Flight

The Last Paladin Series

By: Jason Cheek

Narrated by: Alexander Edward Trefethen

Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's Summary

Flight, The Last Paladin Series is an Urban Fantasy story set in two worlds, present day Florida and an alternate world named Irlendria.

Sentenced to death for his Bloodright, Startüm Ironwolf has fought for life since the time of his birth. Born a half-breed and a Paladin of Ukko, he is the first of his kind.

When his Father's people, the Klavikians, are destroyed in an overwhelming surprise attack by invading Toenellian Demonic Hordes, Startüm is spirited away to Earth by his Grandsire, Leader of the Shadowfang Pack.

Hiding among Humans, Startüm lives in the shadows as he grows and learns to control his powers. On the eve of his eighteenth birthday, the fates of both worlds become irrevocably entwined when the Tuonellians discover Startüm on Earth.

Suddenly, Mankind is swept into the middle of a millennium long conflict spanning two worlds and Startüm must find a way to fight his people's ancient enemy. If not, Humanity will suffer the same fate as the Klavikians.

©2013 Jason Andrew Cheek (P)2014 Jason Andrew Cheek

Shouting at the top of their lungs!

Is there anything you would change about this book?

It's not often I review an audio book. I prefer to save that for ebooks and print books, because there's too much that can influence your experience. In this case, I wish to make an exception. Mr Cheek has excellent ideas, but not enough of an editor. When reading or listening to a book, if something pulls you out of the story, it means the author made a mistake. Doesn't matter what it is or why it bothers you, but it means something is wrong. There were alot of places an editor could have made a difference in this book, most of which were minor. Mostly it was that the author was repetitive. He told you the same things multiple times. then, just in case you missed it, he was repetitive again, in the same sentence, where he told you multiple times. Ok, that's a fun example, and it probably wouldn't have bothered me. But there is something this author needs to remove completely from his vocabulary! "At the top of his/her/their/my lungs". The first time I heard it, I chuckled, wondering how that got past an editor. After all, lungs don't shout. They might give you the air to shout, and at the top of them leaves you with funny thoughts. that being said, yes, we all use slang in our books, so I continued on. Then it was there again. And again. I would say this phrase was used in the range of 50-75 times through the book. And every single time, it pulled me out of the story.

What about Alexander Edward Trefethen’s performance did you like?

Alexander did an excellent job with the story. There were a few odd pronunciations, where I wanted to hand him a dictionary so he could see how they were pronounced, but other wise he was a superb reader.

Was Flight worth the listening time?

Despite the above issues, I can honestly say I loved the story. If it weren't for the poor editing, this book would easily be a 4.5 rating. The originality allowed me to force myself to ignore the top of my lungs parts, and focused on what the author was TRYING to say Truly, it's an original and well put together piece. Though I'm not quite sure I'd "Shout it at the top of my lungs".

Great Story!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, Mr. Cheek created a very believable world. He captivated from the beginning.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I felt like the performance could have used more work but it was a good overall product. To many of the characters sounded alike. This book needed someone with a wider range of voices to really do it justice.

Excellent narrator voice cool story

Had to struggle to not skip work and life and selfishly just totally enjoy this book non stop.

Had potential but...

The story had great promise but a glaring lack of editing and over-the-top moments spoil what could have been a great book.
The book is filled with repetitive and redundant shouts, yells, sound effects and these are all the more painful to hear as the narrator voices each and every one of them and reminds me of the cringe-worthy sound effects from the Adam West Batman tv series.
What's worse are the overly-sappy and melodramatic methods such as military combat personel weeping at displays of patriotism and courage from their fellow soldiers. I mean come on, nobody acts like that, let alone combat veterans!
I also had issues with the lack of descriptions throughout most of the book as I don't recall the author every truly describing what the enemy werewolf-like troops actually look like and how they differ in shape and form from their counterparts.
Finally, the cliche of the main character's stable of beautiful women with whom he refuses to have any romantic relations with due to his belief that no woman would want to share his crazy life is infantile and ridiculous. This eye-rolling incongruity is further compounded by the manner in which the women tease and act around him as is his bashful and timid behaviour around them.
I wanted to like the book, I really did as it had the most bad-ass werewolves I have ever come across in any media and I *love* the concept of werewolves. With a lot of editing and some-reworking of a few scenes this could have been a great book.

Good story, rough writing and reading

Would you try another book from Jason Cheek and/or Alexander Edward Trefethen?

Maybe

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Editing.

Would you be willing to try another one of Alexander Edward Trefethen’s performances?

Not really

Was Flight worth the listening time?

Just barely.

Any additional comments?

Since the author couldn't afford a thesaurus and ended up describing every enemy creature as misshapen, it would have been better if the narrator didn't insist on pronouncing the word as miss-hapen, rather then mis-shapen.

Despite everything, it was a good story, just needed a lot of polishing.

Recycled names, over played themes

First off, the narrator goes from saying Star-Tum to saying Star-Toom, that’s beyond terrible
Secondly, this is the same character names and place names as his LitRPG, based in Florida, where the gamers of the other series are from, so it reads pretty badly, it’s filled with cliches, stereotypes, and tropes by the truck load.
The narrator sounds like he’s attempting to seduce the reader, with words that sound like a testosterone fueled socially awkward kid wrote, it is just, ugly

Whisper shout whisper scream!!!

I really enjoyed the new take on the paladin powers and the plot line is extremely refreshing. Kudos for new ideas and a great plot line.

However:

The volume fluctuations were so bad that every 15 seconds I had to adjust the volume for the first half of the book. The narrator did a decent job of performing but it sounds like he was either using a really cheap headset (think free Xbox chat set) or didn’t have a foam piece on it to keep his lips from brushing against it as he spoke.

The semi-Latin prayers or villain speeches that are later translate got kind of old after a while and really broke the rhythm of the fights.

great story

loved the story looking forward to the next book. that being said, I really struggled with the narrator.

great story

excellent read was absolutely thrilling and captivating. can't wait to see what happens next book

Not the same quality as his other series.

I really enjoyed Jason Cheek's "The World" series and thought I'd give this one a shot, but it's just too awkward, cringy, and painful to bear for more than 10 minutes.

Amature hour!

Story is a clunky, childish trash. Narrator cant pronounce simple words. Waste of my life.