Trial of Stone

By: Andy Peloquin

Narrated by: Tristan Morris

Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

A kingdom of death. A war for power and profit. Young heroes caught in the crossfire.

Kodyn expected hardships along his journey to return a kidnapped girl to her father. Yet harsh deserts and cutthroat bandits prove far less lethal than the foes that await him in Shalandra, the City of the Dead. 

In the shadows of golden spires carved from mountain stone, currents of corruption and vice run deep. Priests of the god of death rule with an iron fist, imposing a rigid caste system that elevates some to a life of privilege and condemns others to miserable squalor.

Together with Aisha, a fierce warrior from the north with the mystical ability to speak to the dead, Kodyn must survive the cesspool of high society deceit and betrayal.

Polite smiles hide sharp knives. Killers, criminals, and bloodthirsty cultists lurk around every corner. Can these youths overcome impossible odds to save the realm?

If you love action, intrigue, and heroic deeds that will set your heart racing, you'll love the Heirs of Destiny series! For fans of A.C. Cobble, Jeff Wheeler, and Robin Hobb, Heirs of Destiny is a thrill ride on epic fantasy’s darker side.

©2019 Andy Peloquin (P)2019 Podium Publishing

I would rather jab myself in the eye than ....

I really tried to like this book but it wouldn't come.... The "world" was confusing, too many jnvolved plots - some folks can do this.... but this author can't.
in the end I finally gave up..... my test is if I could care less if I listen to the story.... then I abandon ship....

The choppy presentation turned me off

The good aspects--- its not bad writing. I enjoyed listening to sections of the book. The storylines, individually, are interesting. The world is set in the Night Guild series....so it's established....although I never made it through the entire Night Blade series.

The bad aspects---I "think" the author purposely broke the different storylines apart to cover a general weakness in the individual plot lines themselves. The plots are interesting, but simplistic. One of the MCs goes through several trials, but you never get a feeling of growth within the character....the characters are pretty much the same from beginning to end....even though within a chapter something epic may have happened. Parts of the book felt like a bad SM book....which if you read some of the Night Guild series, you probably expect. ...yet the characters heal amazingly....which the author had to throw some BS our way to cover that. ...i.e., she is hit with the force to tear tendons and break bones, she can barely walk.....yet THAT night, she is on guard duty till the morning....and walks back to the barracks. The explanation is that she can heal 2/3 as fast....maybe there should have been more time spent on the recouping after the injuries. It felt like the plot needed a compressed timeline, but the author wanted to show as much violence as possible, and keep the characters able to fight at peak ability. Soooooooo, this is where the hack and slash method to different storylines occurred. It tries to cover these flaws by putting two different storylines in between successive events in a single storyline. ...so, you, as the reader, might forget what is happening.

After going through >50% of the book, I started to skip chapters and just remain on the storyline I had any interest in. At the end, I just didn't care what happened. The structure of the book was just too annoying. I feel cheated.

So is it worth a credit? If you made it through Night Guild...probably. If you are used to the style of the writer and the world, you this book will probably fit. However, this book feels like a big step down from the first book in Night Guild. The marketing hype was just too prevalent. The attempt to weave multiple storylines was not done well. I can't recommend a credit.

Narration makes it difficult to enjoy the story

It was difficult to get into the story, because the narration seemed bland. The repetitive vaguely Russian accents for many of the characters did not lend itself to being able to differentiate who was speaking, and did not give enough variety. At some points, I almost felt as if the narration may have been computer-generated.

Narration killed it for me

I generally like Andy Pelaquin’s books, but not this or this series. The characters were good and the plot OK but the narration killed it. I don’t know where this pseudo Russian accent came from, but was used for multiple characters, and was grading and hard to listen to.

Really tried

I really liked the ‘sample’ clip of the story and the good rated reviews spoke of a title worth a purchase. Four or five times I went back to this book trying to get into it. I couldn’t get past the narrator’s characterization of each of the main players. I listened carefully but got lost on the ‘who’ he was describing. Book would be a good read just not an Audible story.

Good beginning

The story is good but I don’t care for the narrator. Maybe after listening to Mark narrate for 7 Darkblade books not many compare but I find it hard to listen at normal speed, it’s a little easier when I slow it down to .09 anyway I like how the story is coming together, it’s a little predictable but enjoyable. I don’t care for every step being described in long detail I mean some things need explaining but not everything. I find myself fast forwarding half of most chapters to get to the point, but the story is still interesting and maybe it’s just me but when I see some stuff coming an hour away I’d rather fast forward a little to get to it. You’ll understand what I mean after listening to this guys narration style and voice. Also it took me a while to get used to the accent of the voices he does until I realized that he does the Hindi type voices better than his normal voice. So for me there were a lot of distractions from the story but I stuck with it and it paid of because I’m hooked and focused on the story which is very good and recommend this book. It’s definitely a 4 star story.

Okay story, bad narration, I tried to like it.

I generally enjoy these types of fantasy books and even the YA ones, but this was too much. The main characters were very unbelievable.
I really disliked the narration. I put up with it for as long as I could but eventually had to stop listening. Didn’t like the style of reading, and the accents of the various characters seemed to get mixed up with each other.
Sorry, I tried hard to ignore it but ultimately the combination of both got to me and I stopped halfway.

very good storyline.

the sword- fighting hero, the low-class underdog saving the day- this plot has been a staple for as long as I can remember but..,.this storyline is just different enough to make it a great read. I only hate that it gets slow in between the hero's missions.

So slow

Had good potential but it took way too long to start to develop. It just got boring

FANTASTIC!!

this book was by far the best read to date. I can't wait to start the second book. it immediately captured my attention. the story was great and the narrator was awesome with the ability of steady flow and different voices of characters....

Really really generic

It’s disappointing when authors just copy others and pump out this McDonald’s stuff. It’s like…. Just put a bunch of tropes in a blender and this is what you get.

exciting times.

struggled at the start but fantastic after the first few chapters. Well worth a listen if you enjoy fantasy novels