Time of the Twins

Dragonlance: Legends, Book 1

By: Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

Narrated by: Ax Norman

Sequestered in the blackness of the dreaded Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas, surrounded by nameless creatures of evil, Raistlin Majere weaves a plan to conquer the darkness - to bring it under his control.

Crysania, a beautiful and devoted cleric of Paladine, tries to use her faith to lead Raistlin from the darkness. She is blind to his shadowed designs, and he draws her slowly into his neatly woven trap.

Made aware of Raistlin’s plan, a distraught Caramon travels back in time to the doomed city of Istar in the days before the Cataclysm. There, together with the ever-present kender Tasslehoff, Caramon will make his stand to save Raistlin’s soul.

Or so he believes.

©1986 TSR, Inc., 2000 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Yes, Audible, Ax the Ax.

Sorry, but I'm afraid I simply must agree with several others on this point. The Dragonlance novels are great books and I think they're being done a very poor disservice, albeit possibly unintentional. Audible, you simply MUST find a new narrator for these books. Ax Norman MUST GO! Sorry Ax, I'm sure he's a great guy, he's absolutely ruining the Audible experience for these books. If you read this review, buy the books on Kindle and read them until you see a different narrator listed for any of the Krynn novels. Anyone but Ax that is; remember ax the Ax!

A Travel to the Past

What did you love best about Time of the Twins?

It is the first installment of the second Dragonlance trilogy, probabibly better written than the first. It's less heavily game-oriented (D&D) and, as such, give room to the authors to better explore their fictional world.

What aspect of Ax Norman’s performance would you have changed?

Ax Norman should have paid more attention to characters. Sometimes, it's difficult to tell Raistlin and Caramon apart. Even though I'm not overly fond of "uber" character personification, he should have paid more attention to that. Still, I like his diction and I wouldn't mind if he rerecorded the books with that goal in mind.

Any additional comments?

This is a great Dragonlance story, a must for every fantasy and D&D geek reader/listener.

Narrator isn't good

The narrator only does one voice well, that being Tasslehoff's. Otherwise I'd have given him one star. Why didn't they just reuse the narrator from the Chronicles Trilogy (Paul Boehmer)?

AVOID the audiobook at all cost!

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

The book, yes. The audiobook, absolutely not.

What did you like best about this story?

Weis and Hickman have learned from writing the Chronicles, and it shows. The characters grow in interesting ways, there are more mature concepts tackled (for what this book is, at least), and the story is far more original. Everything is more focused, and there isn't the sense one gets in the Chronicles of having missed important events off-page. For the first time, a Dragonlance book is exactly the length it should be. I highly recommend it.

What didn’t you like about Ax Norman’s performance?

Ax Norman may be one of the worst narrators of audiobooks I've ever heard. So bad, in fact, that I gave up on the audio a quarter of the way through and just bought a physical copy instead. There is no emotion, no differentiation between characters, no inflection-- Norman sounds as if he is reading the book for the first time and he doesn't like it all that much. He can't even be bothered to read the title at the beginning. I've never encountered a narrator more passionless or lazy.

Was Time of the Twins worth the listening time?

No. Read it, but SAVE YOUR MONEY.

Any additional comments?

I won't be buying the audiobooks for the rest of the trilogy. I'll be reading them, but not through Audible. I don't know why Ax was hired. His performance is SHOCKINGLY bad. I'm usually against re-recording books, but this one is begging for it. It would actually be better not to have an audiobook at all. Audible, you can do better. Much, much better.

Fabulous Story, Terrible Reader

Why on Earth can't one of the best Fantasy Series EVER get a decent narrator?!