B. Stiner

I love Ugland, just wish he renments abilities better

Revisado: 01-20-25

Another story in the world of Valdroni, and I enjoyed it as always. The dynamic between a pair of characters rather than watching an individual make their way in the world was an intriguing change. Good job capturing college boys. I hope the next book comes out soon!


My biggest complaint is that once again characters seem to forget their abilities. Like playing Lassie when they have a freaking spell to talk to animals. At the very least have the character think "oh, my bad" or something when they finally do use the spell, and don't act like it wasn't nuts they waited this long.

Still, overall, enjoyed the story, and always enjoy listening to Neil!

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One of my favorites, which Noah M Levine failed

Revisado: 07-08-23

I first encountered Robert Aspirin when I was freshly out of college and living on my own for first time. That was decades after the original series was written, but I still loved them. The original audiobooks were on cassette tapes, and had a phenomenal reader. I bought all of them, and converted them to Mp3's. However, the entire series was never recorded, so I only had the first few books in audio format.

So when I saw Audible was re-releasing the entire series in audio format, it was like seeing that a remake of one of your favorite movies was coming out. Exciting, but also worrying. The original was fantastic, which sets a high bar for the remake, and lots of remakes don't cut it. This recording didn't either.

I seriously hope that after this recording, someone took Noah Michael Levine aside and explained the jokes to him, because he CLEARLY doesn't get them. Some of it is a matter of putting inflections in wrong places. Most of it was the character voices. Some of his voices are fine, such as Skeeve and Garkin. But when we get into the characters who are supposed to be parodies, he fails. Aahz was the most irritating example. Aahz is supposed to be a spoof on the tough Brooklyn New Yorker, but Levine gives him a weird accent set way too high for the character. Levine continues to not get other accents right throughout the book, which makes some of the jokes not work. To make matters worse he SWITCHES ACCENTS with some of the characters at the climax! I know it's short book, but seriously, you couldn't remember which character had which voice already? Recorded Books, what was your producer doing to miss that???

I will admit that I did buy book 2. I'm hoping and praying that someone explained to Levine these stories are having fun with aspects of mid-20th century American culture so he'll understand how to read the books. However, I'm not holding my breath. Except maybe around Gleep when he's licking someone.

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Didn't see that coming

Revisado: 07-08-23

After the wedding, I was actually expecting at any time to hear the next book would be the last in the October Daye series, but wow, nope, that was one mother of cliff we were just left hanging on! I'm assuming anyone reading book 16 in a series is very familiar with the characters and such by now, so I won't go into plot review other than to say I was shocked, but Seanan McGuire handled it well.

I'm now on pins and needles, dying to find out what happens next! I'll be checking regularly to see when Book 17 comes out.

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Lovely prose, Great reader, Lousy ending

Revisado: 07-08-23

First off: if you don't want to know how this books ends, don't read this review.

This was a beautifully written story set in an interesting and unique world just familiar enough to help set the scene without clashing with the fantasy-world aspects. The characters were all engaging and well-developed, the main characters personable and sympathetic. The story kept me engaged to the end.

But that's where it lost me.

Authors can walk a fine line between "letting the story flow naturally" and employing control to give the story the sense of structure and purpose. When done well together, the story feels "natural", but also like there's a reason why the author is showing us these scenes as opposed to others that could have been chosen. But it can be a hard balance to strike. The author that leans to the "natural flow" side may come out with a story that feels chaotic, disconnected in places, or as if the author has no idea where any of this is going. The author who leans into control may come out with a stiff, stilted piece of fiction where events feel like they’re happening only because the author has declared they’ll happen.

Olson leans a bit too much toward control. There are aspects of this story that seem to exist for no reason other than they're necessary to get to the desired end. For example, Isda is a gravoir, a mutation the world regards as a monster of such horror that they're required by law to be killed at birth. The outward sign of the mutation is a twisted face. All of this so far stands in nicely for the "monstrous" aspects of the character Isda is based on, Erik from "The Phantom of the Opera". However, in the original POTO, the whole point was that Erik was NOT a monster, it was the world that had viewed him that way from birth and forced him to become the monster to survive. Yet in "Sing Me Forgotten," Isda really truly IS a monster. Once we learn the truth of the gravoir and see Isda behaving as one, it makes complete sense to have a law requiring their death at birth. I can't think how everyone else could reasonably protect themselves from people with those powers. The gravoir would have to live in isolated colonies or monasteries or something. Given how they’re described in the book, they could not share regular society with everyone else. This being the case, it's hard to feel as sorry for the gravoir characters who just prove everyone justified in their treatment of them.

Another point that felt like it happened only because that's how the author wanted it was the ending.
If you're like me and need to know how this kind of story ends BEFORE you waste 11.5 hrs only to be mad at it, here's your answer: Isda and Emeric DO NOT end up together.

The only reason I'm not throwing the physical book out a window with this ending is because these are teenagers after all, and I've seen plenty of real teens make sweeping lifelong claims that just show their lack of life experience and forethought. Isda takes Emeric's memories and walks away because she's afraid she'll eat him. Never mind that she's leaving him with another gravoir half her age and WAY more likely to lose control and kill him! No, Isda needs to nobly sacrifice herself so he can have a real life. Except we all know he can't have a real life because his little sister is also a gravoir, so he's permanently stuck on the run and at risk of execution for hiding a gravoir. Never mind that maybe Isda could have helped little sister learn control and helped protect both her and Emeric. No, this is supposed to be a tragedy, so by god it's going to be a tragedy even if it doesn't make any sense!

It was a prettily told story, and Caitlin Kelly was an excellent reader, but I really wish I could get my credit back and find a gravoir to take the memory of this book out of my head.

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My Only Regret Is This Was The Last One

Revisado: 07-08-23

I always prefer a series with a solid end over one that peters out as the author/fans/publisher lose interest in the series. So on the one hand, I was happy to see Will Wight consciously wrapping up Cradle, even while on the other being sad to see it end. Having read some of his other work, I know Wight can manage a solid landing, but I was still surprised at how thoroughly he tied off all of the threads. I very much liked the places at the end, especially in the climactic last battle with the dread gods, where Wight flashed back to how everyone had started juxtaposed to where they are now. It made for a nice "full circle" effect.

There was one point where the story felt rushed. However, during the characters' planning meetings for how to reach all of their goals, the characters actually discussed how their time table could change based other events. That included mentioning how the timeline could shrink to having just days under the worst circumstances. Once I remembered that, the rush made sense. And I ended up glad for the "rush" so we could get the rest of the story that came after.

My favorite moment was when Eithan and Linden were reunited. I'm not going to spoil the moment, just say it was good.

I'm sorry to have come to the end, but have thoroughly enjoyed the ride! I'll have to look for more fiction by Will Wight. I hope he decides to include "bloopers" in other books, those were one of my favorite parts! Travis Baldtree remains a phenomenal audiobook reader, I will be hearing him in future books in my library.

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Pleasantly Surprised

Revisado: 07-08-23

I'm familiar with Lovecraft as a master of horror, with stories about tentacled interdimensional gods, but I had no idea he'd also written fiction that fell into the "haunted house" genre. I learned of this story through "The New England Legends" podcast, when they covered the house that inspired this story. Having listened to quite a bit of New England history in the last year, as well as the history of this specific house, it was enjoyable to be able to recognize which elements were real history, and what was creative license. The story is thoroughly set in Rhode Island and employees elements that make sense for the kind of turn-of-the-century ghost hunter who viewed himself as "scientific". I loved his choices of weapons for how to deal with the monster, a nice break from well-worn ruts of genre tradition.

If you enjoy the haunted house fiction of Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Henry James, etc, then you will probably like this story. The history of the house and it's current ambience are setup first, along with some delightful bits of Edgar Allan Poe history. The narrator's history with the house is then established, with the third section dealing with the actual "investigation" of the house. Felbrigg Napoleon Herriot does a very nice job with the narration, just the right pace and emotion for the story. I very much enjoyed the audiobook. I'm going to look for my of Lovecraft's short stories now.

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Scooby Doo in Door County (spoilers)

Revisado: 04-13-23

I started this book for 3 reasons:
1. My boss recommended it.
2. It's set in Door County, an area I know extremely well.
3. The series or belongs to is the "Monster Hunter" series, and I'm a big fan of urban fantasy, supernatural, cryptid, and similar genres.

I finished this book for 3 reasons:
1. Because I hate to quit a book.
2. The reader was very good, pleasant to listen to.
3. It was my boss who recommended it.

The book started well: the book is well written. The characters were interesting. It's fun to read a novel and be able to have real life experience with the setting. The back story was dramatic. The set up was a little obvious, but given the series name, I was fully expecting to glimpse a flipper or something.

Nope! No monsters, no cryptids, at all.

And the murder mystery turned into an episode of Scooby Doo, with a rich smart guy creating an unnecessarily elaborate plan to gain more wealth.

I actually could have been okay with how the villain was operating if the stupidity of his plan had been acknowledged. My disbelief was already suspended for the romance novel moments (like getting stuck overnight in each other's houses), and for the mystery story violations of the legal system and privacy laws. There are plenty of real people who think they're geniuses and ends up in jail. The closest we got was the main character pointing out that faking a Nessy-type monster to scare people away would actually attract cryptid hunters and tourists, but she apparently forgets her own argument a second later and calls the plan "brilliant". Brilliant would have been letting the deaths look like drownings. Lots of people out alone on the Great Lakes die, especially when caught by sudden weather shifts. No one would have thought twice about a couple more victims of the lakes. But faking a monster attack will absolutely get people's attention and curiosity.

The author has some other weird moments. Like when the main character says people won't come to her store if she has security cameras. What store these days DOESN'T have security cameras? I assure the author most if not all of the stores in Door County--at least on the main drags--do.

Or when the main character is walking around Rock Island covered in blood, and most of the people look at her "suspiciously". I've camped up there a lot, and I'm the one in the group who's going to come back from the hike dripping blood, if it's going to be anyone. From personal experience, people start offering you help, not giving you the side eye when you're bleeding. Rock Island isn't New York City. And last time I was there, the Viking Boat House had a first aid kit, and the ferry dousin knew where it was.

This was a good start, but the author needs to stop watching Murder She Wrote and get a little more in touch with reality.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

Interesting New Ideas

Revisado: 02-13-23

First off, this author connected with me just because I think we read all the same books. There were references to books I've hardly ever heard other authors refer to, and it made me feel warm and fuzzy.

Regarding the book itself, I appreciated both the mental space of an older adult while facing the challenges of being too weak, too small, etc. I might have found it too convenient that the guy who knew how survive in the woods and who loved the idea of traveling to an alternate world would end up in the situation of being stuck in the woods on an alternate world if I hadn't read a ton of books about frustratingly clueless city people being dropped in similar situations only to be conveniently saved or provided for. The fact that this past summer I, myself, learned how to make flint tools, also know survive skills, and also love the idea of alternate worlds proves people like that really exist, so why not be the one transported to magic land?

I appreciated the different challenges the author brought to a crowded genre:
The main character isn't a strong, beautiful 20-some year old.
The dragon provides an entirely different and unglamorous kind of challenge.
The peer/companion/foil isn't an animal/person. The budding sentience reminded me of sci fi stories.

The writing is well done, which was extremely refreshing, having just a book with cringe-worthy prose I put up with for the sake of an interesting story.

The ending wrapped up enough threads to feel resolved while leaving enough to want to know what happens next.

All in all, a solid first novel to a series. I just bought book 2 and am looking forward to seeing where we go next!

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Fun, with interesting foreshadowing

Revisado: 02-01-23

Good start to a series in the litRPG/progession genres. A lot of familiar tropes with some interesting twists. I frequently tune out during longer fight scenes in books, but these kept my interest. I look forward to seeing where the series goes!

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Interesting class with unexpected real life

Revisado: 01-30-23

I was just expecting a survey of science fiction-- which it is, though it's mostly Western science fiction of the 20th century and before. I was not expecting to learn the roots of songs real life technologies, concepts, and words lay in science fiction. It's also been interesting to see how people [in the West] over time have thought about the future, vs what their future has become. (Not nearly as bad, nor as good, as envisioned.) Overall, a good class with a teacher who reminds me of my past English professors.

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