The Gates of Night

Eberron: Dreaming Dark, Book 3

By: Keith Baker

Narrated by: Brett Barry

Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's Summary

A band of war-weary soldiers have uncovered a plot that may tear the very fabric of reality forever. To save their own lives and to prevent a long-banished race of monsters from unleashing an army of horrors upon the waking world, they must reach the very heart of Dal Quor. To stop the cataclysm in time, they must fight their way to.

©2006 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Good story, poor narrator

Different narrator than the first two books. Character voices and the pronunciation of proper names was inferior to the original guy. I stuck with it because I wanted to find out how the trilogy ended. This was an enjoyable conclusion to the story, but it still left you hanging.

Story's ok. Narrator is dreary replacement.

The first two books in this series are great, but if you made it this far, you may already agree with that sentiment. I made it about twenty minutes through this book before I couldn't go a step further; which is a shame, because this book was good so far. Still, I'll pick it back up on paperback. The narrator is absolutely boring to listen to, and is honestly the only reason I couldn't continue this book. There's barely any energy from the him, slight inflections, no nuance whatsoever.

Different narrator?

Wish they could of gotten the same narrator from the first 2 books. He doesn't even pronounce major characters names the same. It was very offputting. Every time he mispronounced Harmattan just grated on my nerves. Did the narrator even listen to the first narrator?

Narration Disappointing

Alex Hyde-White is a hard act to follow. His narration of the first two books of the series, involving a dozen or so voices and accents makes it easy and delightful to follow the story. By contrast, Brett Barry's reading is adequate but no more. It's also disruptive that Barry did not take the time to investigate prior pronunciation of place names -- the change is disruptive.

Great book and series but...

Narrator was changed from the first two books, which makes it difficult to stay connected - especially when words are pronounced differently than previously. Otherwise a great finish to the series.

New narrator, not as good as preceding novels.

They changed narrators from the two previous novels. This new narrator is not as good at making different character voices and pronounces things very differently. It’s pretty jarring and takes a while to get used to. I’m a third of the way in and it’s difficult to complete this novel. The story is not that interesting either. I wanted to read about Eberron, but the characters are not in Eberron. They’re in some fairy realm. The first novel was great, second novel was just ok and this one is a chore.

If your expecting an ending that's satisfying dont

Other than the narrator change which is very disappointing, the book is a solid meh. Compared to the other 2 books this one is definitely sad conclusion. This series seemed to be going a lot of places and it really feels like the final thrid is very rushed.

really wish they hadn't changed the narrator

Keith Baker third book of this installment of the dreaming dark was okay wasn't as strong as his first two novels. the real criticism comes in that they change the narrator in the narrator's pronunciations as well as characterizations of voices is a lot worse in my opinion. if you liked the first two novels of the dreaming dark Trilogy I would recommend slogging through this one to know the end of the story. after about an hour or 3 into the novel I was able to adjust at this pace of the novel pick pick up. mr. Colville did a great job talking about the different planes.

Not All It Could Have Been

While I feel like this one has a more cohesive story than the second book in the series, it still ultimately falls quite a bit short of its potential. The first book in the series was quite good, especially up until the end, because it did a great job of introducing you to the world. This one stayed back in the land of more dime-a-dozen series tie-in novels.

I really like the world of Eberron, because of its blend of fantasy and sci-fi. But I think in order to truly capitalize on that you would have to have a, epic fantasy series set in the world to establish a "main" plot-line. These kind of books that are turned out by the franchise are really just popcorn fantasies, and I'm sure they satisfy a big part of the market. But what I really want to find is a series like this that is truly written with the art of the story in mind. It doesn't have to be epic and the stakes don't have to be huge. That was what worked in the first book - we were just concerned with the fates of the four main character. By the end of this book, our heroes are trying to save the entire world just like every other cliche genre fantasy series out there. And it doesn't even sell it to the readers. As other reviewers have stated, the ending just falls apart because it doesn't really have much backbone to it.

If it had been kept toned down, with a focus on characters and world-building, I would have been a lot more satisfied by this series.

Meh

What started as an excellent introduction to the realm of Eberron, quickly runs away and becomes so over the top that the story lost me.

Combine that with a change in Narrator led me to abandon this book. Not that Brett Barry did a poor job once he got his bearings. This has a lot to do with the amazing job Alex Hyde-White did with the voices of the Warforged, and with the last book ending up in the middle of a conflict with the Warforged the "reader" is severely disoriented with the change.

In the beginning of the book it was almost like listening to TTS rather than a narrator, though he adjusts a few chapters in the story is so grandiose in comparison to the first book that I lost interest.