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The Sword of Kaigen: A Theonite War Story
- Narrated by: Andrew Tell
- Length: 24 hrs and 24 mins
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Summary
On a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire's enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name "The Sword of Kaigen".
Born into Kusanagi's legendary Matsuda family, f14-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: To master his family's fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen's alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.
Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.
When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?
Critic reviews
"The Poppy War's darkness meets The Last Airbender's Elemental Magic...I haven't been so emotionally moved by a book in a long while." (JC Kang, USA Today best-selling author of The Dragon Songs Saga)
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What listeners say about The Sword of Kaigen: A Theonite War Story
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- Connor
- 08-07-21
Top tier fantasy!
Incredible story, excellent narrator.
Could not recommended this book more.
S tier fantasy for me (up there with Sanderson, GOT, Robert Jordan, Jade War, the name of the wind)
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- George
- 23-01-23
One of the best in fantasy
One of my all time favourites. Short-ish but with so much depth of character. Must read.
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- Norse Raider
- 23-01-24
A+
Great overall story, good character building, map building although personally took a while to get into the list of the story but apart from that really enjoyed and would recommend
p.s needs a follow up
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- Amazon Customer
- 29-02-24
Great book not for Japanese speakers
Great book, great writing, amazing story. However if you can speak Japanese then it can get dounting hearing every noun, verb, adjective be mispronounced, butchered to bits, seriously ruined my immersion waaay to many times, imagine hearing toosama and wondering what the heck is he saying only to realize it's tousama,
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- M.
- 01-04-22
Would be 4.5 rating if I could. Good, not Perfect.
Please Note: I try to keep my reviews spoiler free, so I'm going to analyse while trying to remain intentionally vague and objectional. If you would like to read more about pacing or intricacies like trope development, this won't help.
Firstly I'm going to clearly state that the narration of this story was an easy 5 stars. At both regular and faster speeds the pronunciation was clear and concise. I would be comfortable playing this at any speed I needed to, and the voices were impressively diverse. I would highly recommend the audiobook for this alone, but it IS awkwardly split. The main reason I would give this a 4.5 if I could is because it was just teetering between the two ratings. There are chapters that are over 90 minutes long with multiple perspectives, so it felt a little messy to not have clear stopping points in place. However, I finished this story with very little breaks so I didn't find that it impacted my enjoyment.
Additionally, there are several references to terminology that was never explained (It's easy to infer, but that's not the point), so sometimes it was frustrating since this is the first of M.L. Wang's work I have experienced. For the most part it was a true standalone, but I was always curious if I were missing those definitions from earlier novels. Otherwise, the content and plot integrity itself was flawless.
Finally, there are several scenes that some people could find distressing. I couldn't honestly say that there were parts of this story that I disliked, or that felt unnecessary for the story to unfold. Without spoilers that's all I can say. Please read other reviews if you feel like this is cause for concern, as I'm sure they will give better content warnings than I am able to.
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- Annie
- 22-01-24
Just wow
Absolutely incredible story. The characters are so rich and the story, while slow, will take hold of you so completely you won’t be able to stop listening. The narrator does such wonderful justice to the story and characters too, I have never cried when listening to an audiobook as normally it feels a little removed, but this had me crying for whole chapters. Cannot recommend enough!
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- david l.
- 16-02-24
Simply amazing
absolutely the best book I've read in a long while, never have I ever listened to a book twice in. a row , amazing characters with superb archs in an incredibly well built world of tradition and modern aspects and incredible but brutal fight scenes
Loved the narration so much
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- Anonymous User
- 17-10-21
great listen but not the right narrator choice
This story is such a good listen and I highly recommend but as someone who speaks Japanese, the narrator is just wrong for this book. A lot of the pronunciation was off and a bit painful to listen to at times. Other than some pronunciation issues, he is a good narrator and I did thoroughly enjoy the book. As long as you don't mind the badly pronounced Japanese words and names then this is a very enjoyable listen.
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- Anonymous User
- 15-02-24
Nice work
I like the dynamics between the characters and how it changes through the story. Great work over all. Cool (hehe) scenes
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- Paul Frankl
- 07-03-24
Love this original book
This story is beautiful and I loved it. Only complaint is that I wanted a whole trilogy! Highly recommend.
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