Ladies of Mandrigyn

By: Barbara Hambly

Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden

Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's Summary

A brilliant mercenary must lead his army against the forces of the most powerful wizard alive

Gifted with courage, strength, and the intelligence to know when to fight, Sun Wolf is the greatest mercenary in a land overrun by war. With his first lieutenant, Starhawk - a woman more deadly than any man - at his side, he has laid waste to countless cities, taking the best of their treasures for himself, and distributing the rest among his bloodthirsty crew.

Then a woman comes to him, an emissary from the town of Mandrigyn, a lush port city recently sacked by a powerful, mad wizard of unmatched abilities. She offers Sun Wolf untold riches for the use of his army, but the captain is not fool enough to wage war against a magician. He refuses her offer, but that is not the end of it. The women of Mandrigyn can be very persuasive.

©1984 Barbara Hambly (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Is it a computer?

Where does Ladies of Mandrigyn rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The plot of this book is one of my favorites - I'm so glad that Audible is bringing out some of Barbara Hambly's fine fantasies in audio (now where's Time of the Dark!)

What three words best describe Teri Clark Linden’s performance?

I found Ms Linden's performance oddly robotic. Each word is so clearly enunciated as to be almost a parody of text-to-speech. She does loosen up a bit later into the book but the pauses before unfamiliar words (Altiokis, Rind, etc.) break up the flow. It's too bad because her voice is pleasantly pitched and nice to listen to.

Bad narration

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Better narration!

What did you like best about this story?

The book.

What didn’t you like about Teri Clark Linden’s performance?

It sounded like there was pause at end of every word. Little less pronunciation and more feeling would have made this better.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Loved the book just not the narration, will not buy any other with Teri Clark Linden as the narrator.

narrator sucks

I have no idea if this book is any good because I couldn't bear the narrator. Sounds like Siri. don't buy.

One of my favorite books

I enjoyed the characters and plotting. One of Barbara Hambly best. The reader was monotone and sent me to sleep. I could not tell anything about the characters.

Great Story, Subpar Performance

The narrator has pleasing pitch, but a stumbling, almost Shatneresque rhythm that breaks up sentences, inhibits the flow of the story, and is so unnatural as to be hard to listen to. While I recognize that fantasy stories have a great deal of strange words and names in them, the proper recourse us not a stilted narration that pains itself to carefully pronounce each word as if it was edited in during post-production.

Love the story, HATE the reader

Would you consider the audio edition of Ladies of Mandrigyn to be better than the print version?

No, the narrataion is the worst I could ever imagine. It is one step above the worst text to speach I have ever heard. ONLY because the text to speach spells out the words it can't pronounce. If it could, I would consider the reader to be on the same level as a bad text to speach conversion.

What did you like best about this story?

Sunwolf and Starhawk's love for each other, even though it took the two of them being apart to admit is existed.

How could the performance have been better?

If this is the narrator's day job, she needs to quit and admit that her talent lies elsewhere. I am not being mean. I am speaking the truth. The narration made me want to stop 10 minutes into the book. I SUFFERED through because I have loved this book for many years. And have spent a LONG time waiting for it to be available on Audio.

Any additional comments?

Re-produce this with another narrator please. I love Barbary Hambly enough that I would buy it again if it were read by someone who actually had a clue. Personally I am floored that something this hard to listen too actually continued into production and wasted money. From minute ONE, someone in the studio must have said "Why the hell is this person here?" ***To Ms. Hambly, If Teri Clark Linden is a relative/lover or whatever, please get you personal life our of your business. I will not purchase another book with her listed as the reader. And I want to listed to ALL the other books you have on Audio so far. But Not with TCL as the narrator.

Sorry for harshness, narrator was atrocious.

What did you like best about Ladies of Mandrigyn? What did you like least?

I liked the paperback very much. I was a teen and desperate for something different. This audiobook was read as if was someone's first attempt to read English. very slow and measured and poor (if any) cadence/pitch variation. Ruined the story for me. I have read most of Ms Hambly's other stuff. I will purchase any audiobooks NOT narrated by Ms. Linden. Not hating here, I realize it's harder than it sounds.

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

different narrator

What didn’t you like about Teri Clark Linden’s performance?

boring, monotone with no variation of pace, pitch or emphasis. auditory equivalent of watching paint dry. good god there was so much there to work with. so many nuanced performances that could have been done.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

yes. as long as Ms. Linden does not play a character

Any additional comments?

I know I sound like a snot-nosed brat who trashes everyone. I have raved on other reviews, the readers (male and female) for Baldacci's Camel Club audiobooks are pros. so sorry for being so negative towards Ms. Linden, but I was very disappointed.

Reading so poor, I couldn't listen long

Would you try another book from Barbara Hambly and/or Teri Clark Linden?

Not with this performer!

What do you think your next listen will be?

Don't know.

What didn’t you like about Teri Clark Linden’s performance?

The reading is extremely stilted and robotic. My Garmin has more tone and inflection! It was impossible to listen to.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I can't judge the novel, as I didn't listen long enough to judge.

Narrator destroys an excellent author

I read ( or, gobbled them up as fast as possible!!) all of Barbara Hambly's books back in the day and I was immensely inspired by her writing style, characters, plots and amazing world building. Now I'm visually impaired and I've been wanting to listen to this for a long time but the narrator of the audio sample was horrible. Yesterday I gave in and ordered it, I listened for about 3 minutes before I couldn't stand the pain in my ears and brain for another second! I'm returning it as soon as I finish writing this. The narrator reads like a metronome that makes a full stop every once in a while. It sounds like someone reading down to young children who don't know English- and won't want to learn after this.
I strongly encourage you to read all of Hambly's books, I especially recommend my top favorite The Windrose trilogy, my second favorite the amazingly awesome Darwath series, and the Dragonsbane books! WOW! These are just my top favorites in her magical worlds books.
I wish Audible would redo these, the strong female characters would make them very popular

Excellent story ruined by inept narration

I'm a big Barbara Hambly fan, and consider this to be one of her best works, so I was excited to find it available on Audible. However, I can't listen to it. The narrator is lifeless, monotone, ridiculously slow, and seems to have only a marginal understanding of how punctuation impacts sentence flow. I'll be returning it, unfinished, right after I complete this review.

Great story ruined by narrator

Try and find a narrator who reads the English language - I understand the word 'quays' is not uncommon, but to pronounce it KWAYZ is beyond the pale. She also seems to breathe on every second word, and always before any name, which results in unnecessary pauses which interfere with the meaning. I've already had to increase the speed of narration - it doesn't help overmuch, but to listen at 1.0 would be crucifyingly slow. It's a shame - I bought it because I always enjoyed this story, but this is awful!

The lady reads very slowly - had to speed it up to 1.25x

Good story ! - I have downloaded the sequel and looking forward to listening to it

Owen