Curse of Honor

Legend of the Five Rings

By: David Annandale

Narrated by: Jennifer Aquino

Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

The reckless pursuit of honor exposes an empire to demonic invasion, in this epic fantasy novel of duty and warfare, set in the extraordinary world of Legend of the Five Rings.

Striking Dawn Castle defends the mountains between the Rokugan empire and the demon-haunted Shadowlands. When a mythical city is discovered in the forbidding peaks, Hida Haru, heir and sore disappointment to his family, seizes the opportunity to prove himself. His rash expedition ends in disaster - just one samurai returns alive, and Haru is lost.

Before a power struggle can break out, Striking Dawn's battle-hardened commander, Ochiba, is dispatched to rescue Haru. She succeeds against supernatural horrors, but Haru is...changed. Now, mysterious deaths and ill fortune plague his family. Something evil is loose and must be stopped, at any cost.

©2020 Fantasy Flight Games (P)2021 Tantor

Easily the Worst Narrator in Dozens of Books

I enjoyed the story. not going ro win awards, but entertaining and if you enjoy the L5R setting you're going to enjoy this. in particular, I appreciated the empathetic portrayal of the "bad guy", Haru, in the passages where he is the protagonist. Those really fleshed him out as a human being, and added a lot to the story.

However, and as much as I hate singling people out harshly, the narrator here is absolutely terrible. She has a nice voice, and does a decent job voicing different haracters, but her reading cadence is so shockingly terrible it's difficult to even understand the sentences. She chops phrases apart, combines pieces here and there, it's agonizing. It's as... if she were required to... read... now the things that come later.

Holy crao, it's awful. I got through it because the story was compelling enough to continue, but wow.

It’s okay

There’s a cool idea for a story here. Overall my impression is positive, though it drags in a few places, story-wise, and the reader’s affect is pretty flat throughout, which doesn’t help. There’s some decent character growth, though I never really felt much connection to those characters. Overall decent

An unfortunate slog.

Written well technically, but takes ages to get past the lead-in (>9 chapters in!). There is so much following around a blindly and childishly insecure character that leads the opening scenes that you can't help but get annoyed on behalf of the characters. As well, there's an attempt to make the McGuffin City more mysterious, but requires too much narrative dancing around to make it suspenseful for the reader (you get to a point that you're bored waiting for the shoe to drop).

You feel and know as a reader it leads to greater things, but it shouldn't feel so un-enjoyable to actually get there (on top of requiring actual hours across 8+ chapters to get there IRL).

With all due respect, I would recommend skipping this particular L5R novel completely and try the Daidoji Shin Mysteries (of which volume 3 is standout good), or "To Chart the Clouds" instead. These novels use the Rokugan setting more effectively and are better paced.

Narration and rough start makes it hard to get into an otherwise decent book.

Overall, i felt it really captured the depth of conflict in Rokugan’s samurai elite. Balancing the needs to the empire, the honor of the families, and the personal drives and motivations of the warrior caste. Once I got into the story, it was quite enjoyable, although the ending I think could have been better. Once I got into it.

And there’s the rub. It is a hard story to get into. The first several chapters has the narrator following a character whose really hard to care about. His inner dialogue is rough to ploughing through, and the pacing and tone of the narriation does not help.

The story doesn’t require a lot of familiarity with the L5R games and world, but if you really want to get into the Rokugan setting, I’d highly recommend the Daidoji Shin series instead.

Terrible Narrator ****spoiler****

A good story, although a little too "SJW"-ish, and a super whiny protagonist. The ending was abrupt - no real resolution. The death of the real protagonist, Haru, wasn't necessary. He should have survived and Barocco died so she and Ochiba could have been together finally. Leaving Haru to live the sentence she had passed once the Oni had been identified. Narrator was like a heavy smoker on helium. The only reason I finished the book was the story. Aside from my better alternate ending it was engaging, I cared about thr characters, and it had some evocative imagery.