Rise of the Ranger

By: Philip C. Quaintrell

Narrated by: Steven Brand

Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's Summary

The Echoes of Fate, a prophecy uttered unto the world a thousand years ago, cannot be denied....

Mankind has lorded over the land of Illian for a thousand years, enjoying what was left to them by the elves, as if it were their birthright. A thousand years is a long time for an immortal race to see the error of their ways and realize a truth that has remained unsaid for a millennia - elves are superior! They are faster, stronger, and connected to the magical world in a way that man could never grasp. Illian is their birthright. The six kingdoms of man are fractured, unallied and always clawing at each other's doors for more power.

War is coming....

Thrown into the heart of this war is an Outlander of the wilds, an assassin, a ranger. Asher was born a thousand years ago, but he doesn't remember. Forty years of brutal training and killing for money has beaten the earliest years of his life away, leaving his ties to the oldest of evils a mystery to all.

©2018 Podium Publishing; 2017 Philip C. Quaintrell

Worth it

I loved the story. The writing is great. The only issue I had was with the narration. I could not tell which character was talking. In a conversation between two people, you can normally tell who it is because the narrator will usually have different voices for the characters but with this, it’s the same voice, and it becomes hard telling who is saying what.

Apart from that, good book worth listening to.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Loved it!

Great story well written. I love listening to Steven Brand. I can’t wait for the next book to come out on Audible I hope they keep the same narrator.

9 of 10 people found this review helpful

Great Story

The story is woven to keep the reader engaged and entertained. I am going to purchase the next book in the series .

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

finally something without....

the usual humans fight this or that. it actually has other mystical creatures to make it interesting. loved the book.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

kicking myself for not listening to it earlier

I love the entire concept, forever intriguing and immersive looking forward to the next in the series

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Narrator was hard to listen to...

It got a little better as the book progressed. It was a excited monotone that doesn’t know what punctuation is

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Hfofate to say it, but read the book instead

I think I liked this. But, I should have taken heed of other's reviews. Steven Brand has the perfect voice for this story, but 2/3 of the content was lost on me! Could not tell who was saying what. The story changed to a different POV, and 3 minutes would have gone by before I understood this. I think this could have been "one of the greats", but I was way too confused about whom was speaking, where they were, and could barely keep track of the main storyline!
I think it could've been easier to follow had a companion guide been given. Having said this, I am willing to give the next book a try. And, I do hope Mr Brand will narrarate. Maybe the book will have the kinks worked out!?,

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

wonderful in its telling <br />

The author story lines were full of rich depth, full of actions mystery that drew you into each character's situation. can't wait until the next book.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A nice story, but not a fan of the narrator

The difficulty with a mosaic story set in a fantasy world is often the pace of introduction of new characters, locations and names of items. Here we see/hear such a story. It is incredibly difficult to follow in the beginning, but even later on in the story. I found it very hard to get my bearings and understand the narrative. This is in part due to the narrator, as he almost uses no inflections and/or change in pitch between characters. The voice itself is deep and pleasant to listen too, but often I lose who is talking. Next to this I think the story is nice, but the world itself is quite 1 dimensional and lacks the diversity and depth you might expect from a fully newly crafted world. I will give the author and narrator another try in the second part, but my expectations are low.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

The story was good.

Although the story was good, as mentioned in previous reviews the narrator was unclear at times and confused the story with dry monotones that made differentiating between characters complicated and unenjoyable at times. overall I would say this book was disappointing.

Good story but poor narration

Unable to finish this story due to poor narration eg male and female characters have the same tone of voice - gets quite boring after a while

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

This book is amazing

Full of action adventure death twists need I say more totally awesome and narrated perfectly

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Brilliant Book

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

This is the best book of this genre I have read so far.

What did you like best about this story?

Everything. The story, the heroes, the villains and the unlikely friendships. Loved every page.

Which character – as performed by Steven Brand – was your favourite?

Every character had its own strength. The Elves, The Mages, The Assassins, The Heroes, The Merfolk (very interesting) The dragons so beautifully described. The goodies the baddies, everything was excellent.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes.

Any additional comments?

Never bored for a second listening to this book. Brilliant action packed story with emotional content.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Fantastic fantasy story

This book kept me interested from the very first chapter,the story is riviting with a variety of strong characters, mostly elves and a few humans,dragons and wizards all the things I love about a fantasy story, the pace is fast and I could not stop listioning to the story,I loved everything about Asher,such a dynamic human with a dark past that gets explained and understood as the book flows, to be honest at first I did not like the narrator Steven Brand but grew to understand his way of telling the story without useing differnt accents for the various characters,in the end I enjoyed the way he handled the story and I am now listioning to the second part which has started brilliant straight away

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Great Book - the new Sanderson

Great book straight onto book two, only problem is book three not yet on the site - If you like Sanderson you will love this

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Brilliant

exciting ,had to keep listening, stayed up all night in anticipation . new and different characters.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great book

Really enjoyed this book, straight on to the next one. good narration. Highly recommend this book

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A good and easy listen.

I actually really enjoyed listening to this book.
The narrator was great and what can I say. Have to get the second audible be.

amazing and gripping story with amazing performanc

as the title said definately worth it. cant wait for the 3rd audio book! 5 star!

Really enjoyed it

At first, I found it quite hard remembering who was who. Who was where. Who was of what race etc. But as time went on and the characters (quite a few similar sounding names, not necessarily native to my English speaking/listening ears) became more familiar then I could relax a little more when listening.

The narrator isn't great, but is passable. Sometimes he gets into character and puts some verve into his lines, other times he's just reading. Lots of weird pauses in weird places in sentences, so don't know if tags an editing issue or not. Same goes for unusual intonation at unusual points. I turned it down to 0.95 speed and that helped.

As for the story I really enjoyed it. Lots of character development, I was really engrossed as to how they were all going to come together and enjoyed it when the story arcs finally met. Couldn't work out how it was going to stretch into a long boom initially, let alone a trilogy. But those fears have dissipated. Plenty more fun with Asher and the crew.

Especially keen to see what happens in to the mage and the elf! ☺

All. In all, very enjoyable. Second one starting today. Though noticed the third book isn't on audible yet. Sort it out - you've got a month when my new credit arrives! Haha