The Red Sea

The Cycle of Galand, Book 1

By: Edward W. Robertson

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds

Length: 16 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's Summary

When Dante Galand was just a boy, his father, Larsin, sailed away to make his fortune. And never returned. Since then, Dante has become a great sorcerer. A ruler. A destroyer of kings. And he's just learned that his father is living on a forbidden island at the edge of the known world. Where he's dying of a mysterious plague.

In the company of his friend, the swordsman Blays, Dante travels to the island. There, his magic can do nothing for his father. As Dante and Blays quest for a cure - beset by strange beasts, angry spirits, and violent coastal raiders known as the Tauren - Dante falls sick, too. To save his father and himself, he'll have to rediscover the island's long-lost magic. But the hunt for its secrets leads Dante on a crash course with the Tauren - and island-wide civil war. And as he's away, an old threat begins to move against his homeland.

Set in a USA Today best-selling world, The Red Sea is the first in a trilogy of warfare, sorcery, and friendship through the darkest times.

©2015 Edward W. Robertson (P)2016 Podium Publishing

tiresome and long-winded...not for me

I love rich fantasy. I really was excited about this series but this book was slow and had uninteresting character development. There is an over amount of description of devices, trinkets, politics and customs that are not interesting nor have anything to do with plot advancement. For example, the author will spend a great deal of time to describe a poisonous flower; how and where it grows, how the poison works, etc., but the flower never comes in to play in the novel. Why?.... I almost gave up half way and should have.

I made myself finish.

I don't understand how this got such good reviews. absolutely a waste of time. slow, boring and pointless.

Fantastic Sequel to The Cycle of Arawn!

Some months ago, I was introduced to Mr. Robertson's work via a one-credit download of The Cycle of Arawn. My initial elation from having downloaded over 60 hours of programming for a single credit was swiftly overtaken by the joy of having found a new favorite author/story/world of which to go on and on about to my friends.

The Red Sea continues in glorious fashion, much to my immense satisfaction! The Cycle of Galand is shaping up to be a wondrously exciting epic in its own right!

Dante Galand is back and humorously gloomy again.

If you hadn’t listened to “The Cycle of Arawn”, then go listen to it first. It’s great, you can get the entire 66 hour trilogy for one credit on audible right now, and it introduces you to two of the most pessimistically funny fantasy adventure characters I have seen in a book series for a while; Dante Galand and his best buddy, Blays Buckler.

Anyway, this book “The Red Sea: The Cycle of Galand” is a follow up to all the chaos Dante and Blays caused, ether on purpose or by complete accident, to elevate Dante’s rise to power. So while the book is great on it’s own, it does have a lot of flash backs that are referencing the first trilogy. In this book Dante makes a half-hearted attempt to gain some closer with his childhood…only to have it completely backfire on him. It’s a bad day when you get trapped on a dangerous tropical island with an insane magical disease and full of backwater political ambitions that want to use you to for their own ends…or kill you. Am I right or am I right?

Tim Gerard Reynolds is back narrating Dante’s latest pickle after his spectacular performance with “The Cycle of Arawn” trilogy. Highly recommended audio book here, especially for those you love adventures where the protagonists half to improvise in order to survive.

Could be a great story

This could be a great story but fell flat on its face. The conversations between characters are lacking and static with whimsical one liners that never had any real depth. The performance was sub par and put me to sleep several times. It was very monotone and very choppy. Not even going to give the second book a chance!

Excellent continuation of the series.

Where does The Red Sea rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of my favorites. After going through all 65 hours of the Cycle of Arawn I was left wanting more. This is the perfect follow up and I can't wait for the next book to come to Audible. This takes Dante and Blays off to new lands with lots of new characters and so many twists and turns it makes the story fly by.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Red Sea?

The final battle was great but it's really the back and forth between Blays and Dante that makes these stories great. Whatever situation they get in its always great to see what type of plans they come up with to try and make it work no matter what.

What does Tim Gerard Reynolds bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He has mastered these characters and this world. His narration is superb and draws you into the story. Between this and The Cycle of Arawn I've spent 80 plus hours listing and Tim always keeps your attention with his narration. I'm looking forward to the next book and couldn't imagine it with him as the narrator.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

You can never leave your past behind.

Any additional comments?

I don't think you need to read or listen to The Cycle of Arawn first to enjoy this book but I'd really recommend it. For an audible title The Cycle of Arawn is one of the best values in their library. 65 hours for one credit that left me wanting more. The Cycle of Galand delivers, it's so nice not to be let down by a sequel. To me this was on of the best of the series and I can't wait for the next book.

Slow

The story was okay but the reader is very slow with pauses that are way too long.

Suspenseful, riveting, great story!

What a great book! I had recently re-listened to Cycle of Arawn and was reacquainted with Dante Galand and Blaze Buckler. This story transitions smoothly from the previous trilogy to a completely new adventure that stands alone, but I would recommend listening to the previous trilogy first. Off the two go to find Dante's long lost father in parts unknown. The relationship between Dante and Blaze continues to evolve and is actually one of the highlights of this story. The storyline is tight, suspenseful, and brought to life with the sensational reading by Tim Gerard Reynolds, one of my favorites. As much as I enjoyed the Cycle of Arawn, this story is even better. The climax is extremely suspenseful with surprising twists, and sets up nicely for the next chapter of the Cycle of Galand. I can hardly wait.

Destined to become a Fantasy classic...

The fact that I've read the entire series 5 times now speaks volumes about this authors ability to weave a story that's captivating and unique enough to do so. Highly recommend the Cycle of Galand!

Great author with great characters

If you could sum up The Red Sea in three words, what would they be?

I usually do not write reviews but i was impressed with the quality of the book, I want to know more about the characters and what is next on the next book. Audible has the 3 previous books bundled together, i recommend you use 1 credit to download the first trilogy then listen to this book.

What does Tim Gerard Reynolds bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Great reader, he brings the characters to life

A really good book

After reading The cycle of Arawyn I was really excited to find out that there was another trilogy in the making.

Continuing the story of Dante and Blays this book did not disappoint.

The narrator was excellent and I'm glad that he was the same narrator that narrated The cycle of Arawyn.

Can't wait for the next books to finish off this trilogy.

great listen

was a fantastic continuation of the story. I cannot wait for book two and beyond

Not that great

Im not that impressed either with the story, the way in which the characters are drawn, or the authors command of the English language. I really took exception to the very 'modern' words he injected into the characters dialogue and the way he used the word 'shined' instead of shone. Ok if your doing shoes but not for describing light from the sun.

brilliant ☆☆☆☆☆

tim's peformance was outstanding and the storyline was just captivating ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Listen AFTER the cycle of Arawn

Where does The Red Sea rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The best from the last 4 or five

Have you listened to any of Tim Gerard Reynolds’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Only picked it up because I saw TGR narrated it, have never been let down for the 4 or five different series so far

Any additional comments?

After a few duds words can't describe I happy I was when 20 mins into this book I realised it was a follow on from the cycle of Arawn. Enjoyed every second.

Awesome

Awesome characters love blaze and Dante’s banter and antics and really good story gonna start book 2 now woohoo

Delivery lacks rhythm, story fatigued intrigue

The story is a parody of itself, often lapsing into palsyed dialogue on how endlessly trivial it is.

Excellent!

Loved this! Was delighted to.discover that the boys were back! Laugh out loud funnies along with the serious side. Highly recommend this!

A great return to two of my favourite characters

After all the adventures we shared with Dante and Blaze I was excited to see what they'd do next.
My one gripe with this book is that we got a lot less from Blaze. In the last book we got a lot of character development from him and got to see things from his point of view and I really think he could have written some of the chapters from Blazes point of view.
Also Dante seems to have forgotten that he can perform elisions with the neither.
Overall this was a great book and I look forwards to the next instalment. As always the chemistry between the two main characters was absolutely great and I really liked all the new bad guys as well.

Good plot but very boring in places

Having been spoilt by reading the Riyria collection of books I found the characters in this book very shallow in comparison. The storyline was original and should have been exciting but despite Tim's efforts the author never properly captured my imagination. Such a shame...something missing in the writing for me, I will not be reading anymore from this collection..