Dance of the Dead

A Ravenloft Novel

By: Christie Golden

Narrated by: Marisa Vitali

Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

When the riverboat on which she works as a dancer docks at a zombie-plagued island known as Sourange, Larissa Snowmane must rely on the help of the swamp creatures to save her soul.

©1992 TSR, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Good gothic horror gaming story, abysmal reader

I loved this book in my late high school and early college years, when I was deeply involved in gaming in the same setting where the story takes place. It was then and is still my favorite of the Ravenloft novels of the time; Christie Golden does a nice job. Like most gaming-based fiction, it's not especially deep, sort of a Creole riverboat horror version of what would otherwise be termed a "fun romp." If that kind of accessible story is your cup of tea, I would recommend this one... in print form.

The reader is simply dreadful. On the positive side, she sounds as if she is enjoying the story herself, which is nice, but half the cast of characters come out sounding like Tiffany from Daria--slow and somehow breathy, but monotone and distracted.

A spark of talent shows when the reader gives a bit-part a rich French accent, but for some reason in this tale set against a Louisiana style Cajun/Creole backdrop this is the only time she makes use of this skill. I was left wishing repeatedly that a voice like that would return, and chuckling inappropriately whenever the Tiffany voice would return.

I was able to complete my listen because I knew the story and was looking forward to the poignantly satisfying big finish. If you are new to this story, I don't know how you take it seriously with this reader.

Skip this One

Nothing to do with Ravenloft setting. Bad Story, bad narater. Skip this one, it dosnt even have anything to do with the DnD settings or classes or how magic works.

mixed feelings

I love this book! I read it before a long time ago! I am finding it hard to get through this version because the narrators voice is so off putting

What were they thinking?

First of all, this book has nothing to do with Strahd. I don’t believe it even mentions his name. I remember one passing statement that some peripheral character is from Barovia, and there are magical mists involved (that don’t even behave as Barovia’s mists) but those are the only connections to the Ravenloft setting.

The story itself has a few relatively cool elements, but overall it feels like a goofy fairy tale with a few horror elements thrown in.

But, in all honesty, the fairy tale feel may actually have more to do with the narrator than the story itself. I’ve listened to many dozens of audiobooks before, and this was by far the hardest one to listen to. Her voice is pleasant enough when she speaks normally, but for some reason she tries to use the most annoying, grating, nasally, drawn-out, monotone voices for a handful of the characters. It almost feels like she was trying to mock the story with those voices! I found myself continually wondering what in the world she was thinking, and what her producer was thinking for approving them!

I still gave her performance two stars because, as I said, she’s actually quite pleasant to listen to outside those few “special” voices.

Just wow

So, I'm listening to the Ravenloft books for nostalgia's sake as I had all of them when I was a teenager. I'm only part of the way through this one so I can't attest much to the story. I'm guessing from the fact that I don't remember anything about the book and the reviews that it could be rated as "meh" None of that matters though because the narrator is just god awful. While voice acting the characters it honestly sounds like she's slow I don't know how "PC" that is but it's as near as I can describe it in this review. I feel compelled to warn possible listeners but I don't want to be dramatic about it just know that I physically cringe as she acts out the voices of Dumount and Dragon Eyes or thus far any character that has a French ascent. That being said I don't really like to disrespect people and I'm sure Marisa is a nice lady IRL but I feel obligated to save people from making a poor decision in purchasing this audio book.

Bad Ravenloft

Struggled to stay focused on this one. I read this years ago. I am revisiting this series and don't remember how horrible and boring this book was.
ugh

Great book just like the whole series

A great story I really enjoyed every minute of it. The characters were a wonderful mix of various colorful individuals and it had a great plot. The narrator was ok in my opinion though I can see why some didn’t care for her.

Not bad but doesn't feel like Ravenloft

It might be just me but it doesn't have the same tone as the other Ravenloft novels I've listened to. Not a bad story but it's just hard for me to connect it to the other stories like Strad, Soth, and the others.

Reader is painfully bad

I read this book decades ago as part of the Ravenloft series. Was interested to see them in audio, so I have been listening to the series again while I work.

This title is one of the weakest in the Ravenloft series. The story drags on and the author focuses on unnecessary details that don’t move the story at all.

What makes this nearly unbearable is the reader. When she just reads in her own voice, she’s okay. However, she does voices for different characters and it’s just terribad. The choices in characterization are so grating that I almost stopped listening. It was painful.

The performance killed my rating of this book.

definitely worthwhile

I've gone through numerous Ravenloft novels. this is definitely within the top 5 Ravenloft books, probably number 4 or 5. the story has good pacing, well writing and created characters, and an excellent finish. the narrator does a very good job reading and voice acting for the book.

potentially good story, awful performance

Story could be good, but the performance is so bad it takes awy from the story. And it's not that it's bad all the time, but 90% of the character voices are just awful. Even a fresh DM does better voicework than this.

Wasn’t onboard with the narrator

Love the story. I was hooked on the book start to finish but I don’t think the Audible version did it justice. Narrator grated on me sometimes with the voices. However, good that she made an effort to emulate different voices I suppose.
Great story.

excellent!

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. As a fan of the Ravenloft setting, its given me an interesting insight into Souragne for my tables adventures!