The Warlock in Spite of Himself

Warlock of Gramarye, Book 1

By: Christopher Stasheff

Narrated by: Dennis F. Regan

Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Welcome to Gramayre - where witches, warlocks, elves, and gnomes are real; where a spoiled girl-queen and an army of teenage witches, and ragtag beggars battle an overwhelming force of rebel knights and time-travelling anarchists for the future of the most unique, and perhaps most important, planet in the galaxy.

This is what cynical, hard-bitten, intergalactic spy Rod Gallowglass faces when he and his robot horse, Fess, try to bring peace and democracy to this magic-ridden Renaissance-age society. Rod's mission is threatened at every turn by anarchists, communists, and double-dealing royalists playing vicious political power games. Things are made even worse when Rod's advanced technology gets him labeled a warlock despite his constant denials. Help comes from the most unexpected sources when he meets an ancient ghost, the King of the Elves, and the most powerful witch on the planet.

This classic science-fantasy novel has been completely remixed to address issues with uneven volume some readers have experienced.

Gramayre comes to life in 11 hours of dramatic sword-and-sorcery, featuring well-known narrator Dennis Regan and a full cast.

©1969 Christopher Stasheff (P)2012 Geoffrey T. Williams

Garbled

The premise is intriguing. I don't like all the sound effects, horses clopping and doors slamming, and some of the voices are too guttural and, thereby, difficult to understand. I listen, mostly, in the car so there is already a lot of ambient noise. Not finished yet, so we'll see.

An Amusing Juxtaposition of Olde and Futuristic

What I enjoyed most about this book was the production. It had a radio dramatized feel with diverse voices and fun sound effects. Dispite the Audible description, there are actually many voice actors on this one. The story was clever and the humor was constant. It contrasted anachronism with futurism to amusing effect, as well as magic with super-science.

Great story

I wish they would do more of the series, Stasheff created a great story with these books!

Very good book

It was hard to read on paperback. Listening to it was allot easier. The ending was perfect!

Finally Gramarye VOCALIZED Long due and done SO-SO

This is one of the first books I bought on my own when I was let loose in the book store at the impressionable age of 13. Just a mere ten years after the publish date.

This though had the added benefit of having most of the series published already so I could read them without having to wait for the writer to create the next one. If you get into the characters and story line as I do, and you know if you do by the frantic searching for realease dates and waiting in lines for your ordered book.

You are now in my readers quandary...Do you page through the book as fast as you can or savior it slowly to limit the torrment of having to wait generally a year or longer, but in the end you simply can't put it down. You tell yourself that you will read just one more chapter, at which point you barter with yourself just one more and then you will stop, until you wind up reading the last page. Now the bliss of knowing the story and the agony of knowing it will generally be another year or so till the next book fight with each other to be the dominant feeling.

And now for the review. The use of acronyms quite relevant to myself as I worked for one for many years. IBM at AT&T, NSA, DoD, and about another one hundred. It is also quite relevant to the story. Readers will learn about different types of government. Stasheff;s lessons are shrouded in pun-based acronyms (SCENT, DDT, PEST, FCC, etc.), but are still very much lecture-based.

I learned a lot about my own government and other forms of government by reading this. I’m all for democracy but, unfortunately, Stasheff’s treatment of different types of governments is rather juvenile. DEMOCRACY=good, ALL ELSE=bad ...without any in-depth intellectual explanation about what makes this so. At least in this book, remember this was published in 1969 and it was also his first book, they do get more in depth and entertaining through out the series.

The audio version of The Warlock in Spite of Himself was produced by a full cast. Unfortunately, there are bad sound effects, inconsistent volume levels, and though the narrator, Dennis F. Regan, was fine , some of the other voices were either difficult to understand,or sounded like they were spliced in without normalizing the volume. I couldn’t even understand most of what Fess the computer said, and he is nearly as important to the story line as Rod himself.

This is a good way to get started on a great Science/Fantasy blended series. Older teens and 20-somethings will generally enjoy the light hearted treatment of teaching the reader of the differnt forms of governments. The 40+ crowd may either find this book reminiscent of their teenage years if they were into SciFi/Fantasy, or simply too juvenile. The Series does get better as it goes along, with more character developement, Hopefully the Audio version will improve as well, (if there will be any more). As a final note the sexual inuendo and point blank frankness may not be approprate for younger teens or older prudes. .........PJH

PS. I just listened to the audiobook again to make certain of my review and I really wanted to give this 5 stars for the story, but that was based on my remeberance of it as a young teen in the early 80's. After 30 years of avid reading/listening I really am hard pressed to give it 4 stars. so call it regretfully 3.5 stars. I am also fighting with myself about the Performances rating. Dennis Regan's was fairly solid 3 or 4, but the splicing of the other voices was poorly done. And I as simply angry over the voice of Fess, so much so that I would like to give the performance a Zero.

Still a good book!

I first read this as a teenager. I've re-read this book probably a dozen times over the years and still enjoy it.

Could've been better...

What made the experience of listening to The Warlock in Spite of Himself the most enjoyable?

I love this series, and Stasheff's sister series' as well. The writing, storytelling, etc was the most enjoyable for me.

What other book might you compare The Warlock in Spite of Himself to and why?

I suppose there are some similarities to the Dresden Files, for a modern choice. The same premises abide in both, lead character thrust into dangerous situations partly of their own devising.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

I was a bit surprised that this was done in a multi person/radio drama sort of style when it wasn't billed that way. Dennis Regan isn't a bad narrator, but it lacked some of the depth that the old cassette recordings had. I think probably crediting the other voice actors would be nice unless Regan really does do a soprano.

Why not more?

Great story, mediocre performance. When the story calls for voices at a distance the performers chose to go for “Lollypop Guild” voice. Brom O’Berin’s voice is described as an oaken timbre, but sounds like a willow in the breeze. This is a series of around 15 books (all but one of which are excellent). I hope more become available, but with better performances.

First book with foley!

This is a classic science fiction book, always a favorite, but it's the addition of foley effects in the performance that I really enjoyed!

Overproduced but excellent story

I read this story as a kid and when a chance conversation reminded me of it, I went and bought the entire series for my Kindle. A wayward thought sent me here and when I saw it'd been turned into an audio book I just had to give it a listen.

The ensemble cast did a good to excellent job, but as the title of the review suggests, there are parts where the ambient and/or voice FX make portions of the dialogue all but unintelligible.

Beyond this, the story shows it's age somewhat given the tech as imagined in '69, but overall this is a good story with a nifty combination of adventure, romance, and just a dash of political intrigue on a world that still sparks the imagination.

It is uplifting high fantasy, and I heartily recommend it.