Medusa's Web

By: Tim Powers

Narrated by: Chris Sorenson

Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

From the award-winning author of Hide Me Among the Graves, Last Call, Declare, and Three Days to Never, a phantasmagoric, thrilling, mind-bending tale of speculative fiction in which one man must uncover occult secrets of 1920s Hollywood to save his family.

In the wake of their Aunt Amity's suicide, Scott and Madeline Madden are summoned to Caveat, the eerie, decaying mansion in the Hollywood hills in which they were raised. But their decadent and reclusive cousins, the malicious wheelchair-bound Claimayne and his sister, Ariel, do not welcome Scott and Madeline's return to the childhood home they once shared.

While Scott desperately wants to go back to their shabby South-of-Sunset lives, he cannot pry his sister away from this haunted "House of Usher in the Hollywood Hills" that is a conduit for the supernatural. Decorated by bits salvaged from old hotels and movie sets, Caveat hides a dark family secret that stretches back to the golden days of Rudolph Valentino and the silent film stars.

A collection of hypnotic eight-limbed abstract images inked on paper allows the Maddens to briefly fragment and flatten time - to transport themselves into the past and future in visions that are both puzzling and terrifying. Though their cousins know little about these ancient "spiders" which provoke unpredictable temporal dislocations, Ariel and Claimayne have been using for years - an addiction that has brought Claimayne to the brink of selfish destruction.

As Madeline falls more completely under Caveat's spell, Scott discovers that to protect her, he must use the perilous spiders himself. But will he unravel the mystery of the Madden family's past and finally free them...or be pulled deeper into their deadly web?

©2015 Tim Powers (P)2016 Recorded Books

Solid story

Tim Powers may become one of my go-to authors--the kind I can trust to deliver a good story every time. Characters are well-developed, ideas are interesting, story is well written and well told.

Meh:( It's ok

The story may have been good if the narration had kept my attention. Absolutely the wrong narrator for the story. Just couldn't sound ominous enough.

Narration undermines dialog, or vice versa

I have kind of a "chicken and egg" problem with the dialog in this book.

On one hand, I know that (like many others) I find the narration odd and distracting. Almost every sentence is delivered with what may be intended as a sardonic inflection. On the other hand, the dialog seems stilted and unreal.

I don't know if the dialog sounds bad because of the narration, or if the narration sounds bad because of the way the dialog is written. But the combination makes it hard to accept the dialog as being words actually spoken by the characters.

(I should say I'm a big Tim Powers fan and none of his other books have struck me in this way.)

Medusa’s Web

Interesting premise but so complicated and very wordy. I love when an author vividly creates pictures for the reader but you can go overboard. I found myself thinking “please explain more about the s- - —-!”

Good book wrecked by reader

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I really like Tim Powers, but the narration is so bad it is painful. It kept taking me out of the book. I am not done with it, and I may not finish the book because of it. I guess I will just have to get the e-book and read it.

Would you be willing to try another one of Chris Sorenson’s performances?

NO! His performance was terrible! I am sure I could do a better job myself. That is not to say it would be good if I did it myself, it would just be better than Mr. Sorenson's.

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

Yes. I am enjoying the writing in spite of the narration.

Any additional comments?

I hope Mr. Powers does not let Mr. Sorenson narrate any more of his books!

Great story wrong narrator

I’ve been a Powers fan for decades and been re-reading all his books in audio. As usual a great layered story mixing history with mysterious suoernatural forces at play. But the narrator was not suited for this story at all. Bronson Pinchot had been a great narrator for other powers books and was missed.

Engaging story hampered by indifferent narration.

The story is classic Powers, intriguing and well researched. The narration is indifferent and gives no emotion to the story. I'm wondering if the computer narration in Kindle wouldn't be better.

Awful narration

Not Power's best book, but an entertaining read for fans. The narration, however, is done in an obnoxious nasal tone; and when the speaker attempts to alter his voice for dialigue, he tends to continue the same tone into the prose text beyond, something I found very annoying.

Terrific Book...

...spoiled by an incompatible reader (not bad, just not right for the book). I bought the Kindle version to finish it.

Great story, worst narration of any Powers book

This is another great Tim Powers novel with wonderfully weird characters and an inventive magic system. Unfortunately, out of the several hundred audiobooks I've listened to so far in my life the narration of this one has quite easily been the worst listening experience I've ever had. The problem isn't that he's speaking too slowly, the problem is that the tone and inflection are completely bizarre and wrong for the story and the characters. The narrator's mannerisms and the tone of his voice are extremely distracting and it took me a while at the start of the novel to be able hear the story beyond the extremely annoying narration. I don't understand how this narrator/narration could have possibly been paired with this story. What were the producers of the audio version thinking? How do narration disasters like this happen and why are they then foisted on a hapless public? It's really a shame because it ruins the enjoyment of an otherwise wonderful story. Had I not burned a credit on it I would have just gone to the print version.