The Tyrant

By: David Drake, Eric Flint

Narrated by: Franklin Pierson

Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

On the planet Hafardine, civilization must rediscover progress or collapse. Adrian, guided by disembodied electronic mentors from space, has brought gunpowder and steam power to the Kingdom of the Isles to break the stranglehold of the Empire. But he will have to avoid being killed by the suspicious king he serves, by the barbarians he must recruit, and even by his insanely vengeful brother.

©2002 Eric Flint and David Drake (P)2021 Recorded Books

Another solid entry

This is yet another solid entry in "The General", or as it is labeled here on Audible, "Raj Whitehall" series. I was well acquainted with the first five books and "The Chosen" from much earlier in my life and found the audio renditions quite enjoyable as well. Pierson does a good job rendering varied accents and tones, doing particularly well in separating the speech patterns one would expect from as divergent characters as educated nobility to illiterate peasants whose speech is radically different not merely in terms of vocabulary but in pronunciation, contractions, etc. Though perhaps not related to his rendition exactly, I do find his tone and voice when speaking Raj's lines to match exactly what I imagine the character to sound like. In any event, his quality rendition continues in these editions as well and is even more enjoyable as I had not read "The Reformer" nor "The Tyrant" before. I look forward to his renditions of the remaining two books of the series as well as hope he performs other work as well.

The Tyrant continues the story begun in The Reformer of the Gellert brothers, Adrian and Esmund, one of whom (Adrian) Raj and Center have selected to reunite and prevent further falling into barbarism of their home world. This follows the formula of the previous novels though here the setting is quite plainly inspired by ancient Rome and the turmoil of the end of the Republic. I found this one more enjoyable than The Reformer as it fleshes out the world and characters further and there are some parts that are rather hilarious if you've a bit of a gallows sense of humor.

All in all, a very good tale from two of the titans of the military science fiction field, rendered very well by a talented narrator.

Extraordinary .

I’ve read this series many times . Yet I enjoy it even more listening to it. . Being able to restart a chapter is fantastic .

meandering, wandering, gibberish

I'm sorry, but this is just uninteresting. This felt like it was excerpts cobbled together from several books, only dealing with a few characters inner thoughts and doubts. While thos did seem accurate as far as what those individuals would think or feel in the situations, you don't really care. This is more of a soap operation a story of world conquest. Where's the epic battles? Where's the struggle?
This one just flopped.