The Silver Serpent

By: David Debord

Narrated by: Jonathan Waters

Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

The frost creeps again...

Taught the sword from childhood, Shanis Malan's only dream is to be a soldier, but a woman cannot join the Galdoran army. She thinks her dream has come true when Prince Lerryn hosts a tournament in her town, but circumstances snatch her from her home and carry her into the midst of a quest for a legendary artifact that can save the world from the minions of Tichris the Ice King. Join Shanis and her friends on a perilous quest for the Silver Serpent.

Hugo Award-winner Ron Miller calls The Silver Serpent "A superb story told believably and unpretentiously by a superb new author." The Asgard Oracle calls The Silver Serpent "A gripping epic fantasy in the tradition of Robert Jordan, Raymond Feist and David Eddings."

©2011 David Wood- Gryphonwood Press (P)2011 David Wood

start of something big.

I have read a lot of fantasy. I am looking for big series like wheel of time. This could be very good. I liked the storry. Nice twists and turns. I can recomend this as a good read. But the cliffhanger are hugde!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

narrator ruins story

I am giving this book 2 stars because the story is pretty good. The characters are thin but lets face it most sci-fi or fantasy does not have well drawn or very believable characters. If I had read this I might have given it 3 stars. The narrator is so bad he defies description. Some of the voices he uses are so phony and jarring the action comes to a screeching halt. His pronunciation of many words is giggle worthy. He doesn't seem to know the difference between such words as dingy and dinghy, deprecate/depreciate, tinge/tingle, etc, etc, etc. Do yourself a favor. If the story interests you read it and supply the voices in your own mind.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

poor

I purchased this book last summer. I was looking for a different author. I didn't get around to my first attempt at listening to it until a few months later. Far too late to attempt a return. I stopped and restarted this book multiple times. I finally made myself listen to the entire book. I didn't like the book for a variety of reasons. The plot was interesting. The writing doesn't pull it off. Early in book a subplot starts. Later on another subplot starts. That makes for 3 going on at same time. The jump between subplots is confusing with time, situation, location will be different in there. Then jump will go back to previous plot where everything is still the same. I personally don't like this type of writing. I give it a chance because many writers or the plot can carry it off. There are things that are not followed up or given adequate explanations. Subplot A has the main character and her companions. One of her companions led a soft pampered life. This companion is not suited for travel in the rough. Little is said on how she copes or toughens up. Subplot B's main character states that the group must be 6 people. Nothing is said as to why this must be. Only remarks about a prophecy. But nothing is done to explain this prophecy clearly. In one situation Subplot A's group is thrown in a dungeon. Subplot B's group shows up. Subplot B's main character is told that according to a rumor, he is residing in the dungeon. I expected that a character in Subplot B's group would show a little curiosity to make at least a token inquiry. But nothing is done. So why waste the print or audio time on this? Two of Subplot A's group are involved in killing an apparently invincible monster that is terrorizing a small village. This village has made human sacrifices to it for generations. The villagers get mad at this. Why? The story's main character gets mad and yells at them. A volatile situation is in the making. Then one of her companions jumps on a rock, identifies himself and declares his mission. The villagers fall down and pray or something (that isn't really clear). Nothing is done to investigate how the monster was killed. It was apparently killed by lightening. Several characters verbalized confusion as to how this could happen. The sky was clear. One character said that the lightening seemed to go up instead of come down. 2 of the companions are presented as scholars. But the subject is simply dropped. The reader did a fair job. With all the subplots, the voice characterizations got confusing. Subplot C's main character and group never got explained. I am wondering exactly why he got included in the story. I am not wondering enough to purchase another book of this series. One review compared this to David Eddings work. That helped influence me to make this purchase. I only read the Belgariad series of Eddings work. The only similarity I see is the first name of each author is David.

This book is Good!

I loved this book so much I bought the rest of the series so I could finish the story. If you like fantasy you are going to love this.

Poor editing, Story/Narration didn't grab me.

Several times the narrator got tongue tied, backed up and re-recorded. This is not unusual in VO work, however these should be edited out. This, in addition to grossly mispronounced words, makes for sloppy editing.

The narrator's choice for voices are problematic for me. The portrayal of the 'evil ruler types' as a cousin to 'snidely whiplash' added a cartoonish element that jarred me out of the story. I had the same problem with the portrayal of a main character, who is quite the reader, with a voice/intonation that reminds one of speech impediments. This only serves to weaken the character.

The story seems interesting and has great potential, but it didn't reach out and grab me as many others have done. I cannot determine if it is the narration or the story. The narrator is quite good in terms of variation of voices and accents and is articulate, but something is missing. I blame this on direction and editing and not the narrator.

The story is good enough for me to get the print (ebook) version of the next in the series to see whether my problems are related to the story or the performance.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Horrible Narration

The narration is so bad I'm returning the book. The narrator's female character voices reminded me of Punch and Judy. Intolerable!

0 of 2 people found this review helpful

Entertaining plot

I found the narration quite hard going, but the story really is worth the effort and, for me, the narration simply becomes part of the story by the end and not something that seems incongruous. A really good, and slightly shorter, listen.