BazaarPatron

I love Sanderson, but this one's thinly drawn

Revisado: 11-18-19

I can't thank Brandon Sanderson enough for his epics like 'Mistborn' series and 'Stormlight Archive' series, but unfortunately I've gotta lump this one in with 'Elantris' and 'Warbreaker' as one of his thinly drawn works. For lack of depth, I'd go so far as to call this a candidate for "Young Adult" fiction. For example, a large part of the story's conflict was around the protagonist's father having been accused of cowardice in battle. This occurred when she was a child. Now a teenager, she's attending military school and being punished for her father's act - not just by fellow teenagers, but by pretty much the entire adult community in her sphere. It breaks suspension-of-disbelief to have so many adults in a functioning society that operates as a meritocracy behave this way. If so few lacked the wit to say "a person should not suffer for the actions of a parent over which they had no control," it would have been a Mad Max style dystopia.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 8 personas

Liked his book 'Super Sales...', but this sucked

Revisado: 11-18-19

I thought his 'Super Sales on Super Heroes' books were fun, even if they did devolve into puerile harem wish fantasy in places. But this book took a similar premise only without the fun, interest and excitement. On top of that, the narrator adopted a very annoying voice for the main character and narrator. I recommend giving this one a pass, but definitely suggest those other works.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 17 personas

Overrated - both story and narrator

Revisado: 09-25-18

I should have known I was in trouble when the protagonist, in first-person narration, stated to the reading audience what a cool anti-hero he was. A hallmark of a bad author is using exposition to frame a character for the reader. Any author worth their salt will allow the character's non-expository thoughts, dialogue and actions to frame the character for the reader.

Regarding the narrator, Bronson Pinchot - I love his work. In particular, he was amazing in 'The President's Vampire' series and 'Grimnoir Chronicles' series - both available on Audible. For this book however, too often he'd read through entire paragraphs with no inflection, cadenced pauses, etc. It was as if he was in a rush to get it over with.

This is yet another case where the overwhelmingly positive reviews can't be trusted. Audible should take a page from the Yelp model to offer incentives for reviews. Otherwise, the ratings are too heavily skewed towards the positive. It takes more energy critique than to praise, so we wind up with reviews that are saturated with people who enjoyed the piece. Those who did not, go silent.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

A nonstop incantation of cringe-worthy cliches

Revisado: 07-31-18

Just godawful. Though I might be able to use this as a lodestar, leading me to better fare.

I'll go through past reviews of those who praised this book. I'll earmark anything they enjoyed so I can recommend to my nephew, a 2nd grader - while banning from my lists. Finally, I'll download any audiobook they criticized as being too complicated or confusing.

In the meantime, I yearn for the day that an algorithm can accurately align people with similar tastes and levels of cognition - because as of this moment, an Audible suggestion is an arrow fired into fog.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Performance/narration is god awful

Revisado: 05-19-17

Read this book 25 years ago as a child. Loved it. Thought I'd revisit it in audio book form. But my god, the performance/narration makes it un-listenable. The voice acting was a little bit over-the-top. That I could forgive. But the timing was off by an order of magnitude. It's either the voice actors speaking on the heels of the preceding line, or the editor who cut the audio.

Audible, please for the love of god, commission a new reading.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Love Brockway's columns, but not this novel

Revisado: 01-30-17

Brockway's work on the website Cracked was my reason for checking out the book here on Audible. But the book just couldn't hold my interest.

I'll definitely give another Brockway novel a shot in the future.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Love his other books. This one, couldn't finish.

Revisado: 01-30-17

Other novels by David Wong, 'John Dies at the End' and 'This Book is Full of Spiders', I adore. I've listened to them each twice. I'm also a fan of the author's columns on the website Cracked. But I just couldn't appreciate this book, and not for lack of trying.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A pox on all who rated this more than 1 star

Revisado: 01-30-17

If you rated this more than 1 star, please know you are the reason ratings should be weighted by IQ. Right now, you may feel a compulsion to click 'Unhelpful' in regard to this review, but aren't quite sure why. Let me explain. It's because you don't understand what an IQ-weighted rating system entails, and in a world where "chance favors the prepared mind," quite rightly, you've come to hate complex matters of the mind. Or you may be at the cusp to the point that you have a slight understanding, but only enough to know an IQ-weighted system would benefit you not at all, and benefit humanity as a whole incredibly.

The substantive matter in this book could have been summed up in a pamphlet. If you've read the Wikipedia page, you're good.

The remainder of the "book" falls into two categories: filler and anecdotes. The filler is Trump University-type nonsense. The anecdotes add nothing to the substantive material and aren't interesting enough to give the book merit.


Save your credit or your dollars.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Decent premise to start, quickly falls to pieces

Revisado: 01-13-16

The premise of the story was great, but the multiple plots are disjointed, characters unsympathetic...to me the fact that this won a Hugo award is an indictment on how Hugo's either hit dead center, or miss by miles.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Must quit fallin for hi-rated sword-sorcery series

Revisado: 10-26-15

I really have to quit falling for these high-rated sword and sorcery series. No offense to the people that rated this book highly. To each their own.

There are some sword and sorcery series that knocked my socks off, like Joe Abercrombie's First Law series, Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series, and Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series. (All of these are available here with Audible and I highly recommend them).

But I'm finding the ones I just cited are exceptional and relatively rare. They are at the vanguard. And then, there is a legion of other series following in a distant, distant second. All of them well-reviewed, but I'm finding it's because they just intrinsically resonate with a certain class of reader.

As I said, that's wonderful. Nothing to deride there. I have certain genres/motifs that hit me the same way. This just isn't one of them.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 7 personas