Sad Carlos

A good new entry into the Monster Hunter Verse

Revisado: 10-18-23

I enjoyed this book, my only real complaint is that is seemed shorter than most of the MHI books. All around though, I feel like this was a better first Memior book than GRUNGE was, I actually cared about the characters in this one and they all had personality - Which is my main complaint about Grunge - Chad was a very self centered narrator and at the end of the first one I had very little care for anyone else - even when the author was really trying hard to make me feel sorry for one of the secondary characters dying. (please dont misunderstand me about that though, Memiors: SINNERS is my 2nd favorite book out of all the MHI books so Ringo just needed to find his stride on that one) So to the people who are like "ThE oTher MemIORs aRE BEtteR" - The first memoirs was very rough and you need to revisit that and realize the the sum of that series was better than its first part.

That said, this books pulls you along at a decent enough pace and I very much enjoyed the fresh perspective. The new main character is very matter of fact in her telling of the tale and I appreciate that.

I would like to address some of the people who are down voting this one for various reasons in the other reviews though.

1 - To the people who are giving this one stars on performance and saying bring back Oliver Wyman - Guys dont do well when they have to narrate primarily female lead books, thats the whole reason that we have a different narrator in this one so just get over it, She is way better than the lady they got the read Guardians (who couldn't pronounce the word Harbinger for some reason)

2 - She is of South American decent, that's why she says Cazador oddly, people have accents, again, get over it.

3 - Yes Earl sounds extremely goofy, but he's not in it for long so just push on through, - But I was LOLing whenever he talked as the voice conjured up an image of a drunken version of that bird lawyer from Futurama (I'm sorry, I thought you were corn!) XD

4 - Hopefully you people will give this series a shot and not listen to the haters. Larry has an insane amount of trouble with people review bombing his books as it is without his fans getting their panties in a twist over a narrator that wasn't near as bad as some of these drama queens are making her out to be.

5 - It's a new series set 40 years at least before the events of the prime MHI storyline, enjoy it for what it is and stop taking this silly series too seriously.

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The real mystery is how was this published?

Revisado: 10-18-23

Its just all around bad.

This book has to have been written by someone with English as their second language -- or maybe one of those blue aliens from the comics that state everything too literally? At one point the main character gets angry at a guy and says "You must be a real crotch face" What does that even mean? He is trying to be insulting and then also proceeds to call the guy an idiot but the main characters all think in the weirdest illogical ways. Is this like translated from Russian? So much of this book has such weird phrasing. A few times I can literally hear the spelling errors as the narrator doesn't even try to smooth them over.

The narrator is also really bad, He speaks in an odd cadence, maybe its because of the bad writing but I do not think that's the case. No one in this books talks naturally and they all speak the same. It's super hard to tell one character from the others.

Like I said, it feels like this book has been both read and written by some alien trying to pass itself as human.

Also, the sex scenes aren't even that good or numerous. (if that's what you're looking for)

I will not be pursuing this author and also avoiding this narrator from this point on. I do not know how people have rated this thing with 5 stars and call it good.

I'm a big fan of Scooby doo and also have enjoyed spin offs/ parodies and fresh takes. This is not a good one. If you are looking for a good re imagining of Scooby Doo you should check out MEDDLING KIDS by Edgar Cantero.

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Not as clever as they thought they were

Revisado: 07-20-22

It could be that I'm just jaded at this genre at this point but in anyone else a little sick of the "Lets turn all the bad guys into good guys" trend?

I go into most things these days without reading a synopsis or watching a trailer or whatever - especially if it is free. So I had thought that maybe this story would be about one of the ultimate criminal masterminds of the literary world - getting to hear his ruthlessness and cunning as he plots a crazy caper against British royalty and faces off against the legendary Sherlock Holmes.

What I got was nothing even close. Moriarty is an innocent professor that is framed for his wife's murder and must use the seedy underbelly of London to try to clear his name. Sherlock Holmes & friends are all made out to be vile villains that have no trace of good in them.

This whole thing is some weird fan fiction that completely ignores the source material, no one in this story is even remotely like their actual literary counterparts.

The voice acting was done decently enough but the writers need better ideas.

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Dont read reviews lol

Revisado: 07-05-22

So, I really enjoyed the Great Cloaks series by the author, so when I saw that a bunch of these books were in a sale I grabbed the first four just because of the author alone.
As I was about to download this to read I caught sight of the reviews and all the top ones complaining about animal cruelty, which, if you read these people's thoughts makes it sound like this is all over the entire book.
There are two (2) instances of this that happen in the book, one of them deals with the clearly badguys making a dog sick that would then adversly affect a main character. This animal is put out of it's misery buy a good guy very quickly and the animal doesn't suffer overly much on the page.
The other is the moment where the main character decides to finally truly stand up to his childhood tormentors to stop abuse of an animal. The animal is saved and mostly unharmed.

But that's it, There is way worse animal cruelty in many Stephen King Novels. Not to mention the much loved by children the world over Harry Potter series.

It also makes me laugh that some people said to stick with the great cloak series instead - Like everything that was done to the horses in that series just didnt happen (remember what the ring wraiths did to their mounts? yeah, its worse than that) People have selective memories.

That rant done, I am really digging this series, the narration is excellent and Mr. de Castell has a way of weaving words that draws me on to keep listening. I've finished the first 3 books in a week and am going to have to buy some extra credits here soon to finish off the series. I think that the magic system is cool and also, the Argosi's whole attitude is cool, and their way of passing information to each other via self created tarot cards is super interesting (you find out more of them in trickles throughout the next 2 books)

I hope that this review is helpful to you and somewhat balances out the reviews from the more delicate readers on this site.

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DO NOT READ THIS FIRST!!

Revisado: 12-08-21

The Chronicles of St Mary's is a time travel book. There are subtle things that are revealed slowly over the course of the series. This short was written way later in the series and though it takes place before the series starts this book should NOT be read until AFTER you finish Book 4 - A TRAIL THROUGH TIME.

All in all this story is interesting and answers a few questions you may have after you've been invested in the series, but it is a bit dry, its really just a bunch of information about the formation of St Mary's.

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Not really all that funny

Revisado: 11-10-21

I was hoping to find a funny book to listen to and this one just isn't it. There's a lot of absurdity here but really no laugh out loud funny to be found. I'm not one of those people who dislike all comedy books, I'm a big fan of Christopher Moore, The Magic 2.0 series, Serge Storms and The Critical Failures series - to name a few (and also to show the spectrum of comedy I like) This book is just a big meh, I'm glad it was included with the Audible membership or I would be trying hard to get a return on this one.

Like I said earlier there is a lot of strange, possibly silly things that happen in it but it just never actually gets funny. If you want something truly hilarious check out any of the books I mentioned above, you wont be disappointed.

All that said, the narrator did a decent job.

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Fan of Nightvale but not of this

Revisado: 10-29-21

So I have tried a few times to listen to this podcast - I'm a fan of Welcome to Nightvale and would like to be able to get into their other tales - But every time I try I am bored to almost asleep by the end of it. Its just so slow and quiet. So I got excited that they adapted it to a book that I could get through in a fraction of the time so at least I could get a handle on the story.

The book is not much better than the podcast - still slow and quiet but, like I said, Its a fraction of the time so I kept going on it. The "horror" that people talk about is basically finished after part one and straight up non existent in the final 3rd of the book. Which if you read the reviews on this thing make a lot of people straight up liars - or at least not actual fans of horror.

My other big issue with this book is during the 3rd act it reached the tipping point on how much of the overt politicization that had been building in the novel. -- I'm fine with people putting in their political agendas but at a certain point there's a point where the surface tension breaks and it just becomes too much. Like, I'm constantly barraged by people's beliefs in my life through news, social media and just person to person interactions. I only want so much of it in my fiction. And in the final act, once it basically becomes fight club but for support groups I really started to struggle with finishing the book. I was like: There's less than 2 hours now -- PUSH THROUGH! and I did, but I don't really care. the book just kind of loses any momentum it had in the third act and that just made it a slog to get through.

The final battle was very weak and not much of a payoff was to be had there either.

If you made it this far through my review I would like to leave you with a book that is not necessarily horror is great all the way around and if the concept of the Thistle Men is creepy to you (before they explain how they are made in the end) then you should definitely check out PARADOX BOUND by Peter Clines who is an excellent author and writes some amazing horror (14 is a personal fave)

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A good start to a paranormal series.

Revisado: 10-15-21

I enjoyed this book. The characters were well thought out and the story flowed at a decent pace. I like the magical mechanics of the world and am ready to see the sequel to know more of how everything works.

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Seriously Luke Daniels?

Revisado: 11-27-19

I LOVE Luke Daniels performance in the Magic 2.0 series but seriously, WTF dude? This is pretty embarassing. I try not to crap all over narrators when they are switched mid series but this is ridiculous. I get that the whisp's name is Dani but she is female. Very obviously as Dani is referenced as SHE multiple times in the opening. Why does she now sound like a gruff dude? Why did you give the dungeon you doofus voice(Todd from Magic 2.0)? if you just gave him the same voice as Martin it would make things way less awkward. Also Dale is like 20, now sounds like 40 something. When Dale,, Dani and the Dungeon are all talking they bleed together so bad it's hard to distinguish characters apart.

But the worst thing (circling back to Dani) Mr. Daniels, did you just decide to stop giving female characters a feminine lilt? Dani - sounds like a dude, Rose sounds like a drunk scottish dude and Madam Chandra (spelling?) sounds like a weird frenchman or something. I KNOW you can do female voices man, wtf is up?

Audible fix this. I'm finishing it for the story and then returning it, hopefully you will re record this travesty and I'll rebuy when I want to give it a relisten. But this is bad. Almost as bad as when you let Pip Ballentine & Tee Morris take over for the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series.

Sorry Dakota Krout, I enjoy your stuff and you don't deserve this but I can't give this book a good rating and I'd almost warn people away from starting the series if they have to get through 4 books to wind up with this... mess.

Audible, where is the quality control? Why do you never have a narrator check out a previous installment in a series to facilitate in the transfer of narrators to match voices even a little? Like I said, I try not to trash talk when narrators change because they get a lot of hate, this is one of two cases where they missed the mark so bad I gotta speak up.

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Chaos in ther old west

Revisado: 11-12-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

The Devoured follows a young man who has been corrupted by forces beyond this world. To save his mother he must make a blood sacrifice to get the god of death to spare her. The only thing you can buy a life for is another life and thus his corruption begins. As this is happening the son's father is returning from the civil war (losing side) and must find a way to save his only son as he fights gods and cannibals to make it home.

I like the way the author weaves the mystical into out reality to make one crazy universe. I am going to continue on with him to try to glean more of the rules of his book-verse.

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