Stalking the Beast

By: Howard Andrew Jones

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

When a mysterious monster carves a path of destruction across the southern River Kingdoms, desperate townsfolk look to the famed elven ranger Elyana and her half-orc companion Drelm for salvation. For Drelm, however, the mission is about more than simple justice - it's about protecting the frontier town he's adopted as his home, and the woman he plans to marry. Together with the gun-slinging bounty hunter Lisette and several equally deadly allies, the heroes must set off into the wilderness, hunting a terrifying beast that will test their abilities - and their friendships-to the breaking point and beyond. But could it be that there's more to the murders than a simple rampaging beast?

From critically acclaimed author Howard Andrew Jones comes a new adventure of love, betrayal, and unnatural creatures, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

©2013 Paizo Publishing, LLC (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Amazing

loved it ..... the problem was stopping when I got to work just wanted to stay listening

an engrossing read and a scary beast

the only downside to this is that their are more than a few characters to keep track of. other than that everything was quite good. the beast was especialy fun.

A few surprises

There were plenty of surprises, but the story dragged. Many of the names sounded a lot alike, so keeping track of minor characters was difficult. Some plot lines seemed a bit contrived. The story had just enough velcro, I wanted to find out how one storyline played out.

Have we learned nothing from Johnny Quest?

STALKING THE BEAST.



(This audio book has been broken into multiple parts to force in as much dull crappy writing as possible. )



PART ONE... 
"Killing the Mood"

There’s a BEAST on there loose!
A monster who no one's ever SEEN!

This unknown “THING” is roaming across the land… attacking everyone!
Nothing can stop it!
Who’ll be next?!
The whole realm is in fear!
What is IT?!

WOW!
Now, that's some extra-exciting story-telling! 
This is going to be an awesome book!
Right?

Wrong.

HEY, what’s the fastest way to destroy all the frightening suspense in a story, PDQ?!


Ready? 

Okay…
 here it comes...

Totally describe the mysterious INVISIBLE MONSTER.

YES! Describe it down to the last leg count, heads, or eyes, mouths, maybe a tentacle, or claw.
Describe it...totally, and completely, and thoroughly, just as if you're reading it’s 'BIO PAGE' out of the D&D Monster manual. 



Build suspense?
Who needs suspense?
What's the 'unknown' got to do with exciting writing anyway?

"Fear of the unknown?" - Nope. That H.P. Lovecraft guy didn't know what he was taking about.

An Invisible monster? 

Really?...INVISIBLE? ...MONSTER?
But the author describes it to you right off ?
(?)

Brother’s & sisters, that’s an unending gold mine of thrilling / chilling, seat of your pants, hairy- scary, suspense story that could go on, and on, and building up more and more, as each little part of the UNKNOWN is slowly ( oh so slowly ) revealed!

Have we learned nothing from Johnny Quest?!

The VERY LAST thing you want to do is figure out what IT is ....never too soon!!

After the excitement is killed...
The monster fully visually known... ( why was it invisible anyways? )
The rest of the book is hours an' hours of the same ol' you know…
“Oh, It's all about how the Human Character, the Half-Orc Character who don't get along with the Dwarf characters, who don’t really trust the Elf characters, ( but who does? No one. Yet, each and every one in this story will be happy to explain all about it, ...and of course, no one's sure about the old wise character, or the younger foolish characters, and... oh, did I mention about no one’s sure how to feel about the "half-Orc character?" Jeepers! Half Orc!
Oh, blah blah blah…
...more of the same.


Plus,( oh gawd! there is a worse part ) ...there is a cringingly bad romantic love-scene 'tween a human & an elf.
Oh... the dialogue is so brain-killingly-6th grade-1960's Star-Trek Vulcan/human first kiss yet so poorly re-hashed...
IT...
ARGH!
OH No, ...no, my ears!
My ears are bleeding!
AAAAAAHHHHH!