Not a fan of the new narrator

New guy aint particularly good. Really throws off the story. Doesnt bring the characters to life. Awful

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House of Chains

I am loving this series very much. I did prefer the narrator from the previous books as I had internalized his pronunciations. still excellent though

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1 person found this helpful

Best. Series. Ever.

Very challenging read but so very worthwhile. Erikson is masterful and creates a world that you will want to stay in forever.

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New Narrator and Strong Themes

Finally, a new narrator! There is a lot of hate in these reviews for Michael Page, but if you’ve read my reviews for the books narrated by Ralph Lister, you’ll know I had quite a few nitpicks for his performance. These have been resolved in this book, and I’m really looking forward to having Page for the rest of the series. I won’t re-list all my previous gripes here, but I think the narration now has solved all those issues, and also has a tone that is a much closer match to the content. The only issue I found is that it is a little jarring that Page pronounces some words different from Lister (Soletaken being the greatest offender), but I’ll happily trade that for the new voice he gives Karsa Orlong.

Otherwise, this is my second read through of these books, and I was especially looking forward to this one, since it was in the middle of House of Chains that on my first read everything in the series just sort of clicked together for me. My advice for this one: enjoy the Karsa parts, and take the time to get to know the soldiers in Tavore’s army. Truly great characters and some amazing humour for this book. On a second read I found I was much more entertained with the events. I’m my head I thought this book had a boring middle, but on this re-read that was proven wrong.

One criticism I have - the pacing in this book’s story (for parts 2-4) is a little off. It seems to alternate between 2 slow chapters with the two armies, and then 1 big chapter for all the side adventure characters all at once. And oddly, I preferred the slower army chapters, because the characterization feels much less rushed. Just would have been nice if the action characters were more spread out instead of having long and kind of exhausting events bunched together.

The themes in this book are really strong too, and had me thinking on them quite a bit after finishing, especially the theme of balance throughout. I think this helps show that Erikson has found his voice in this series. Between that and the new narrator, I’m excited for the consistency that will be present for the next 6 books.

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2 people found this helpful

good story bland voice actor

An over all great story is almost ruined by an awful narration. Every voice is changed from the previous books and most of them sound the same.

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Great series

This book is a great add to any fantasy collection. This series I have read multiple times and now I’m listening to it. Amazing

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Narrator not the best, not a deal breaker

A lot of people have complained about Michael Page's narration of this book, saying it was unlistenable. In my opinion that's a bit of an over exaggeration. Page's greatest sin was taking over for Ralph Lister part way through the series. Was Page as good as Lister? Definitely not. He doesn't have nearly the same range and some of his pronunciations and voices were different, but you can get over it pretty quickly if you choose to, and the book was still highly listenable. Would recommend.

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2 people found this helpful

A big change!

Contrary to many reviewers, I believe that Michael Page does a good job narrating the House of Chains. The problem and difficulty is in the shock of going from one narrator to another. Of course there are different interpretations of characters, situations, cadence, accents and pronunciations but this is to be expected. Do I wish they would not have changed narrators? Yes. Does Michael Page expertly tell the story as I expect a narrator to do? Yes.

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1 person found this helpful

New Narrator.

Not too fond of new narrator, could have made an effort to maybe make some of the characters voice to sound similar to older narrator instead of drastically changing them also I find his range not that flexible, any reason why the narrator was changed? I've listened to the Wheel of Time books and having same narrator through out made it pleasant experience.

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Great book, hard to listen to..

Bring back the guy that narrated the first 3 please. This is very hard to listen to after a much better performance.

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1 person found this helpful