Mana Master starts strong, but falls to pieces.

The first 5 - 6 hours set up an interesting character, world, and clear path of progression. I think I would best compare it to the better episodes of a your standard anime, complete with cheesy Saturday morning cartoon villains and obvious lead romances. Then it starts to shit the bed, with about a dozen plot threads get touched on before quickly resolving with minimal effort (thus making them pointless) or going unaddressed/uncompleted. To continue the anime parallel, it feels like a dozen 'filler' episodes one right after another that honestly should have been cut on the first round of editing if for no other reason than to prevent the feeling of 'whip lash' one feels when listening to it and to not waste the readers time with nonsense. The love interests are also rushed in their development with most simply loving the main character from the start or at first meeting.

Further use of 'Chekhov's gun' would have served the author well... if an introduced plot element isn't going to be immediately useful or impactful consider cutting it or making it more useful/impactful. Having the main character show the reader instead of being told that they grew more powerful would have also proven useful, as would having whatever trials or tribulations they defeated actually matter, and not be defeated in the span of 30 minutes.

The story aside, the writing itself isn't great with a limited vocabulary of words chosen together which made the dialog a bit clunky in places. The "adult" scenes were honestly boring and lacked a certain degree of passion and depth or were absolutely dripping with teenage angst, fortunately it didn't become overly annoying.

The performance wasn't great either, not terrible or anything... but I felt Hazel was clearly bored/tired through many of her lines (understandable as the lines for the ladies were often cheesy or comically bad to say the least). The sound quality was below what is common in the industry now a days, and there was at least 1 botched word that could and should have been edited in post.

Overall this is a subpar harem adventure story, and a below average cultivator story (the worst I've read so far in fact). I will probably not refund the credit (though it is on the line for what I would consider refunding for), but neither will I continue the story. I think if the author went back to this book and started again focused on the first half and stuck to 1 or 2 of the threads introduced in the second half he would have had an above average book for the genre... sadly it wasn't meant to be this time.

8 people found this helpful

Epic

I have over Seven hundred books. I don't comment alot but this book was epic. reminds me some times of the Unsouled series. Narration was good as well.

6 people found this helpful

Fantastic Story and Excellent Dual Narration!

This was a great take on cultivation. There wasn't a dull moment in the story. It flowed really well. They characters were great. Cant wait for the next one.

The narration was really good. I've been waiting a long time for Christian to work with a female narrator and I wasnt disappointed. Hazel did a pretty good job. She has a lot of potential. Im guessing she will get better and better with each book she records. She has a really pleasant voice. I'd just like to hear a little more emotion in the characters.

On Christians end of the narrating. He did great as always. The different voices he uses for the individual characters was great.
The only issue I had with his narrating is the whistling S's. They are vicious if you're wearing headphones. I don't know if there is a way to stop it? but it would make listening a lot more pleasant if there wasn't whistling when saying a word with a S in it....

On the whole production end. Overall it was good. I cant wait to hear more from this duo. The only thing I would suggest to the recording/editing peeps. Is get some beta listeners. There are a lot of errors throughout the book. Repeats, changes in audio levels, clicks, and background noises. It felt like the first edit. maybe it's just getting the kinks worked out on a new dual narrating team.

All that being said. It's definitely worth a credit. The story is great and so is the narrating. I hope this pair keep working together and making more worlds come alive!

6 people found this helpful

needs a new editor

the book was great, the narrators were good too. however whomever had the job to edit the audio probly needs to either a) get a pay cut. or b) redo it entirely. there were many times were the narator would say a sentence and then say it again but with different emphasis or inflection.

3 people found this helpful

I didn't make it too far

Nothing is worse than a cocky protagonist without the skills to back it up. It's even worse in a society where one's 'power status' is so easily apparent.

Frankly, the protagonist just isn't likeable in general. If the cockiness isn't enough, being an outlet for exposition just makes him appear stupid too.

I think it's a pretty bad sign when you see no clear difference between the cliche 'bully antagonist' and the protagonist himself.

Don't even get me started on the relationship nonsense. It's like the author studied anime for tips on interpersonal relationships and just implemented them one to one without ever speaking with a real human themselves.

I'll be returning this.

1 person found this helpful

Great, just a few minor gripes.

I really did want to give this five stars, but a few compounding things held me back. First, however, let me preface this by saying that this is my first foray into a cultivation story, so I have nothing of its like to compare it to...but I do know what a good book looks/sounds like.

1. The Narrator sounded kinda...bored. His male voices were alright though which kinda saved it for me in that aspect. On the flip side, the female voice actor was great overall (especially Aurora, the main Mana Beast; she sounded like a goddess), though her portrayal of older women all kinda sounded the same. The characters themselves were all lively enough to mostly offset this.

2. The story itself was great, somewhat fast-paced as it was. With that said, some things were left pretty vague and it felt like we (the readers) were just supposed to let these things slide without any explanation. This is the first book in the series though so I won't knock it too much for that; plenty of time to flesh that out later.

3. The need for editing is obvious. It's not so bad that you are totally taken out of immersion, but you will definitely notice it.

4. This goes along with #3 and is less a gripe and more funny, but I have to mention it. There is a point later in the book, during a somewhat steamy session that the Narrator repeats the same sentence twice, pauses, seemingly (and I swear audibly) turns the page on his script, and then keeps reading like nothing happened. OMG, it was so worth being torn from the scene in my mind for that laugh I let out! Others might call that unprofessional or something, but God damn was that funny in the moment!

Overall, I still loved the book and I hope to see the next one on Audible soon so I can snatch it up!

1 person found this helpful

Started great but lacked refined me t

This started great as a book however, once into the story the pacing fell apart. The story sped up the point where it was hard to follow and unbelievable things happened per the define world rule. For instance our hero advances so fast that it doesn’t seem realistic. Once in the dungeon portion I feel that this book falls apart. Overall great world building g but the rush at the end made it a poor story.

1 person found this helpful

way to bad narration

I have to say that the narrators were pretty bad, they both were monotonous, there was no passion or any type of emotion on any situation, I couldn't feel any excitement or fear on the battles, in fact I lost track as I got distracted because of boredom but the actual plot is pretty good so I had to go back to listen again and get the full picture.
I will have to continue reading instead of listening as I think my imagination will do better than the narrators. they have good voices but are not able to express emotions, on top of that, the female narrator can't do more than one voice so when more that one girl is talking I get confused of who's talking.

the history and plot is pretty good and I recommend.

don't listen to those 1-2 star reviews

Overall good story and good narration. I held off on this series for a while due to the few bad reviews that seem to stay near the top. This wasn't a mind blowing story but it was still good and very entertaining. Never got slow, good character development, decent plot. If you are into the genre you'll enjoy it!

good

very well done. a great listen. well done Christian and Hazel. have a wonderful day to you all