I found myself laughing at parts...

...but the parts I was laughing at were not intended to be funny. I was laughing at the writing, in the same way one might laugh during an old horror movie at what was intended to be serious but instead came off on-screen as camp. I could "hear" the effort the author was making, for instance, to be descriptive. But good writing is like ballet: when it is good you don't see the effort of the dancer, you get lost in watching the dance. I doubt anyone could honestly say they lost themselves in Duce. The reason is because you constantly notice the author trying really hard to make you see.

Since Duce is so short I stuck with it to the end. I kept thinking how, if the author Kai Tyler had given Duce a few revisions, it could have been greatly improved. I like finished products. Perhaps the "finished product" of Duce could have made me feel the connection of Dante and Carl that I was told was there.

Ironically, when I began listening to Duce and thought "Ut oh, this is really bad", it was not about the writing but rather the narration. But then I found that by increasing the Audible speed on my phone app by +1.30, problem solved! Darren Homewood did a good job with the voices. Carl in particular. Particularly the sound of restart he makes in two of the sex scenes.

Unfortunately there is no fix for the writing. For instance, instead the word "blood" there would be "red sticky fluid". But really it goes beyond nit-picky things like that. Since the writing was so unpolished throughout I always felt like I was reading something a friend or relative had asked me to look at and to answer the inevitable question of an insecure writer: "So what did you think?"

I'm thinking... "I paid for this?" While not an utterly horrible read, I'm left wondering if all the parts of the World's End series (which this is Book 1 of) couldn't have been consolidated into one novel. I guess I'll never know since I won't be reading any of the other parts of the series.

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Good Story, Good Narrator, Awful Recording Quality

For the first time, I almost returned an Audible book. The quality of the recording is awful. This is not a reflection on the narrator - he actually had a pleasant voice and I thought he did a good job. It was as if the audio was recorded inside a tin building. There were also 'movement' sounds (either hands touching the microphone or touching a table/desk) in the first thirty minutes or so which were so distracting from the story that I wasn't sure I could finishing listening. Thank goodness the story was decent because it kept me interested enough to keep going. Eventually the tapping/movement sounds went away; however, the tinny sound remained throughout the recording.

The plot was interesting, an alternate universe/sci-fi sort of story although not so different from our own world. Good sex/plot balance. The only 'con' would be that at times the pace of the story was really fast and details glossed over, making that section seem more of a first-draft than a finished scene. Otherwise, a decent story.

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Recording quality

Quality of the recording made it difficult to enjoy. The story was enjoyable and entertaining. I’m

Good storie , good narration but bad sound

This was an intresting good story
Great narration but really bad eco sounding narration.
It was annoying to listen to that very annoying eco.

Good read until the rushed idiotic ending

The sci-fi/mafia genre is a first for me. I think it has promise. I was enjoying the story up until the end when the writer decided to go off the rails and write an ending which was both unsettling and anti-climactic. It was unsettling because the actions of the characters did not match their intelligence levels that had been built up during the story. It was anti-climactic, because the characters needed to explain their stupid actions after the fact.