The End of the World Is Nigh

By: Tony Moyle

Narrated by: Aubrey Parsons

Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Everyone’s heard of Nostradamus. No one’s heard of Philibert Montmorency. One was a legend. The other, not so much....

A newly discovered Nostradamus prophecy has taken the internet by storm thanks to "The Oblivion Doctrine", a group of online conspiracy theorists. Apparently the end is nigh. And in case anyone’s interested, nigh is definitely a Tuesday.

Doctor Ally Oldfield, professor of Medieval Languages, is summoned to Lyon for a second opinion. She’s not happy about it. But then again she’s rarely happy about anything. She’s got a coffee deficiency, a low tolerance towards almost everybody, and nothing good to say about Nostradamus whatsoever. And in her expert opinion, although the prophecy is over 500 years old, it’s definitely not by Nostradamus. So if he didn't write it, who did?

Helped by Gabriel Janvier, the second-worst "prepper" of all time, and Mr. Palomer, a mysterious old philanthropist, Oldfield must scour history to discover the truth before the prophecy comes true or the Oblivion Doctrine’s fake news destroys civilization anyway.

In the search for truth, only history can save the future.

The End of the World Is Nigh is the first book in the Dr. Ally Oldfield series.

If you love books about con men, conspiracies, Renaissance history, massive agitated boar, exploding beds, marmalade, and historical satire then this is the book for you. Okay, you've never listened to a book like that before...here's your chance, get into the laughter today!

From the author of How to Survive the Afterlife series.

©2019 Tony Moyle (P)2019 Tony Moyle

only got 5 stars cause no six

my favorite book so far and i have 100's. grabbed me right away. the narrator was so perfect it was amazing. story going to past and present was great. history and current events spot on. Descriptions of the past were honest instead of white washed. A must read. 6 stars on every level. tks for this book.

i did get a free copy of this book.

I'm kinda hate listening to this

This book is hard work because of the dull prose and jarring metaphors and thousands of minor factual errors (the book asserts that no one has 3 nipples, for example). It's written in the style of a clever sardonic parody, but lacks the critical content. Also it has not the flow or polish to pull it off even if it did.

funny, intriguing, and addicting

I thought the hopping between time periods would be confusing but I found the story easy to follow. The story is very clever and slowly pulls you in deeper and deeper. At the end, I couldn't put it down as two separate but interconnected climaxes in two different time periods came to a head. An excellent story, one I highly recommend.

Different and witty

This is not the type of book I usually pick up, but I found it to be well written, witty, and entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the narration, which was superb.

Just couldn't.

I wanted to like it. I really did. But the exaggerated accents and old-world setting with modern dialect/slang... I just could not reconcile what this book was trying to do. Despite my eyes glazing over a few hours in, I hung in there as long as I could till about halfway when I realized I was turning it on just so it could play through and I was actively trying not to listen. I didn't find it funny or cute when it was trying to be, and maybe there was some huge mystery to be unravelled/revealed later on but the whole first half of the book went nowhere on that front. not even crumbs. I guess I'm in the minority on this one.

A fun book about the end of the world

I sense the influence of writers like Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett in this book. For me that made this a good purchase (along with an interesting story of course).

I had been meaning to get a copy of this book for a while now. I'm glad I finally did. It jumps back and forth though time a bit (between the modern age and back to the times of Nostradamus) but it's well done. Sit back for a fun adventure about the end of the world.

Spoiled by politics, destroyed by the ending

TL/DR: not recommended for anyone who does not like (or hates) sitcoms and other cheap comedy. Also for anyone who likes plots, character development, consistency, etc.

Let me start with the good. The plot -- both plots, actually, past and present -- are interesting ALMOST throughout the whole book. Somewhere along the middle a tiny doubt creeps in that, later, grows into many a disgusted sigh. For no reason whatsoever, the author - after spending hours debunking prophets and prophecies - writes about one who is genuine and accurately predicts the future.
That aside, the 16th century plot is really good and interesting. And so the 21st century one would have been. But the author got bored, or his contract ended or something, and in the last 1/2 hour of the book, he completely ruined everything. Instead of resolving the plotlines, he crumbled them into meaninglessness.

As for the bad. The style of writing discloses quite quickly that author's sympathies are so far left they probably see Obama as a dangerous conservative. When writing about the present it results in pro-government-control, anti-free-everything. When writing about the past, it results in pure Marxist rhetoric about classes, poor suffering peasants, bad fat aristocrats, and so on. This book would've earned the author a gold star in the USSR.

The humor is just crude, the jokes repetitive, the so-called satire unconvincing...

Character development: none. Characters do not change, except for the girl Gabrielle, and even that happens for no reason and with no explanation.

Performance is OKish, but Mr. Parsons, unlike many male readers, does not do a convincing female voice. Thus, Ally has a very grating hoarse voice, and the antagonist squeaks like a castrated mouse.

Bottomline: return bin.

Entertaining

This was a fun, light read.
The parallel storylines between the 16th century and modern times was very nice and kept me engaged. Overall I found it quite gripping and funny.
The narrator did a fine job, but some of the characters sounded a bit off. Anyway, I liked his performance overall.
So if you’re looking for a fun read that doesn’t take too much out of you, this could be it.

Great narration!

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would, largely due to the narrator. He was great....he made me laugh, gave some depth to the characters, overall made it very entertaining!

Delightful

Aubrey Parsons does a superb job breathing life into this clever, fascinating take. A joy from beginning to end.

Fabulous!

This is a great story. Well written, amusing, uplifting and erudite. I really enjoyed it.

I'd never heard of either the author or narrator, just judged it by the cover really, and it totally paid off.

The narrator is outstanding and I was a bit disappointed to see that, as yet, he doesn't have that many books to his name.

I would say that at the beginning you do have to pay attention as the action alternates between the present day and 16th century France and that was probably clearer on the page.

Notwithstanding that, I'm happy to recommend this and I paid for this book with my own money!

enjoyable and easy listening

Really enjoyed this recording. A good story, well narrated. Took a couple of chapters to get the hang of the story going back and forwards in time, but didn't detract in any way.

Nostradamus With A Huge Twist

The discovery of a potentially new Nostradamus quatrain kicks off a very enjoyable twin story of authenticating the find and how it got written. We're plunged into the 16th century with Nostradamus and intrigue as we follow the quirky contrivances and rivalries that make up his 'Prophéties'. At the same time we are in contemporary France in a world about to fall to a terrible plague as we race to authenticate the newly discovered copy of the prophesies. This is a well written novel with wonderful characters and much humour. It has been very well brought to life with excellent narration. A thuroughly enjoyable listen.

Unfinished due to Narrator

Story was promising but voice actor ruined it for me. Everything read with same weird rhythm that does not fit the story. Suggest pre sale sample, as it might just be me.

Great story, odd narration

This is an ingenious tale, well told. The moving back and forth berween the 16th and 21st centuries effective. But the accents are dreadful. The female professor, Alison sounds like Les Dawson!

Smitten

This was an unexpected joy. A gem of a story with some gloriously high-camp characters, fantastically rendered. it's funny, but cleverly so. No blunt humour, but crafted, entertaining fun.
I may well revisit this.

witty ..hilarious at times

For a long time I have been a fan of the works of terry pratchett especially the discworld series - I have tried for a long time to find a book with a similar style of humour and for me this is very reminicient . It is witty, humorous and well thought out. I love how the author has intertwined the past and the present. overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope to read further novels by the writer in the future . I was given this book by the author/narrator in return for an honest and unbiased review

Well performed decent story

Aubrey Parsons did a good job with this multi-accented tale set in the modern era and 16th century. The protagonist Ally with a sort of Coronation Street rough voice actually worked.

The story itself was entertaining enough to keep me engaged. The 16th century was a bit tongue in cheek, with the dialogue sprinkled with modern terms. "Cloning documents" for example. But it did give a natural feel to the conversations.

Overall it was a decent story that I might recommend if you have a spare credit.

Awful narration dominates story

I had thought I’d enjoy this but the narrator does the story no favours with the ludicrously contrived voices he gives each character. After a while, that, and the frequent mispronunciations, were all that I heard. I’ve got 4 hours left to listen and I think life is too short to bother so I’ll be returning the book to Audible.

Original, fun yarn

Very refreshing to find this witty, unpredictable story with entertaining characters and brilliant narration.
Recommended!