War of the Twins

By: Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

Narrated by: Ax Norman

Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's Summary

One hundred years have passed since the fiery Cataclysm that changed the face of Krynn forever. For one hundred years, the people of Krynn have struggled to survive. But for some, those one hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye. Catapulted forward in time by Raistlin’s powerful magic, Caramon and Crysania find themselves aiding the mage’s unholy quest to master the Queen of Darkness. To his dismay, Raistlin discovers along the way that the annals of Time are not so easily bent to his will. Neither are the longings of his heart.

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

sigh

The book was excellent, unfortunately Ax Norman had no interest in giving the characters different voices; OR saying their names correctly. I refused to miss out on such a vital part of the story, otherwise, Ax being the narrator would have stopped me from buying it.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Great story, horrible narration

Simply put, a great book that is dragged down by a narrator who doesn't bother to pronounce names, places, and things in this fantasy world.

The story is good enough to get us through it but it is shameful that no one bothered to research or correct him during production. A smaller issue is the inability to provide proper emotion or different voices to the characters.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Norman has GOT to GO!

Once again, the passionless, dry, and obviously unfamiliar-with-the-story narration comes out of Ax Norman!

The Dragonlance series is one of the best in fantasy - in my opinion, some of the best ever written. All it takes to suck the life out of it is narration like this.

I bought the first two books of "Legends" from Audible before I knew what I was in for. I think, for "Test of Twins" I will either just go read the hard-copy I already have (though I switched to audiobooks because I can "read" on my long commutes and/or when my eyes are worn out from staring at a computer screen all day), or I will wait until Audible hires someone with the real ability to narrate before I pick up the third book in audio format.

Very disappointing since these books are SO good, otherwise.

16 of 17 people found this review helpful

Great story, but...

I've been a fan of the dragonlance books since I was very young, and I figured I would give them a try in audio book form for some nostalgia.

The narrator absolutely ruins it. My beef isn't just his changing pronounciation every other paragraph, or his apparent inability to pronounce anything; it's the obvious unfamiliarity with the material. Ax doesn't appear to even make an effort to put a semblance of life into his narration, and when he "yells" as a character, it sounds like he's 13 and afraid of waking his parents up in the middle of the night while he's reading aloud to himself.

Over all? Great story, god awful narration. I will be avoiding any audio books narrated by this guy in the future. It was so bad I actually got my credits refunded.

The narration gets 1 star only because he bothered to show up to work and trudge his way through it.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Atrocious narration.

Ax Norman needs some serious voice lessons. How about pronouncing names right? Did he even bother to listen to any other audio books, or even bother to speak to the authors, dear god he is bad.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Definitely need a better narrator

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)?

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Norman is the WORST narrator I have ever heard.

Would you try another book from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and/or Ax Norman?

Hickman and Weis, YES, Norman? I'd have to think really hard about it.

What did you like best about this story?

The story has always captivated me as it has some epic lines in it. The Dragonlance Saga was what I read as a youth and it sparked my imagination in many areas. Some compare it to Tolkien, we don't need to go that far, but it was a great ride none the less. Always entertaining and escapist without taking itself too seriously.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Ax Norman?

Anyone. A doorknob of a Kender, a bum off the street, my dog, it was horrible.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Ax Norman has ZERO understanding of how this story affected my generation (those that could read that is) His pronunciation is so horrific I turned the book off I don't know how many times. I always came back though because I wanted to hear the story. For example, who is Taaahz? You pronounce his name right when you say Tasslehoff, how does it mutate into Taaahz??? At one point the dull Ax even calls Sturm STRUM, Sturm Brightblade, a hero of the Lance and he calls him STRUM???! Did he actually READ the copy before he launched into his lackluster, monotone recitation of a book worthy of a full cast of actors? It is physically painful to listen to this book because of his maddening lack of intonation and basic reading skills. If I was listening to a tedious book on quantum physics? Maybe as I wouldn't know the first thing about pronunciation for physics. An adventure tale set in the Dragon lance Universe though? An absolute, unmitigated failure by the Ax.

13 of 15 people found this review helpful

Great story, poor narration.

This is one of my favorite series. The narration is poor though. If I hadn't read the books prior to the listening, I don't know if I could have stood the narration. Little to no difference in character voices and mis-pronouncement of the names is enough to make you cringe.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Good story, Narration needs help

This was a good follow up in the Twins series. However, the narrator was not that great. He does not use different voices (which I could overlook) and he mispronounces a lot of the names. It's pretty distracting although you EVENTUALLY get used to how weird it sounds.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Ax Norman is a terrible narrator.

Very dry delivery. Like listening to your teacher read you a book in school. I like the story very much. I wish Marc Thompson or Jonathan Davis would have narrated this book.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful