The Way into Chaos

The Great Way, Book 1

By: Harry Connolly

Narrated by: Michael Kramer

Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

The city of Peradain is the heart of an empire built with steel, spears, and a monopoly on magic...until in a single day it falls, overthrown by a swarm of supernatural creatures of incredible power and ferocity. Neither soldier nor spell caster can stand against them.

The empire's armies are crushed, its people scattered, its king and queen killed. Freed for the first time in generations, city-states scramble to seize neighboring territories and capture imperial spell casters. But as the creatures spread across the land, these formerly conquered peoples discover they are not prepared to face the enemy that destroyed an empire.

Can the last Peradaini prince, pursued by the beasts that killed his parents, cross battle-torn lands to retrieve a spell that might - just might - turn the battle against this new enemy?

©2014 Harry Connolly (P)2016 Podium Publishing

Made me want to buy more credits

For the first time in two years, I am tempted to buy more credits just So I can get the next two books. I do not have the capacity to put into words how great the characters are, how intriguing the story is, nor how breathless I was left with the pace. When the book was done, I was left yelling, "ALREADY?!!!"

As for performance, Michael Kramer was the reason I purchased the book in the first place. The man could read a chemistry book and keep me entranced.

Nonsense

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. The story is beyond nonsense featuring characters immediately dying that the story expects us the reader to feel sympathy or loss about despite having never met them. It revolves around 3 main characters one of whom without getting into spoilers does not feature in the last 2 thirds of the book, one literally becomes emotionless and spends most of their time relaying how little they care about whats going on as the third character suffers a rollercoaster of seemingly random bad events that culminates with him being punished for a character in the setting breaking an established in-fiction law of how their magic governs. Its treated like a 'plot twist' but it feels a lot more like 'the writer didn't know what to do'.

The story also ends with all three of the main characters incapacitated with the worlds largest 'to be continued' sign at the end of the novel. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but its pretty damn rude to end an entire book with a cliff hanger to bait you into buying the next book just to see what happens. Its a cheap trick. If a book is good i'll buy the next in its series without there needing to be a 'cliff hanger' to 'hook' me.

Has The Way into Chaos turned you off from other books in this genre?

It has not, yet. But it's come close.

Have you listened to any of Michael Kramer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I've listened to many other Micheal Kramer's work and him narrating this was half the reason i decided to buy and listen to it, he performed very well as always.

Was The Way into Chaos worth the listening time?

I feel like i had parts of my life stolen that i will never get back.

Any additional comments?

This book was absolute nonsense. Fantasy can be a whimsical genre so its a rough stance to take to call something in the fantasy genre silly but here i am. The world has some interesting ideas but literally destroyed the world its 'building' for the reader before the reader has a chance to understand whats being destroyed. How am i mean't to feel for the loss of a civilization when its lost literally in the first chapter? Absurd.

The book is constantly in a rush to get characters to new locations where they will find themselves impatiently trying to go somewhere else. A lot of the characters take life-altering actions for seemingly random reasons and often the rules of magic or of the world first told by the author are broken almost immediately so it feels as if hes literally just making things up as he goes along.

A really, really dumb read. Please avoid this.

Great story, believable characters, and man-bears!

Would you listen to The Way into Chaos again? Why?

No. I don't listen to audiobooks twice. Nothing against the book, but my memory is sufficient for me.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Way into Chaos?

*SPOILER*

When the scholar near the end of the book goes hollow and knocks the protagonist off the flying cart onto the riverbank.

Which scene was your favorite?

When the grunt (hereafter referred to as man-bears) jumps off the tower at the fleeing protagonists. One character pushes to sacrifice himself to save the others and they pool together to save him.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No.

Any additional comments?

Here are the good aspects of this book:

The characters are believable. This is a big deal for me. I am so tired of reading or listening to books where the characters do something that does not make any sense and is only done to further the plot along as the author wants.

The interactions between local lords and larger empires seem very plausible, especially considering the use of marriage, hostages, metal, and mages as resources to maintain order.

Issues of religion, nationalism, racism, and slavery are all handled in reasonable ways.

The magic system is interesting, powerful with major drawbacks. If scholars (mages) use too many spells they become violent sociopaths.

There are a lot of interesting monsters that are brought up in the book. One of the main ones are man-bears, which is both awesome and hilarious (if you are a South Park fan).

The narrator is great.


Here are some of bad aspects of this book:

You never really get to know as much about magic as you'd like, especially when you learn that all the magic was gained from a set of mysterious people who come to the kingdom every 20 years or so. Who are these guys? What is up with the portal they come out of?

Only two perspectives: an older war veteran and a young 15 year old girl. I feel that some more variety could have been added to include another, maybe as an interlude or something halfway through.

The ending of the book is a cliffhanger. I think that books should end at some form of resolution, even if it is a local one and the bigger global issues remain ahead.

starts off strong but quickly looses focus

the story started off strong, but after the first 4 hours of the book quickly kept going downhill, and never recaptured my interest.

Michael Kramer was stellar as always

The fascinating collapse of a kingdom

What did you love best about The Way into Chaos?

I've been a fan of Harry Connolly's writing since his "Twenty Palaces" trilogy, and in this first book of his "The Great Way" trilogy, Connolly offers up more of his fantastic imagination and detailed world-building, while never getting bogged down in bizarre place names and customs... there is just enough of the recognizable world here, flavored with Connolly's unique fantasy view, to make the reading (or in my case, listening) experience all the more pleasurable.

Little details, like describing spellcasters gone bad -- who are constantly marked by streaming tears on their faces -- as "hollowed out", or this world's version of a knight's "Sir" as "Tyr"... these are the sort of small details that ultimately flesh out the world better than an overload of trying-too-hard-to-be-odd names and the like.

What's more, Connolly avoids the easy conflicts and plot contrivances, throwing in together a group of characters that should, by all rights, be enemies, but make for fascinating (if unplanned) bedfellows.

So, what did I love best about the novel?

Being in Connolly's confident storyteller hands.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Tyr Treygar, followed closely by Cazia Freewell. The interplay between these two characters, so far removed in age and background, is wonderful reading.

Which character – as performed by Michael Kramer – was your favorite?

Doctor Warpoole. Kramer's dramatic reading was best embodied in the Warpoole character, and came across to me as the "truest" performance.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Without giving away too many spoilers (I hope), there is a moment early on in the story in which a primary character is going to sacrifice himself, allow himself to be dragged down and away, to save the rest of the group, a group that perhaps had no real inclination to save him... and yet, they cling to him and arrest his fall.

And in that moment, the group of disparate characters becomes a unit of sorts, and I love that kind of beat in a story, when done well, as it was, here. Because the characters had already made decisions I was not expecting, I fully expected to lose this one character, early on. I was pleasantly surprised.

Any additional comments?

I will read anything Harry Connolly writes. That's praise I usually reserve for Dennis Lehane and Walter Mosley and Neil Gaiman and Stephen King.

A great story and a great storyteller

I'm always pleased when I come upon a new author I haven't experienced and find that I'm mesmerized by the story and the craftsmanship of the writer. Book 1 starts out immediately with a devastating attack on an imperial capital that is so complete that only a few survive. The quest then becomes one of two separate, yet connected, plot arcs. One with the surviving prince (now king) and his sworn bodyguard and reluctant mentor fleeing in search for a means to defeat these creatures of destruction and the other of two adolescent girls, one who has nascent arcane abilities and a close friend of the prince and the other his betrothed princess, together, seeking safety through an arduous trek to another city.

Both these quests are filled with dangerous encounters that produce unpredictable and strange outcomes. Of course, Michael Kramer is one of the very few narrators who can recite and epic saga such as this and keep the listener hooked. This, combined with a unique and well-written story, makes for its own kind of magic.

Note: one nit of concern was that near the end of the book, both primary protagonists in each story arc tend to lament that every battle encounter is the final straw and that their remaining thoughts wonder on regrets. Even so, this was not enough to even consider lowering the rating even one start.

Fast-paced and exciting!

Would you consider the audio edition of The Way into Chaos to be better than the print version?

The print version of this book is really good, but having Kramer narrate the story made it even better. His voice was the perfect fit for this story.

What did you like best about this story?

The pace of this story prevents the reader/listener from getting bored. It could be said that descriptions of characters and places are somewhat lacking in detail, but that is more than made up for by the storytelling. The story is very unique and does a good job of blending sci-fi elements into a fantasy novel without using any of the cookie-cutter plot devices you see in so many fantasy books now days. There are no unpronounceable names full of apostrophes, the main characters weren't reluctant heroes who just wanted to live normal lives on a farm, nobody had latent undiscovered magical talents that manifested in their time of need, the main characters weren't raised as unloved and mistreated orphans and there wasn't an evil antagonist hell-bent on ruling/destroying the world.

What does Michael Kramer bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Kramer's voice was a very good fit for the grizzled veteran character, and surprisingly didn't detract from the teenage female character. The publisher would have been hard pressed to find a better narrator for this story.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Had the story been shorter, it would been easy to listen to the entire thing in a single sitting. Considering it was around 15 hours long, that wasn't really a viable option.

Any additional comments?

I became a fan of Harry Connolly's work after reading the first of his "Twenty Palaces" series. This series is absolutely nothing like that one, but is amazing in it's own way. If you are a fan of Brandon Sanderson's work, then chances are you'll enjoy Connolly's "The Great Way" series.

Started slow but soon changed to interesting

when the book first started I thought it was just going to be another stab kill fight monsters. I soon found out that it had a really good plot story got interesting . ended up being a really good book and I got the next two for the full series so on the book two and we'll see how the next book goes. this book is worth the credit.

Even Michael Kramer's reading couldn't fix this

What disappointed you about The Way into Chaos?

1) Some authors seem to believe that you can substitute action-scenes for quality character development. 2) Way too-many characters in just the first few chapters to keep track of. 3) This book feels more like the second book in a series, than the first. 4) The playback feels forced 1.25x or better (editing needed work).

What was most disappointing about Harry Connolly’s story?

The book is very action based and relies too heavily on rapidly changing events to force the characters to go places (travel) to advance the story line.

Great Story

What made the experience of listening to The Way into Chaos the most enjoyable?

I find that a great narrator makes all the difference. Having a well written book with good world building and a good magic structure is also needed. I find that the author did a great job at both. Also good characters.

What other book might you compare The Way into Chaos to and why?

Not sure what I would compare this book to. It holds many parts I would relate to The Wheel of Time. Also I sense some of the Stormlight Archives.

Which character – as performed by Michael Kramer – was your favorite?

I would say his portrail of Tyr Tejohn Treygar is my most favorite on the male side. Michael's female character, and he does a very good job with female voices, would have to be Cazia. A very strong character in the book.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I almost listened to the whole thing in one sitting but one does need sleep. Also sometimes it's good to stretch it out. Hard to do because the book has very few parts where a person could end. Always wanting to know what happens next that is hard to do.

Any additional comments?

It's a great book, up there among my favorites, with excellent narration with Michael Kramer, who I think is the perfect person for this type of story, the story is fast paced and has surprises at most any turn. I would recommend this book to any who enjoy a well written and believable world and magic system.

I have enjoyed this book

good fiction in my opinion not just fantasy stereotypes, solid performance by Michael Kramer! worth a listen.

kramer does it again

well kramer can read anything! intresting story concept. he brings them all to life in your head.

extremely good book must read

Would you listen to The Way into Chaos again? Why?

this good is a must read very well written could not put it down It is in the same league as Brandon Sanderson