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  • Ahriman: Exile

  • Ahriman: Warhammer 40,000, Book 1
  • Written by: John French
  • Narrated by: Mark Elstob
  • Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (52 ratings)

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Ahriman: Exile

Written by: John French
Narrated by: Mark Elstob
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Publisher's Summary

Book one in the Ahriman series.

Cast out of his Legion, the sorcerer Ahriman, who condemned the Thousand Sons to an eternity of damnation, plots his return to power and the destruction of his foes. 

Listen to it because: experience the beginning of an epic, time-twisting saga of revenge, betrayal and attempted atonement. John French takes the Ahriman you know and love from the Horus Heresy in new and interesting directions, making him both deeply sympathetic and thoroughly evil.  

The story: all is dust.... Spurned by his former brothers and his father, Magnus the Red, Ahriman is a wanderer, a sorcerer of Tzeentch whose actions condemned an entire Legion to an eternity of damnation. Once a vaunted servant of the Thousand Sons, he is now an outcast, a renegade who resides in the Eye of Terror. Ever scheming, he plots his return to power and the destruction of his enemies, an architect of fate and master of the warp.   

Written by John French. Narrated by Mark Elstob.

©2020 John French (P)2020 Games Workshop Limited

What listeners say about Ahriman: Exile

Average Customer Ratings
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Ahriman for president

Enjoyed this one. Will be reading more in this series for sure. I picked up the Thousand Sons story here after reading Prospero Burns and I'm curious to see where Ahriman will take the Legion.

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Great Book, Decide for Yourself on the Narration

Some of the voice choices for characters is a bit odd at times and I would have preferred a different voice profile for Ahriman personally. However, the book/story itself is excellent (though I am biased as I do enjoy the tragedy that is the Thousand Sons plotline), so listen to the voice sample and decide from there!

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Awesome story

The Story was super engaging and I didn't want to stop listening! Highly recommend for any fans of the thousand sons

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An absolutely incredible journey

Loved every part of it, had me at the edge of my seat and had me listening for longer than I had time. Never had much love for the thousand sons outside of the basic lore, this book made me fall in love with the journey of Ahriham and I hope to see more of it.

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enjoyable

It was a good fun listen. just a little slow to start. great ending though.

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  • Anonymous User
  • 2020-08-15

A woman has a deeper voice than Ahriman

I'm honestly just confused as to why Ahriman sounds like a sweaty congested nerd. Why'd you do my boy like that man? It detracts from his persona, makes situations feel less intense, and the story less enjoyable as a whole. Also, why does the chaos Warlord sound like the tootsie pop Owl?

16 people found this helpful

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  • C.O.
  • 2020-08-12

decent story, bizarre narration

The story is great but the reading is a hugely mixed bag. It's fantastic until he gets to certain characters voices and man they REALLY take you out of it. A lot of high pitched bizarre whiney and none of the bass you'd expect from astartes.

14 people found this helpful

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  • Rurik
  • 2021-01-05

Very, very bad narrator!

The narration is so bad that I couldn't enjoy the story. The standard of narration of Warhammer audiobooks is usually very high, which makes this horrible performance even worse. Ahriman deserves better! And so does John French! And, of cpurse, all the fans of both.

10 people found this helpful

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  • Russ
  • 2020-12-10

Beautiful rendered story with strange narration.

I feel John French did an excellent job with the story. It is colorful, descriptive, and captivating. Unfortunately, Mark Elstobs's narration didn't mesh well with my own vision of the characters. I have always pictured Space Marines with deep and resonant voices. Very few, if any fit this bill. Especially Ahriman, who you hear from the most has a nasal and, oftentimes, whiney voice. Not what I was hoping for from the brilliant and insanely powerful sorcerer. Then there's the daemon that sounds high pitched and hooty. Every time it showed up I felt like turning the book off. Was very distracting and it just wasn't for me. On the plus side, Elstob put the effort in to give every character a unique voice that was distinctive and consistent throughout the story. A lot of narrators don't go this far and you can tell Elstob takes his job seriously. I look forward to more books from French and wish Elstob all the luck with his future narrations (put a little more bass in though brother).

PS: Audible, you have misspelled the title of the book here. It is Ahri(MAN), not Ahri(HAM).

8 people found this helpful

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  • Orca
  • 2020-11-12

Elstob

He's a bit better in this book, unlike that mess that was Avenging Son, but also adds nothing to it. An entertaining read with a somewhat off the mark narrator.

5 people found this helpful

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  • Zero
  • 2020-09-04

Excellent in every way

I read this book when it first came out and it’s even better on Audible. For a novel about Chaos marines I’d put it up there with the Night Lord books.

I’ve seen a few reviews complaining about Mark Elstob’s narration. If you’re a big fan of John Banks’ mediocre abilities and Shatner-esque delivery then you probably aren’t going to like Mark Elstob, who actually sounds like a professional voice actor that gives each character a unique sound. I very much enjoyed the narration and I’m hopeful that Elstob will narrate more 40k books.

4 people found this helpful

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  • Fan
  • 2021-01-26

You misspelled Ahriman twice in a row!

What's up with mispelling Ahriman, yo? A few months ago it shows "Ahriham", now it says "Ahriam".

The main character counted on having plot armor too much. It's one thing to act reasonably and be saved by plot armor, another thing if the characters actually counts on having plot armor to make his plans. Otherwise the story was great.

2 people found this helpful

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  • Zach Mercer
  • 2021-09-24

This is the worst narration I've ever heard

The story is fine, but for some reason the narrator decided to make everyone sound like muppets. I honestly cannot get through the book, it's that terrible.

1 person found this helpful

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  • Kenneth Anthony Lull
  • 2021-04-18

Narrator ruined it for me

The story is nice and I love John French’s work, and this is one of my favorite characters... but the narrator— I’m sure he’s talented—made some terrible choices for the books and It just pulled me out of the immersion and became physically uncomfortable to listen to at parts. Seriously. While I get that you usually have the same narrator throughout a series, I was hoping Black Library, after having to re-record Avenging Son, Dawn of Fire, that they would have not brought this guy back. I’m quite disappointed to see the sequel I bought is done by this same narrator again. It’s a great story!! But if you can’t bear this at least try the hard copy .

1 person found this helpful

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2020-10-15

Excellent Tzeentch-y fun

This book probably will not mean a ton to the average reader, but for fans of the Thousand Sons it was a delight.
My only real complaint was the silly voices used for the most afflicted if Chaos characters - but even then the delivery of the performer was quite good. The "how" was skillful; the "what" was a bit of a "why?!" 2 stars for direction, + 2 stars for performance skill.

1 person found this helpful