Audio editing should be better!

the book was great, the performances were great but the editing of the multiple performances was pretty bad - constantly shifting in sound volume was extremely irritating and someone failed at their job on this oversight.

6 people found this helpful

The person who mastered the audio should be fired

Great story once again from this series. The narration was frustrating due to the fact that the range in volume was all over the place. Apparently the audio technician has never heard of a compressor to make the difference in volume less.

4 people found this helpful

Doesn't live up to the Red Rising trilogy

Honestly, if this book was a stand alone it would be good. However, being part of the Red Rising series makes it only okay at best. I have listened to the Red Rising trilogy over a dozen times; this is no exaggeration. Without further ado I'll plunge into the review. Audio: This was a big annoyance for me; and many others have mentioned the level of volume is constantly changing throughout the book causing the listener to always increase or decrease the volume on their device. Too many narrators. Tim Gerard Reynolds was in my opinion the figurehead of Red Rising on Audible. The moment I heard the female narrator start it was.. strange. It's always been through Darrow's perspective with Tim narrating, and it felt extremely out of place to me. The names of characters are now pronounced differently. Okay for some reason the pronounciation of Priam REALLY bugged me; but there were also a few other characters who had their names buggered up. It's always been PREE (tree) - uhm. Why change it 4 books in? WHY? Story: I know that it has been several years after Morning Star has ended; but the change it politics seemed so absolutely drastic to me it's simply hard to consider it plausible. I want to avoid spoilers here but at the end of the Morning Star when the Telomanuses are talking to Darrow and are talking basically what comes after the rebellion they are constantly putting down democracy and so forth. Like democracy has been the running joke of the entire fucking series. And the characters; -- I need to take a break from writing this review.This book was so god damn disappointing you have no idea. I loved this series and I still do but this is akin to the disappoint of the Avatar live action movie.

9 people found this helpful

I really liked it.

I read reviews and was tenative to pick this one up. Once I got used to the multiple narrators I found I liked each one. I felt it complimented the story, making me feel more connected to the characters.

2 people found this helpful

audio is challenging

love the series but little things with the narration were challenging, mostly having to do with volume (constantly needing to turn up) and discontinuity with pronounciation of names... if youlisten all in a row, it is jarring when the names are not pronounced consistently.

1 person found this helpful

Excellent. Read them all.

The man has a special way of dropping bombs, then leaving you wanting more. Impossible to stop now. Personally, I liked having the different voice actors for different characters. Well done.

Narrators

The first 3 books in the series are phenomenal. I found a couple of the narrators very distracting in this one so be prepared it is a change from the first trilogy.

Terrible choices caused great disappoontment

To start, the story was well written as always The biggest failure was that the original trilogy was 100% through Darrows eyes and then instead of the intended trilogy, they turn it into a linger series and this 4th book is fro the POV of 3 additional people, not just Darrow. The first time I heard a different voice I was bewildered, and after 3 new voices I wanted to quit. Lysamder's narrator was the worst I have ever heard, he sounded like an engineer reading a physics textbook. Spoke way too fast, no voice inflection to create emotion and all the voices sounded the same. Siri would have been a better choice. Efrom's narrator was not great to start, but improved as the book progressed. Still difficult to know who is speaking but at least it had some emotion to it. Average st best. Lyria's narrator was really weird to start but you got used to it. The emotion was way too much as it sounded like she was always crying. It was like a monotone of emotion. The biggest mistake was trying to expand a fantastic trilogy that was well loved. Of they would have been consistent and had it continue through Darrow's eyes, it would have worked, but when you change everything about the presentation and delivery, it is nowhere near the same as the trilogy, it didn't work and was a huge mistake. The better choice would have been to start a completely new series with the same characters. Since this book took place 10 years in the future, that would have worked great. It is no longer a story of the Red Rising, but instead what happened after the Red Rose. When less than 30% of the story included Darrow and you can listen for hours without hearing his voice, it was like a dagger in the back to what I invested in the original trilogy. Don't get me wrong, the story, while not nearly as action packed as the previous books, was very well written and was the perfect beginning to completely new adventures. The series can continue for as long as the author desires with how it is now set up, but it was a huge mistake to make it an expansion of the successful trilogy. This is the perfect spinoff to keep Darrow going while making the universe infinitely bigger. The story is worth the listen, just fight the urge to quit after 5 hours and consider it just an expansion of the world and you will enjoy it. If you are expecting a continuation of the trilogy in the same form, you will be very disappointed and maybe even upset

The pacing felt a lot like starting over

but still worth the listen. Unfortunately there are some tolerable issues with audio. This book is also read by a different narrator for each character's POV chapters, which will take some getting used to and was an unwelcome departure from the original trilogy.

Good story, bad narrators

The story and Tim Reynolds narration was as great as the previous books. I understand the need for additional narrators given the structure of this book, but they were pretty bad. Lysanders was monotonous and gave no feeling to the characters at all; no way to tell what is narrative and what is dialogue. Lyria was TOO emotional, sobbing through entire chapters. I found myself wishing I could just skip through Lysander and Lyria's chapters