The Necromancer's House

De: Christopher Buehlman

Narrado por: Todd Haberkorn

"You think you got away with something, don't you? But your time has run out. We know where you are. And we are coming." The man on the screen says this in Russian. "Who are you?" The man smiles, but it's not a pleasant smile. The image freezes. The celluloid burns exactly where his mouth is, burns in the nearly flat U of his smile. His eyes burn, too. The man fades, leaving the burning smiley face smoldering on the screen. "Oh Christ," Andrew says. The television catches fire.

Andrew Ranulf Blankenship is a handsome, stylish nonconformist with wry wit, a classic Mustang, and a massive library. He is also a recovering alcoholic and a practicing warlock, able to speak with the dead through film. His house is a maze of sorcerous booby traps and escape tunnels, as yours might be if you were sitting on a treasury of Russian magic stolen from the Soviet Union thirty years ago. Andrew has long known that magic was a brutal game requiring blood sacrifice and a willingness to confront death, but his many years of peace and comfort have left him soft, more concerned with maintaining false youth than with seeing to his own defense. Now a monster straight from the pages of Russian folklore is coming for him, and frost and death are coming with her.

©2013 Christopher Buehlman (P)2013 Tantor

Reseñas de la Crítica

"The logic of the plot is eclipsed by the eruption of characters who evoke Dickensian whimsy and range from the merely unusual to the bizarrely imaginative. Within this magical universe, rivalries, revenge, and self-seeking contend with the willingness to sacrifice." ( Publishers Weekly)

Scary!

I enjoyed the story and reader. My only complaint is Chapter titles would have made it easier to follow.

Good book but not something I could multitask with

It took me a few chapters to get into a rhythm with this. I definitely wasn’t able to put it on and do anything that required me to concentrate too hard. lol I kept having to rewind it when I missed something.

It may just be me, it required my full brain for a while until I got into the groove of it. That being said, I enjoyed it immensely and highly recommend.

Very good. Almost a five

Wish this had half stars or was out of ten


I like the pacing. It’s almost like poetry at times. It’s weirdly dark and turns some relatively common magical tropes into more interesting takes on standard magical “spells”. I’m Canadian, He mentions Canada a few times. Bonus points…

Well-written book marred by an irritating reader

"The Necromancer's House" isn't Christopher Buehlman's best book ("The Blacktongue Thief" holds that honor), but it's still a solid, well-plotted story with interesting characters and a fascinating take on the existence of magic and a community of mages in the modern world. If you enjoy Niel Gaiman or Joe Abercrombie, you should find this book to be right up your street...

IF you can get past Todd Haberkorn's narration. I don't know if Mr. Haberkorn has dyslexia, or simply needs to take a vocabulary class, but I have never in my life listened to an audiobook that left me shouting corrections at my headphones.

"but the dezinens of Oswego..." ""Did you mean 'DENIZENS?'"
"they piled her with drinks..." "I actually think they 'PLIED' her with drinks, don't you?!?"
"not knowing the lyrics was no impeedment to singing along..." "Did you mean 'IMPEDIMENT," TODD? F-ing IMPEDIMENT???"

Etc., etc., etc. Probably every 10 minutes or so there's a mispronounced, misread or wholly invented word (that isn't in the text; I own the book) that changes the meaning of the sentence and pulls you out of the story completely. Haberkorn's characterizations are good, but damn he needs a remedial reading course.

Gerta performance but disjointed story.

I loved the description of this book and was excited when I started it but the story was too disjointed and hard to keep track of what was going on. It did not flow smoothly. Todd Haberkorn's voicing was the only thing that kept me listening. As always he did a amazing performance. If I had been reading the book in stead of listening, I probably would have put it down. The story was good just had no real flow and was choppy.