A superb story but a wearing narration

If you could sum up Siege Perilous in three words, what would they be?

Narrator, Emphasis, Why???

What other book might you compare Siege Perilous to, and why?

The previous books in the series

How could the performance have been better?

For some reason the narrator decided to Declaim Each Phrase in a manner that grated horribly on my sensibilities. She managed the characters conversation competently and believably, so I have no idea why she decided to be quite so strident with the rest of the text.

Thankfully I realised I could bear it if there was other noise to take the edge off it so made it to the end listening with music in the background, rather then giving up on the audiobook and resorting to reading the book to find out what happened next.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

The story was, but the narration nearly stopped me dead within five minutes.

Any additional comments?

If you can survive the narrator's style, there's a cracking story here.

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Spoilt by the narration

What on earth possessed the author to allow this girl to narrate this book. Just couldn't bear listening to her. Tales like this preferably should have a male narrator. I am sure I elude have enjoyed the tale if this was so. Instead I returned it before finishing part one

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Not as good as the previous books

Unfortunately I struggled to get through this book, unlike the previous ones which were excellent. I think the story was generally uneventful but the reader was not as good as the previous reader. There were times I felt the book was being read by a bot in some cost cutting fashion. Sorry guys, this is the worst book I have listened to on audible yet and a poor end to the Saga I really enjoyed.

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shame about the narrator

I have listened to the previous books in this series and they have been excellent. The story in this was good but I felt it didn't grip me in the same way. A lot of that was due to the narration especially the very strange way she pronounced "she/he said" it was quite bizarre. It was almost an invective "she SAIIIIID", it had a peculiar emphasis as if the phrase left a bad taste in her mouth. Once I had noticed it, it seemed to get worse. But don't let that put you off, it may just be my ears !!!

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1 person found this helpful

A poor performance to end the glorious Mongoliad

I wished that Luke Daniels, who performs the first four books of the Mongoliad so wonderfully, had recorded this one. Instead Angela Dawe disappoints from start to finish. Only the good story and the conclusion of the tale spun across four volumes made me listen to the end.

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A great story wrecked by a terrible narrator

The story telling close to the high standard of the previous books but unlike the excellent standard of those books the narration is so poor it detracts significantly

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Nice book, but...

It an interesting book and I liked it, but perhaps not as much as the original Mongoliad trylogy (but better than Katabasis). However, I did not enjoy the narration. For some reason, fully subjective I'm sure, it so annoyed me that I had to stop listening, and just read it myself. Sorry

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Can't listen this woman's awful voice any longer.

What would have made Siege Perilous better?

Somebody else narrating

Has Siege Perilous put you off other books in this genre?

No

Would you be willing to try another one of Angela Dawe’s performances?

Definitely not

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Siege Perilous?

Anything else read by AD

Any additional comments?

I really enjoyed the first 3 books in the Foreworld Saga.

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3 people found this helpful

Poor execution in most respects

A great premise for the series, but this book was poorly written, with clumsy dialogue, primitive descriptions, unrealistic siege and interactions with historical characters who were better delivered in the first 4 books. Indeed each character carried over seems to have had a total personality change from the previous books. The is complete ignorance displayed in the historical context, with action scenes poorly described. This book needed an editor, and I love 10 hour plus books- but sentences are often just clumsy
Then there is the voice. Ah, the voice! To be fair, she tries to give intonations or accents to the characters, but she can’t do a hard bitten knight who has spent a year in Russia. Her emphasis on sentences are in all the wrong places- and I mean all the wrong places. I think she might have been cold reading, tbh- the narration does not flow. Saying that the book doesn’t either, so fair enough. Listen to the sample, you will get the idea off both.

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