Ringing noise

I was interested in this going off reviews and sample. only made it through 7 chapters before I had to return the book. there is a ringing noise throughout which stops sometimes for a short time then starts again which made it very difficult to concentrate.

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It's certainly long...

The Darkslayer Omnibus is a strange and expansive story, at times feeling like a sprawling roleplay campaign written by its players. Its characters are heroic archetypes in a novel world which Halloran clearly loves.

The societies, crudely sketched to start with, do get fleshed out as the stories progress and Halloran uses some interesting magical items that engage the audience's curiosity. I'd certainly be interested to see how the more powerful artefacts are used in different characters' hands.

The main setback to my enjoyment was the poor editing, which magnified the frequently disjointed & strained narration. Otherwise, here's the trigger warning, there are sustained scenes of sexual violence against women which makes it inappropriate for younger listener's while others may wish to avoid this content. In contrast, male protagonists seemingly shrug off the effects of torture and violence against them as if acknowledging mutilation is unmasculine.

Outside of what I presume is the author's intent to create a "gritty and darkly realistic" world you should
prepare yourself for light fantasy and suspend your disbelief for the characters' implausible adventures.

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Reading these reviews - this is like Marmite!!!

First things first - I have listened to this epic 86+ hours and absolutely loved it. If you like fantasy, magic, proper hero vs villain sagas then you will love the books - there are more cliffhangers and resurrections in these books than any I've read before and for the last couple of months this has been a great entertainment.
Now - the narrator gets a bit of a slating in these reviews .... but, his mispronunciation of certain words and the pregnant pauses in the middle of sentences (where I think he's turning a page 🤣) is simply part of the entertainment !!! Just go with it - his voices and accents for each of the characters are endearing and I'm genuinely quite sad that this is now over.
All I can say is that for 1 credit to get 86 hours is pretty awesome - stick with it and just chuckle at the mistakes xxx

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shame, could have been so much better

production is aweful, reading by narrator is bizarre in places, writing is poor, but cost me nothing so got what I paid for

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Lesser for the sum of its parts.

So I admit, I am only a hour or two into it at time of writing.... However, That said..

Early on the are some drawbacks. whilst I love and appreciate the timber and dedication of the narrator, it rapidly becomes apparent this was not audio-mixed properly. In that there is no consistent baseline dialogue volume level.

The effects/modulation the narrator seems to have used to achieve different character voices etc, is very well intended, but leaves certain characters Way too loud, and incredibly 'tinny' and aggravating. - again could have been resolved by a Sound Engineer.

I have also found myself having to skip a third of the first dozen chapters; due to a persistent, underlying high pitch squeal that lasts entire chapters that left my thinking I'd developed a bout of Tinnitus. - So you either have to endure it and fight to pay attention to the story, or skip ahead and hope you haven't just thrown away a chapter essential to the plot (like watching a series and skipping episodes)


So barely a couple of hours in, and I am left wondering can I really be bothered to fight through another 80 hours of this?

Honestly it would have been better if it was just casually narrated without any of the well intended extra effort, and would have been a perfect listen purely with his dulcet tones.

The atmospheric background sounds effects, such as when in the taverns ect, is a great touch. But it is ultimately the only audio effect that doesn't detract from the story you are being told.

So far, I'm only very early in the story and I've admittedly skipped bits, but I had been enjoying the parts I did listen to, was absolutely my kind of flavour - and should I find myself abandoning this particular audiobook for the above reasons, I will likely just buy the book to genuinely read. (I will try and remember to update if I do discard this as DNF)


Honestly, if this had just been Properly mixed and balanced by an audio engineer, this would have probably become my favourite audiobook Ever.... I'm hoping it will get better, I will try and give it a few more hours.

Great Story. Love the sound and cadence of the narrator. Love the effort and intentions.

Ultimately: it Let's itself down in quality and enjoyability - in my personal opinion.

(for the record, I am not a Sound Engineer... but my father is, so I understand the concept enough, but concede I would lack the skills to fix it myself)

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My thoughts

This might have been a great omnibus , but it was let down by the delay between chapters but the main problem was the bloody stupid sound effects with was so bloody annoying and for that reason I rated this low

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5 people found this helpful

Worst audio book I’ve listened to so far

The theatrical approach to the narration of this book did not resonate with me. I recommend listening to the sample before downloading the book.

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Disappointed

Great story concept but poorly written and not very well narrated. It would seem this was written for ages 5 to 10. There is a complete disconnect between plots and characters' personalities change from o e chapter to the next, making it impossible to connect to them. It feels like twists in the story were written to fill space.

Not an enjoyable read.

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don't bother

Made it through the first book, not sure which was worst the narrator or the lack of a story/writing style.

I could not do any better and my only reason for writing this is that I feel I wasted more time listening to this book and feel the comments do not reflect the book I listened to.

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1 person found this helpful

not great

I did want to enjoy this but the further it went to worse it got. the main characters, and there is quite a few, spend a lot of time whining and are mostly unlikeable. The main character Vanir is basically useless and spends more time getting mutilated,tied up and beaten than actually doing anything, always getting beaten even though he's supposed to get bigger and stronger. Also having 8 different scenarios running at once isn't a great idea as by the time it Jumps back to the first one you have almost forgotten what was happening. the narrator isn't great, pausing in strange place like "he didn't know what to..........do" also makes every female sound like an old hag and don't let start on the 'screams' and 'yells'. I sadly cannot recommend.

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