Magic's Pawn

Valdemar: The Last Herald Mage, Book 1

By: Mercedes Lackey

Narrated by: Gregory St. John

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

In Magic's Pawn, an ancient age in the history of Valdemar comes to life - an age when the kingdom was ravaged by the ungoverned fury of bandit warlords, ferocious ice dragons, and the wild magic of wizards. A new addition to Lackey's Valdemar kingdom - and her most powerful series to date!

©1991 Mercedes R. Lackey (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

I found it again

Would you consider the audio edition of Magic's Pawn to be better than the print version?

Some what

Who was your favorite character and why?

The two main characters

Which scene was your favorite?

When thanyell got pulled from the river.

Yes I can't spell

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

yes

Any additional comments?

This is a great book and well narrated but several of the names were mispronounced I know this because I heard the original which I have and I have heard several of the songs with the character names in it. Minus the mispronunciation its as good as the original.

If you wont the originals email me.
[e-mail]

This story grips you from beginning to end.

I have read it many times. It is my favorite of Ms. Lackey's works. I like it because it captures the true angst of teen emotion and coming of age but makes it exotic in a wonderfully unique world with captivating magic. The second and third books of the series continue Vanyel's adventures as an adult; but in my opinion this first book outshines them and is most satisfying in if itself.

Don't overlook this older gem!

Would you consider the audio edition of Magic's Pawn to be better than the print version?

Well, no, but it's great to have an audio version finally.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Vanyel, because he's such a human, flawed hero and his journey is epic.

What about Gregory St. John’s performance did you like?

He did a great job making all the characters' voices distinct.

Any additional comments?

Great gay role model for teens!

Great book performance odd

Thrown off by odd pronounciations. First time hearing it, but have read it loads of times.

Love Valdemar.

I love Valdemar. My main criticism of all the aidio books is that the narrators don't research the previous works so that pronunciatons stay the same. It is very irritating that names and words specific to this series change from book to book

A Tragedy Steeped in Magic

This was a tragic read! I enjoyed Van, but seeing him struggle so much in this book was painful. It felt like the lad could never seem to catch a break and had maybe two chapters of bliss before everything fell apart. He has all the magical power he could ever want but, obtaining it cost him everything.

(As a side note: the narrator for this book was excellent! There were quite a few scenes where characters lashed out at one another and he did such a great job at that! Along with voicing all the emotional bits of the books too! The scenes that stand out the most were Van's mother ripping his father a new one & his aunt giving Van's father a piece of her mind! Van's dad was a piece of shit so it was highly enjoyable watching these women tear him to pieces!)

Misty’s awesome story - okay narration

I love the story of Vanyel, and of Valdemar, but this narrator drives me nuts. The pronunciations and pacing are off and there are weird breaks in the way he reads. One example of the pronunciation being off - it would be nice if there was a consistent way he pronounced “Ashkevron” the main character’s last name. For the pacing, the way he reads sometimes comes across that he either never read the story before he sat down to narrate it or had to stop the recording mid sentence to swap up pages. But overall it was good just some very odd phrasing, using the wrong words, and the off-at-times pronunciation. It wouldn’t be so bad if the odd pronunciation was consistent but he at one point uses two versions of Ashkevron in the same sentence.

A disappointment...

I had read other books by Mercedes Lacky and enjoyed them, but this book disappointed me. The writing was not bad, and the narration was good.
If you want to read more you will have to be spoiled, so scroll down.










SPOILER WARNING
The problem that I had with the book was that the main character turns out to be very homosexual. This is not a fatal flaw in a book and I would not tell other people it is terrible or anything, but I did not like reading a book and finding out that the main character who I had grown to like and feel for had feeling that were so foreign form mine and which I don't have any desire to explore. I also don't like reading books in which the characters enjoy feeling pain or where then lust after children or where they have self harm issues among other things.
So all that to say, If you dont want to read a book where the main character is very gay, dont read this one.

Great story - not so great rendition...

If you could sum up Magic's Pawn in three words, what would they be?

Main Character needs to grow up

Who was your favorite character and why?

Savil Ashkevron. She was strong enough to not care about what others thought.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Gregory St. John?

Gerard Doyle.

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

Would have been if... (see additional comments...)

Any additional comments?

The narrator paused when he shouldn't have and didn't pause when he should have. This could have been editing. Sometimes there was a pause when there should not have been: "he climbed down the back........ stairs" (listener starts to question how anyone can climb down a back and finally the sentence is completed. Oh, okay. He climbed down the stairs!!!).

There were not pauses between separate segments when there definitely should have been. Whenever there was a scene change, the lack of separation created confusion in the mind of the listener.

This broke the flow of the story and made it difficult to fully enjoy.

Great story, okay narrator

I love this series so much, and this is one of my favorite books of all time. This was an okay reading, but the narrator didn't pause enough between scene changes/new paragraphs. It got confusing a few times when it was a new scene but he didn't pause at all. I don't think this was so much the narrator's fault as it was whoever edited the audio. That was really the only fault I found with this audiobook!