By the Sword

De: Mercedes Lackey

Narrado por: Amy Landon

Granddaughter of the sorceress Kethry, daughter of a noble house, Kerowyn had been forced to run the family keep since her mother's untimely death. Yet now at last her brother was preparing to wed, and when his bride became the lady of the keep, Kerowyn could return to her true enjoyments - training horses and hunting.

But all Kerowyn's hopes and plans were shattered when her anscestral home was attacked, her father slain, her brother wounded, and his fiancee kidnapped.

©1991 Mercedes R. Lackey (P)2020 Tantor

My favorite Valdemar book, but poorly narrated.

This book has been one of my favorite entries in the Valdemar world for a long time. I've long wanted to have it in an audiobook format. Unfortunately, the narration is... not great. It's not un-listenable, but it's stilted and awkward. The narrator's intonation makes it almost sound like a computer is narrating instead of a real person - the emphasis is often placed at weird places in a sentence. She also often speaks v e r y s l o w l y. The main character is meant to be a young military woman, but the performance gives her voice no energy at all. The narrator makes some stylistic choices that I also don't like (certain accents for particular characters, for instance), but that's more about my personal preference than anything. The bigger problem is that the narration overall seems poor quality - more like an amateur audiobook recording from a free website than the quality I usually expect from audible.

Wonderful!

I absolutely love this book and the narration was great! A few names were mispronounced.

Excellent!!!!

Amy Landon's narration elevates one of my favorite Mercedese Lackey books to near perfection! I've always loved the book and Kerowyn is an amazing character. A must listen for fantasy fans!

Good Book but not so good narrator

I do like this series (Valdemar). I didn’t particularly care for the narrator in this one. The voices used for Tarma and Warl were a little off putting and not at all what I expected. Especially after listening to Oathbound, Oathbreakers, and Oathblood immediately before this one. Those I loved. Will listen again only because I do like the series.

adventure!

just excellent!! the story, performance and imagination! perfectly written! love all of the characters!

My absolute favorite!

Of all her ‘Valdemar’ books, this one was my absolute favorite! Although I will admit that her, “Deed of Paksenarion Dorthansdaughter,” is my favorite of ALL of her books.

Great story, ok performance

A classic by Mercedes Lackey. This was written towards the middle of her Valdemar series, following on the heels of the Magic and Arrow's trilogies as well as the Tarma & Kethry duology. As such, it builds on the world Lackey created and makes way for Elspeth's story in the Winds trilogy. The performer was ok, and though there were some odd choices made for accents of certain characters - especially Warrl, she gave a satisfactory performance otherwise.

One of the best stories of Valdemar

I have always loved the book and am very glad to enjoy an excellent performance of it.

Great for long trip

By the Sword has always been one of my favorite Lackey books. As an audiobook it was still very enjoyable. The voice actor was at times so quiet I had to change my volume, and occasionally got a word or the accent of X person wrong (she'd establish one accent and then deviate). I still enjoyed it very much, and she was overall very soothing to listen to while remaining engaging.

Amy does Mercedes

I love this book and Amy does such a great job of narrating Kero!