From exploring the [Garden of Sanctuary] to the depths of the sea, there are countless fascinating discoveries to be made. Not just in the places people go, but in the things they create... or recreate from Earth. Chocolate, lifting weights, and alcohol all flow through The Wandering Inn with unexpected consequences at times.

However, there's also war, [Assassins], and scams that ruin or destroy lives. For every monster, there is an adventurer. The Stitch Witch may creep forward, and the King of Destruction continues his rampage across nations, but there will always be a champion who steps forward.

Featuring a foreword from Andrea Parsneau.

©2024 pirateaba (P)2025 Podium Audio

Well….

Already disappointed by the narrator. I’ve never stopped in the middle of listening to a Wandering Inn book to read something else before but…..
Erin Bennett’s voice puts me to sleep 😭
Her characters mostly sound the same with little nuance and the whisper screams?? Really?? 🤦‍♀️
I miss Parsneau’s voice and editing prowess. The characters came across with so much emotion and seemed to nearly jumped from the page! Now everything is flat 🥺
I hope the story can carry the lackluster voice acting…

Not a fan of new narrator.

I don’t know why but I just can’t get into the story with this new narrator. Unfortunate.

Struggling with all the changes

Even though the book picked up where the last ended, it seemed like the writing was rushed.

The story is also very hard to focus on with the new narrator. There are some similarities in narration but it sounds like she is just reading the book. The old narrator really made some the characters and the fact they changed so late in the series is disappointing. I honestly would have been willing to wait longer for the book if it ment keeping with the same narrator.

Short Stories and the Difference Between a Narrator and Voice Actor

Erin is a competent narrator, good even. But Andrea is Voice Actor, even if she doesn’t think she is at times. The juxtaposition of previous books to this book made that distinction abundantly clear. Again Erin is not a bad narrator, but this book doesn’t need a narrator it needs a voice actor and probably a collection of voice actors.
One of the reasons Andrea left the series is because of the difficulty of maintaining and executing the existing characters and introducing the new ones without compromising the integrity of her craft. Knowing this, why not get another voice actor to collaborate? If not with Andrea but a couple of actors, this series is too big for one voice actor and a narrator unfortunately falls short of the expectation of standards set by Andrea. Unfortunately unless changes are made, there is a good chance this series will depreciate in value to its audiobook audience.

The obvious issues of the narrator aside, Pirate seems to have jumped around a lot more than usual in this one, which is something we have all come to accept with these books. However, it’s a bit TOO jumpy this time, similar to book 5. But on a grander scale. Was it an editing thing? Or lack thereof? Creative license to the creator aside, but half of these chapters could have been strung together in a way that they could have made two books, and the sex chapter could have been a bonus on the end of one.

There was certainly a lack of editing from an audio perspective as well, a huge amount of pregnant pauses.

Just all in all not a good execution by Podium. Not bad, but not good.

probably my least favorite of the series

The chapter on sex was awkward and did nothing to contribute to the story. It got a bit weird and wtf. It makes me wonder if Andrea left because of the bizarre sexual nature of it. I can see how a person of faith would not be comfortable narrating that book. I'm pretty open minded and even I was like "why the hell is this even in the story?". It almost felt like pandering to the far left fringe sexual deviants and people with sexual disorders. Pawn and Lionette was so WTF it felt like some weird sexual fetishists fantasy. WTH Pirate Aba?