The Demon King

By: Cinda Williams Chima

Narrated by: Carol Monda

Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

Cinda Williams Chima won accolades for her New York Times best-selling Heir trilogy. The first of a new young-adult trilogy, The Demon King features a former thief, Han, who’s trying to provide for his mother and sister. One day Han, who sports mysterious (and certainly magical) silver cuffs on his wrists, confronts wizards setting fire to a sacred mountain. Now possessing one ofthe wizards’ amulets, Han faces more trouble than he ever could have imagined.

©2009 Cinda Williams Chima (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Sooooooo Good!!!!!

Excellent story, great characters, I did not want to stop listening. This is more of a YA fantasy, with the main characters being 15 and 16, but there is a lot to keep your attention. This story does not have as much political intrigue as some fantasy so the story moves along quickly. I am going right on to book 2. I am totally hooked.

So much promise, but sadly unredeemably childish

What was most disappointing about Cinda Williams Chima’s story?

I love this genre and read a large number of books a month. As such I was excited at the beginning of this book, but sadly it reads like it was designed to apeal solely to preteen girls. Characters are one dimensional and every boy within eye-shot of the princess falls madly and desperately in love with her. Stay away if you take this genre seriously. I don't need gritty or depressing, I avoid it in fact, but I do need a read that vaguely resembles reality. Plot lines can be seen from a mile off but are still painfully surprising in how juvenile the characters behave.

Which character – as performed by Carol Monda – was your favorite?

Her performance is excellent all round

A Great first book!

I don’t usually write reviews, but for this book I needed to make an exception!
I was a little put off at first as the book seemed to have started very slow, I stuck with it though and ended up not being able to stop listening. The character development is awesome you come to truly enjoy being with each character. And when the book ended I rushed to find the next one, only to find it won’t be released on Audio until the End of October. Simply but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and cant wait for the next one.

Wonderful Fantasy with Memorable Characters

Would you listen to The Demon King again? Why?

Yes, Always something you miss the first time.

Any additional comments?

This was a wonderful fantasy with memorable well developed characters who have their own unique personalities. There is a lot of time shaping the world and politics of the setting. The plot is constructed of several subplots that will at some point diverge together. It is fast paced and still able to deliver intimacy with the characters. I thought of it as a combination of Aladen and Eragon. This book 1 does not end at all but just sets up and stops. You are forced to seek out the next book immediately. I recommend to anyone who enjoys a great fantasy.

the narrator is slow and boring

chapter one she was so boring I fell asleep at the end of the first page. the book was amazing but the narrator was boring i had to speed her up in the app to keep it going at a decent pace.

A slow book with rough narrator.

As much as I wanted to love this book, I just found myseld unable to. The entire thing was so slow, and I felt that the only things of significance happened within the last hour, which made the other 14 hours hard to sit through. One of the hardest things that kept me from enjoying this book was the narrator. She was painful to listen to, and almost comparable to a text to voice bot.

Really wanted it to be great

Would you try another book from Cinda Williams Chima and/or Carol Monda?

Yes, if I ever have an extra credit, maybe the second book delivers all the promise of this book.

If you’ve listened to books by Cinda Williams Chima before, how does this one compare?

This is my first book by her.

Any additional comments?

I was expecting a large world epic fantasy story with an interesting magical system, but that didn't quite happen. Almost nothing of the magic system was explained or shown, only that there are to types of magic and apparently high magic requires a chant or word of power. The history of the world is also only lightly touched upon, only enough to understand why thing are at the present. Might think of getting the next book someday and seeing if those points are expanded on.

pretty slow and predictable

This whole book seemed like the first two chapters of another full story. Maybe the rest of the series moves a little faster, but I feel like I knew what was going to happen within the first few hours and it took the entire rest of the book for the rest of the characters to come around. it's an ok start but I didn't find anything that happened particularly exciting. like I said, maybe the next installment would move the story along a bit more, but this seemed almost like a backstory.

to much to fast

nice listen but went to fast feeling like details was given to make book shorter

good book, but didn't like the narration

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

had a good story, just took a little wile to get into it and get my imagination changing the voices instead of the narrator

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Carol Monda?

Stefan Rudnicki or some one of his capabilitys