Spellfire

Forgotten Realms: Shandril's Saga, Book 1

By: Ed Greenwood

Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin

Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

The fire that burns...

It can lay low a dragon or heal a wounded warrior.

It is the most sought-after magical power in all Faern.

And it is in the reluctant hands of Shandril of Highmoon, a young, orphaned kitchen-lass.

Now she's on the run from half of the evil sorcerers in the land, not to mention their relentless minions. But with the help of a handsome young wizard, some rough-and-tumble Knights of Myth Drannor, and a certain old mage of Shadowdale, she just might manage to stay alive.

At least until tomorrow.

An all-new expanded version of Ed Greenwood's classic tale, including a new forward by the author.

One of Ed Greenwood's most popular novels, Spellfire is being rereleased in an all-new audio edition. This version has been completely reedited and contains added material that bring new excitement to the story. This edition is classified as the first title in the brand-new Forgotten Realms series Shandril's Saga.

©1988 TSR, Inc., c. 2005 Wizards off the Coast LLC. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Not Ed's Best Work

Would you try another book from Ed Greenwood and/or James Patrick Cronin?

Oddly, I enjoy reading/listen to Ed Greenwood's work. I usually find it mildly funny and charming in a high fantasy/young adult line of books. This one however, was just horrible from the start and stayed down the entire time.

James Patrick Cronin was abysmal. I have listened to JPC in other Realm's series (Brotherhood of the Griffon) and he wasn't bad. But, for some reason he destroys a few of the main characters here with a sloppy English accent. You'll never want to hear the word "Lady" (he pronounces it lay-day) again.

Has Spellfire turned you off from other books in this genre?

I'm over 50 books deep on FR on audible. I'll keep going but not with James Patrick Cronin.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of James Patrick Cronin?

Honestly, anyone would have been better. He mispronounces some of the names (people and places) and some of the characters sound horrible with his choice of voice. Of course, a narrator like Victor Bevine would have been much better.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Spellfire?

At 17 hours long... the first 4 hours are a confusing mess. Ed is known for this but it's long winded just to be long winded. I found myself starting and stopping the first 8 hours countless times just so I could stop hearing James Patrick Cronin and Ed's trivial scenes.

Any additional comments?

I have enjoyed both the narrator and author before but this book was very tough to get through. Perhaps reading this novel would have been a better choice. Listen to the preview (I don't know if JPC choice for Norm and Chandrill are in there... but they're bad).

Takes a minute to get going, but worth it.

I'm going to get the worst parts out of the way. The narrator is nothing special. Often times he drones on in a complete monotone drudge, and my personal pet peeve with some narrators, he adds no emphasis, emotion, or intonation to the characters he's reading, so often times I have to mentally go back after a vocal scene, and replay it in my head with the correct emotional portrayal between the characters.

The story however is fantastic. it starts slow, but picks up at a quickening pace. By the end of the book, I was able to forgive bad narration in favor of how the actual story played out. As for the story let's not play dumb, this is a Dungeons and Dragons book. Specifically set in The Forgotten Realms. There is going to be silliness and some slapstick banter between The cast. In that regard it mimics well the banter you may see at a gaming table. But take the book and story for what it is, and you can enjoy it well.

Great story; horrible voicing

Absolutely terrible voice acting. Nearly every female was daftly British and the bad guys were old, Chicago-like mobsters. Guards and good guys sounded mostly like stupid ogres. I've loved this story for over 20 years and this "actor" has nearly ruined the whole series for me.

Had to stop listening...

I really like this book series and was excited to listen to it wile I was at work. Unfortunately I had to stop because the narrator was terrible. I have listened to other books with bad narration but this one was more than I could handle.

iconic d&d but horrible narration

i read this often as a kid and was delighted that it was available. i'm sure the narrator is a fan and a great person but i have a hard time listening to him. he reads many voices in opposition to how they are quoted and tends to read women's voices in a very shrill affectation. l realize that this can be a subjective standard but it significantly effected the suspension of disbelief making it hard for me to concentrate on the story.

Good story, Bad narration

I have developed a new appreciation of Ed Greenwood from this story and I plan on buying more of his books in the future. it's sad that such good books attract or deserve such terrible narrators. the voices that this guy employs are unforgivable. one archmage had the voice of a country hillbilly. several other characters had accents of New Yorkers and Yorkshire thugs. it was a better effort than most bad narrators but it only seemed to magnify how inexperienced he was. his reading was haulting and prematurely paused before sentences ended. it seems the one skill most required in an narrator would be the ability to read properly what they are narrating, but i guess not?

Just What I Needed

Good ole fashioned nostalgia. Read this some moons ago, just as good as I remember.

Love the book hate it the narrator!

The narrator is horrible is accents are trocious and his assumptions of characters speak volumes of someone doing a job just to get paid! Unfortunately I love the books but I have to listen to him in bed sometimes as a struggle!

A little ADHD at first with odd narration

The story was difficult to follow at first and even thereafter, the character development was not great. I found it difficult to care about any of the characters even when I could follow the story. All that being said, the second half of the book was much better than the first.

I don’t know how much of the problem was from the narration. The best way to put my feelings into how I felt about it would be to say that just because you can do a lot of accents and voices doesn’t mean you should. Some of the voices were just ridiculous while others had such a strange accent as to not really fit into the story. Norm was the worst as he just sounded like a scared stable boy through the whole thing and his demeanor from the narration never seemed to change. Just really weird.

I probably need to read this one on my own to give the story a fair shot, but I don’t think it would change a great deal.

Story has potential, so I will listen to book 2, even with the odd narration style. Pro tip: if you’re a man reading a woman’s words, you don’t have to try to sound like a woman. Just soften the tones a bit. Listen to Victor Bevine who honestly is the best one I’ve heard for fantasy. He spoiled me.

It is a good solid story

good story descent enough voice actor. It is a good example of the magic and danger that awaits in forgotten realms

Narrators voice

Painful voice overs for the characters. Couldn’t listen through to the end. Please don’t use this narrator again. Ever

Terrible Narration!

I loved this book growing up but I was quite disappointed with the badly done accents and inflections, especially when it came to female characters and Narm. Not every character has to have a different accent and when I heard a "southern" accent I lost all hope that it would get better. I never imagined Elminster sounding feeble and pretty much all the characters sounding like lifeless robots.

Unfortunately, the rest of the series is narrated by the same person so I will not be purchasing them.