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Middlegame

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Middlegame

Written by: Seanan McGuire
Narrated by: Amber Benson
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About this listen

A Locus Award Finalist!

This program is read by Amber Benson.

New York Times best-selling and Alex, Nebula, and Hugo-Award-winning author Seanan McGuire introduces listeners to a world of amoral alchemy, shadowy organizations, and impossible cities in the stand-alone fantasy, Middlegame.

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realize it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: To raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

©2019 Seanan McGuire (P)2019 Macmillan Audio Action & Adventure Adventure Dark Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Middle Game

What the critics say

2019 NPR Best Book of the Year
2019 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
2020 Hugo Award Nominee
2020 Locus Awards Nominee
All stars
Most relevant
Beautiful story on the strength of sibling love. Seanan McGuire never fails to provide superb world building and rich main characters. This is my favourite book so I needed an audio copy. I first read the book and then listened to it. It's been a few years so I forgot the first little bit is dry (only the first chapter or so) but it's smooth sailing after that. I basically inhaled the rest.

I love Amber Benson, Scooby Gang fan for life! I found her performance wonderful except her interpretations of Lee and Reid, particularly when they were speaking to each other. She's exaggerated their way of speaking to the point where it is really distracting. Her inflections and cadence are all over the place in an effort to ring true to Seanan McGuire's description, but I found myself wanting to rush past those bits. Luckily their interactions are only a small portion of book. The rest of the time I mostly forget someone is reading to me, which to me is the sign of a great narrator.

Favourite book!

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A really cool and different science fiction story. The core relationships are beautifully done. My only criticism is that it could be improved with a little research. Sometimes the writer is building make believe science but there are some core elements of real science that could have been improved with a modicum of research on the author’s part.

Excellent

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if you like any of the following, this story is for you:
- evil secret organizations, or villains who are motivated to "control the universe"
- seeing characters change over many years
- literary magical realism
- Harry Potter (minus the wands, but add in some English and math)
- black/white struggles between good and evil (with some gray characters thrown in)
- exposition to move the plot along, but don't mind character melodrama slowing it down
- similies.... many, MANY similies
- lovely, nuanced, let's-hear-teacher-read-a-story type of voice acting.

If even a couple of those tick the box for you, then I recommend giving this a listen. it's great fun, very accessible to young adults. The ending feels very rushed, and there is a lot of worldbuidling that seems pointless, if only to spur on fanfiction or pre/sequels. But it ends on a strong note and the writing is still solid, engaging.

Full Metal Alchemist meets The Wizard of Oz

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This book reawakened feelings of awe and wonder I haven't felt in a long time.

I can't wait for you to listen.

The Improbable Story That's Impossibly Good

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Good story boot too dragging, narrator tries too hard. Highs and lows in her voice was somewhat annoying

Too long

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I thoroughly loved every single book from McGuire until this one. While it kept me interested and provided much-needed escapism, it feels much darker then I am used to from her(October Daye, Incryptid, Ghost Roads, Indexing), without nearly as much humour to heal the heart as I listened.
Benson's performance was really good.

Not McGuire's best, still enjoyable

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I read this book and it was one of my favorite books of all time, so I wanted to listen to the audiobook... the narrator is making it impossible to listen to. She's exagerating the voices and making it sound absolutely ridiculous. I could not even finish it. What a waste because this book truly is amazing and this audiobook doesn't make it justice at all.

Amazing book, horrible narrator

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Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to continue listening to this book. I don't enjoy the narrator's style, unfortunately. She uses some over-the-top voice inflections for some characters, especially villains, making them feel like arch-villains from a children's book. Some people might like that, but it made me lose concentration, and I ended up quitting in frustration. Unfortunately, the provided sample doesn't contain any of those exaggerated voice inflections, so you can't test the waters before you buy.

I can't talk much about the story itself, so don't rely too much on my rating for that.

Exaggerated narration might disrupts concentration

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I absolutely love the Incryptid Series by this author, however, after listening to the whole book I just felt it was a waste of my time, no matter how hard I tried to like it. It is nothing like the Incryptid series. The story had potential but the characters fell flat and are difficult to warm up to which was very disappointing since the characters in the Incryptid series are fun and interesting.

Not anything like the Incryptid Series

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