Children of Fire

The Chaos Born, Book 1

By: Drew Karpyshyn

Narrated by: Phil Gigante

Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Drew Karpyshyn has made his mark with imaginative, action-packed work on several acclaimed videogames, including Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, as well as in a succession of New York Times best-selling tie-in novels. Now Karpyshyn introduces a brilliantly innovative epic fantasy of perilous quests, tormented heroes, and darkest sorcery - a thrilling adventure that vaults him into the company of such authors as Terry Goodkind, Brandon Sanderson, and Peter V. Brett.

Long ago the gods chose a great hero to act as their agent in the mortal world and to stand against the demonic spawn of Chaos. The gods gifted their champion, Daemron, with three magical Talismans: a sword, a ring, and a crown. But the awesome power at his command corrupted Daemron, turning him from savior to destroyer. Filled with pride, he dared to challenge the gods themselves. Siding with the Chaos spawn, Daemron waged a titanic battle against the Immortals. In the end, Daemron was defeated, the Talismans were lost, and Chaos was sealed off behind the Legacy - a magical barrier the gods sacrificed themselves to create.

Now the Legacy is fading. On the other side, the banished Daemron stirs. And across the scattered corners of the land, four children are born of suffering and strife, each touched by one aspect of Daemron himself - wizard, warrior, prophet, king.

Bound by a connection deeper than blood, the Children of Fire will either restore the Legacy or bring it crashing down, freeing Daemron to wreak his vengeance upon the mortal world.

©2013 Drew Karpyshyn (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Not a Good Book - Amateurish and Derivative

I'm done. This novel was so bad, I couldn't make it past the halfway mark. I almost quit several times already, and should have listened to my inner voice and wasted less time. It is so BORING I cannot stand it anymore.

Wow, I actually kind of enjoyed Karpyshyn's Darth Bane novels, and was hoping for a fast-paced and action-packed book filled with cool concepts and magic. Instead we get an extremely amateur and unoriginal book that seems to be as dark as possible simply for the sake of being dark. This is exactly what is wrong with modern epic fantasy, and Karpyshyn is just falling right into the well-trod wagon ruts hewn by Martin, Abercrombie, Weeks, and others, albeit with seemingly none of the skill in writing that the other authors have.

I mean, seriously. Don't authors have EDITORS anymore? The whole first part of the book at four bloody and gruesome birth sequences (by the fourth you have compeltely forgotten who was born to whom), ALL of which should have been cut and filled in later on in the story. Then we apparently get snippets of the different kids growing up. I'm not sure because by that point I was so lost and couldn't remember who was who, so stopped caring and listened on max speed. I dare you to try and make sense of this mess.

The novel just gets worse from there. Not to mention the rampant misogyny (another supposed "dark fantasy" trait) - women should be offended at not only how Karpyshyn treats the females in his book, but also in how he writes them. Maybe he should stick with male characters. Right from the start, his descriptions of pregnant women just felt totally misrepresented and sexist to me. Birthing does not have to be the horrible experience that you think it is, Drew. Some women actually are happy when their kids are born! Just about every character that shows up in this book is so stereotyped, I think you could skip a large portion of it and still not feel like you missed anything at the end.

Sheesh, this book is just so bad that it's... No, it's still bad.

Worst Performance I've Ever Heard

What would have made Children of Fire better?

A new narrator or some better cue cards maybe.

What was most disappointing about Drew Karpyshyn’s story?

Didn't get to enjoy the story, performance was really poor.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Phil Gigante?

Anyone.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment

Any additional comments?

The performance is so bad that I had to stop listening to this book. I cannot rate the story properly as a result of not being able to finish... err really start this book. The narrator sounds like he is reading from cue cards and fumbling with them or flipping pages after every few sentences. The effect it has is that a normal pause between a sentence last three times as long. A few times I thought maybe my bluetooth was acting up, nope. I listened with headphones the narrator pauses for an abnormal long time and it ruins the pacing.

He's spoiled from writing Star Wars

I love this author's ability to push the Story forward. However, when using characters that no one is familiar with and magic systems that no one has seen before, more is required from an introduction.
I spent half the story not giving a care about more than half the characters.

worst narrator ever

i found the narrator's voice extremely distracting which is such a shame because it's a great story.

An Awesome Book

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

The story was very well written and very in depth with an entertaining twist. This is not a fast read. This is a book that you need to take in and savor. Its nice to read a book that you can not predict chapter to chapter.

What other book might you compare Children of Fire to and why?

It's like a cross between Star Wars and and Fantasy. In a good way. This is a slow developing story with good background and information. There are many characters to keep up with and if you speed read it, you will lose out on the best parts.

Which scene was your favorite?

I loved the character development. It's nice to get in on the ground floor. Lot of favorite scenes but dont wanna give anything away.

Simple. Interesting. Okay.

This was a pretty unremarkable book, and I mean that in both good and bad ways. It was a simple story about magic in a fictional land. It had a number of the standard fantasy tropes (chosen one, wise wizard, orphan, etc), and didn't really do anything too new with it. I enjoyed the storyline, and some of the characters were very well developed, but the work as a whole was just simple.

The performance was awful. There are apparently only three voices in Gigante's repertoire: man, woman, and child. It was good that I was following along in the book, otherwise I would have been incredibly lost.

As with Darth Bane, Drew storytelling is amazing

Even in the same guideline as all epic fantasy, his world is build with originals ideas. Can't wait to start the second book.

Be patient, it starts off very slow...

Please bare with it, this book starts off veeeeery slow and takes a while to pick up the pace, but just give it a chance, it'll be worth it.

I understand why people who quit in the middle of this book find it so disappointing, the entire first half of it is back-stories and details about characters that have not yet been properly introduced, I didn't pay much attention in the first part and so missed out on a lot of that information.

The one thing that kept me going was "this is what Karpyshyn left Star Wars and Mass Effect for, it has to be worth it" I was almost 75% into the book and still forcing myself to bare with it just a bit more.

But then at the end it finally started picking up the pace and I finally started to enjoy it and follow along with all the details, I wouldn't say it's better than Karpyshyn's other sci-fi books but it is still quite enjoyable.

And despite Karpyshyn's attempt to move far away from his other works to create a brand new saga, this book has the Star Wars feel all over it, it even has friggen' Jedi's in it, well they're not called Jedi's but they still are Jedi's and since Jedi's are awesome, this book is awesome.

I don't usually read book a second time but I think I will make an exception for this one, not because I liked it so much but because you'll miss out on more than half of it if you only read it once.

And I am definitely reading the second book as soon as it comes out, I think it will have no problems with pace as all the ground work has been set up in this one and so the second should have no problem being just nonstop action...

awsome

Would you listen to Children of Fire again? Why?

Yes
This was a very intresting story
One of those that you know will just get better the second time around.

What other book might you compare Children of Fire to and why?

I would compare this book to old style fantasy sci fi writers from the 70s
It took me back to the wonder and joy of discovering new worlds and characters for the first time.

Any additional comments?

I would recomend this book to anybody who has an appreacition for a well written story,
intresting characters, an awe inspiring world and explosive situations.
I cant wait for the next book

just wasn't quite there

sorry Drew, love much of your other work. narration really let it down. characters were ok. Could never take the females seriously because they all sounded like Misses Doubtfire... It had its moments but just not enough