The Verdant Passage

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun: Prism Pentad, Book 1

By: Troy Denning

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's Summary

Under a previous sun, Athas teemed with life. The sorcerer-king, after obtaining immortality for himself, united all lands under the power of his magic. But power-hungry overlords have carved the lands into pieces - setting themselves up as sorcerer-kings--and survival depends on the optimism of three steadfast people.

©1991 TSR, Inc., ©2008 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Espetacular character voices

The Darksun world is incredible, and this story is particularly interesting. Added to this, the rendition of the characters by Ray Porter is really powerful and capturing. A recommended "read", for sure. Going to get the next one ASAP.

Lacking in Character Builds

I feel bad that I typically write reviews when the story is lacking, yet write nothing with I enjoy a book. I mean someone (in this case Ray Porter) worked hard on this book and was hoping people would enjoy it. My problem stems from the fact that the only reason I purchase or use a credit to get a book is because I spend a lot of time researching, reading reviews, etc and when I end up reading/listening to a dud, I feel like I've been lied to and what to share my opinion in case someone else shares my views and can save their money.

I started off liking the gladiator, since that is who they introduce you to first, but as the story progressed and there ended up being multiple main characters, my feelings for them became diluted. Then they throw in this love triangle that made no sense at all. The main female role is doing her best to get her lover free of the gladiatorial fights at the same time his feelings for her is such that he also is doing everything he can to free himself to get to her. Classic love story, but no... she ends up having to wait a few days, and oh yeah, here's another guy that has some money, might as well sleep with him... how the gladiator escapes, meets up with his love, and she's like, "whats the big deal, so I slept with him, you weren't around for like 2 days, what was I supposed to do? Oh, by the way, lets go on a long trip together where everyone can be uncomfortable together.." Maybe it's great story telling that this situation pissed me off, but the actions performed by the characters did not correspond with the feelings we were supposed to take away from the first person narratives.

Then add in an evil person that so obviously evil that it's a wonder the entire city-state does not immediately revolt, and you have a story in which I could not like any of the characters, and even at 1.5 speed I couldn't finish the last hour. It's a shame because first in the series are usually the best (in some cases the author has years to prepare the first one) and I'm typically not disappointed until the second book in a series, but this time I made the wrong choice. This is not to say you may like the book, but having so many main characters and not really liking any of them, I had to give it up.

An interesting world, and a good VA, but a rushed plot

The Dark Sun world of Athas is easily my favorite of the traditional D&D settings. The author and certainly the narrator do a great job of portraying the setting and painting striking mental images. The plot is decent, but the latter half is a rushed. The narrator has a decent range of accents and character voices.

Ray Porter along with this series

Hello! Long time reader short time audibles user here. I just wanted to say how disappointed I am with my listening to this series narrated by Ray Porter. This series I held very dear to my heart, as I feel that this particular series is what kick-started a life-long endearment to fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons among many others. What I'm so disappointed in is that now that I've finished, Ray Porter has left a desire in me that hardly any other narrator comes close to sating! Truly he has set such a high standard in my tastes of narration that I find myself branching AWAY from entirely fantasy and exploring other types of books simply because, they're narrated by Ray! Unfortunately, although not a deal breaker, Audible does not host very many of my favorite reads, from childhood or otherwise. Albeit it'd be a perfect world if Audible had them all, I'm still very much sold on this entertainment due much to Ray's performance.

Here's a few things that stood out to me with the narrator:
He had a very good handle on inflection, everytime that a character yelled in the book Ray portrayed that. Everytime someone was gritting through pain Ray portrayed that. Every single time a certain evil character spoke Ray put into that voice the thousand years of hate and intimidation to remind the listener that this particular character was in fact very evil.
Ray never missed a beat. Everytime there was a climactic event or a description with a type of atmosphere, Ray's tone went right along with whatever it was the book was telling. He made sure that dismal cities had a certain dismal tone to put the listener in a dismal mood, or a grand sweeping area gave the listener a sense of wonder.
His accents, despite him having one voice box, never led the listener astray with a certain character. Male, female or creature, they all had their own unique voices through Ray. I remember only a single instance where two separate characters sounded similar, and even then it was hard-pressed to say.

I never forgot reading these books. And now that I've listened to Ray read them to me again, they shall remain at the core of my fantasy aspirations!

Thanks Audible for hosting these, and thank you for hosting Ray Porter.

Wonderfull Story and Narration.

The story is very fun and addicting. I found my self making excuses to ride in the car to listen to the next part. I recommend it to all!!!

Dark Sun in title only.

Generic fantasy read if you dont know anything about dark sun. Avoid if you do however as the book has nothing to do with the setting. Water/liquid is abundant and easily availible, metal is commonplace and metal weapons wielded by most antagonists, the heat isnt a problem, and magic is used left and right with impunity in front of most the characters and public with no consequences. Not Dark Sun.

great

This novel is a great intro to any D and D fan to the Redsun campaign and just a great novel

Good Introduction

Any additional comments?

A wonderful introduction the world of Athas. All five of Denning's books, read by the talented Ray Porter do a good job of wetting your appetite for the world. Sadly, the other eight books in the older Dark Sun series have yet to be released on Audible. I recommend that fans of the series, old and new, get these audio editions. Hopefully it will encourage WotC and Audible to release the remaining books, and have readers as talented as Mr. Porter.

great book for fantasy genre fans

read it while in high school and enjoyed it thoroughly and even managed to finish it in a day

I enjoyed the story simple but entertaining.

My first darksun story, I listened to the whole story and enjoyed it. It was simple and to the point.

Did not finish the book

The best part of this audio book is the narration, Ray Porter is excellent as usual and this is mainly why i listened as long as i did.

I felt the story had some good ideas but but they were poorly filled out, almost like the writer had played a few D&D roll playing sessions then written a book about it.

The magic was glossed over, it's not what i would expect in a modern fantasy. I don't expect wave hands, point finger , say the magic word, zap!. That is rather old hat.

For me the story lacks depth, it try's to do too many things, bring people together to become a team, go on a quest, loose members, defeat an evil sorcerer king, meet strange monsters, kill them, fail, succeed after undergoing a hard test, and so on.

I was disappointed as i had read some very good reviews and heard good things about this.

Accio Stormbringer!