Thoroughly Boring

I've heard a lot of great things about the Dresden Files and for all I know it gets much better in the later books but I found this book sooo boring and kind of obnoxious. 1. Writing feels very poor. Lots of cliché, weak character, and personally I found a lot of the trends very obnoxious. For example, every time Dresden meets a female character, she's described in this weird sort of sexual way as though Dresden is a really insecure lonely teenager. The pace is slow, soooo slow. It just drags along with piles of uninteresting details. 2. The narration drove me mad. There is a ton of sort of mouth noises, the sound of his spit or lips clicking and him breathing in loudly, I could barely stand it. And since the whole book is in first person every line is very over acted, the cadence and rhythm lurches around like a amateur theatre actor's reading the whole thing. I'm listening to it now and I swear if he swallows audibly one more time I'm going to scream.

62 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

The Narrator Hates People

The. Worst. Mouth. Noises. Ever.
I seriously wondered if he was eating bananas.
Who hurt you James!? Who hurt you!? Drink some water and stop licking peanut butter off the microphone.
I couldn’t finish the book and I really tried.

20 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Good story! Annoying narrator

It was a good book, but the narrators heavy breathing got really old really fast. Listen if you can manage.

50 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

STOP SLURPING THE MIC!

What didn???t you like about James Marsters???s performance?

I swear that this reader has a chicken bone in his mouth through the entire book. And if he's not eating something, he is thinking about it. And now that I've said something, that is all you will be able to hear too. You're welcome! Does he slurp? SNIFF? Salivate, and then eventually swallow it all? You betcha!! But, the story is so cool that I'll have to listen to it all again. Sick!

81 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Series continues to get better.

Love the Dresden files. I think it takes a little while to get rolling. The characters are strong from the outset and the plot is well constructed, but my favorite part of the series is world building.

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

WRONG Combo of Story and Narrator

I wanted to like the main character, Harry Dresden, and the story, especially given that this book was highly rated when I came across it, and the concept of a modern-day wizard detective (as Dresden is) holds good entertainment potential for me.

However, from his heavy sighs to sharp intakes of breath to sounds of his mouth opening and closing to mumbling, the narrator made listening to this story a torturous experience for me. I struggled to finish and was relieved when the book was over. (I could have stopped midway and returned it, but I really wanted to give the story a chance despite the flaws in the delivery.)

I chose this book because I was hoping to get wrapped up in a new mystery series and this is the first book. Maybe I'd consider another if there is a different narrator; however, at this point, I'm planning to try my luck elsewhere.

44 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Just okay...

The story wasn’t anything special, but decent for an author’s first book (I think this is his?). I’m not too familiar with urban fantasy, but it felt pretty run-of-the-mill. The detective noir vibe was too strong for my liking, but it’s probably good if you like that sort of thing.

A big takeaway for me is that I’m not a fan of first-person point of view in fiction. It’s done well enough, but by the end of the book I sort of wanted to punch Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden in the face. Too much time spent in that annoying head of his, or maybe it’s just his ‘voice’.

Which leads me to the performance...It’s alright, but Marsters plays up Dresden’s sarcastic nature to an irritating degree. The main qualm about the performance, though, is the constant lip smacking. That could have easily been edited out, and should have been—very distracting. Hydration is important.

All told, it’s fairly underwhelming for me. I’d probably give his other books in the series a go, to see how Butcher improved as he matured as a writer, but unfortunately, I can’t get past the first-person POV.

22 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Spit or swallow, don't talk with your mouth full

Any additional comments?

Story isn't bad. Mainly well written and generally enjoyable, although the seemingly pointless antagonism between Dresden and pretty much everybody comes across as forced.

There is however a glaring issue... constantly having to listen to the narrator sucking and swallowing. Ask a 5 year old a question during dinner and you'll get a similar sort of sound. And then there's the regular inappropriately timed sighing. If it's that hard a job being a narrator for audible I would suggest he find another line of work.

Second thoughts... he should probably find another line of work regardless.

49 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Love this book not not this recording

It’s a low quality recording with a pretty good voice actor, but there is often a fuzzy background noise and the sounds of the voice actor pausing to wet his mouth was very off putting.

14 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Excellent Story, Distracting Sound Engineering

I loved the story and the narrator voice acting, but, like others, found the excess captured physical noises like breathing, swallowing etc very distracting. The chapter or section transitions were also very abrupt...breaking the flow.

I am glad I purchased it and would highly recommend it to all, but I hope they fix the sound issues for future books.

188 personnes ont trouvé cela utile