Tongues of Serpents

Temeraire, Book 6

De: Naomi Novik

Narrado por: Simon Vance

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Deadly Education comes the sixth volume of the Temeraire series, as Will Laurence and Temeraire are exiled to Australia in the ever expanding war between Napoleon and Britain.

“Temeraire and his fellow dragons are surely Novik’s finest accomplishment.”—BookPage

Convicted of treason despite their heroic defense against Napoleon’s invasion of England, Temeraire and Captain Will Laurence have been transported to a prison colony in distant Australia—and into a hornet’s nest of fresh complications. The colony is in turmoil after the overthrow of military governor William Bligh—aka Captain Bligh, late of HMS Bounty. And when Bligh tries to enlist them in his bid to regain office, the dragon and his captain are caught in the middle of a political power struggle. Their only chance to escape the fray is accepting a mission to blaze a route through the forbidding Blue Mountains and into the interior of Australia.

But the theft of a precious dragon egg turns their expedition into a desperate recovery operation—leading to a shocking discovery and a dangerous new complication in the global war between Britain and Napoleon.

Don’t miss any of Naomi Novik’s magical Temeraire series
HIS MAJESTY’S DRAGON • THRONE OF JADE • BLACK POWDER WAR • EMPIRE OF IVORY • VICTORY OF EAGLES • TONGUES OF SERPENTS • CRUCIBLE OF GOLD • BLOOD OF TYRANTS • LEAGUE OF DRAGONS

©2010 Naomi Novik (P)2025 Random House Audio

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Still of course an excellent story, but the drastic changes Simon made to the characters voices is quite jarring after finishing Victory of Eagles. Everyone sounds the same and he’s also not bothered to correct saying Demane’s name correctly where as in previous books there wasn’t an issue. Overall this re-recording is a bit pointless. Stick with the original

Beyond Disappointed

I listen to this series ALL the time. But Vance’s voice has gotten old and this version sounds TERRIBLE! Please stop creating new versions which actually sound so much worse than the original.

Unnecessary re-record

While the story is still excellent as usual, it couldn't be any clearer that this is a re-recording of an already-stellar book. I'm sure there were some copyright shenanigans that couldn't be resolved, but it's resulted in a performance that's completely inconsistent with the previous books.

While Vance has a great voice, it's clear he didn't brush up on his voices and pronunciations. His voices, especially, are drastically different than the previous 5 books. Laurence and Temeraire sound like completely different people, which is jarring to the point where it was difficult to continue. But even if it thee performance was consistent with prior books, the fact that it's hard to tell the difference between characters in general makes this nigh-unlistenable.

The worst part is that there already was/is an audio for this book that was recorded far closer to the original book's release and, most importantly, had performances/voices consistent with the prior 5 books. So this version is completely unnecessary.

Thankfully the original versions of Tongues of Serpents and Crucible of Gold are still available on Audible, but the last two entries in the franchise are either completely inaccessible or only accessible through the new, inferior recordings. Truly disappointing.