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In the Field Marshal's Shadow

Stories from the Powder Mage Universe

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About this listen

Five stories from the Powder Mage Universe, including the never-before-published "Green-Eyed Vipers".

"Hope's End"

"The Girl of Hrusch Avenue"

"Green-Eyed Vipers"

"The Face in the Window"

"Return to Honor"

©2013, 2015 Brian McClellan (P)2015 Brian McClellan Anthologies & Short Stories Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Magic Users Wizardry
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Very interesting stories and I enjoyed them throughly. Well written and it shines light on the characters' backgrounds after finishing the main trilogy. I enjoyed all but The Face in the Window because of the narration. It was very flat and below average, especially compared to Christian Rodska's narration. Most of the characters are male and they all sounded the same. Halfway through I felt very tired listening to it.

Enjoyable stories. Tiring narration.

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An amazing add-on to the Powder Mage universe. This is actually a collection of 4 short novels that take take place before the events of the first book of the Powder Mage trilogy "Promise of Blood" and 1 short novel that is chronologically set between "Promise of Blood" and "The Crimson Campaign". The fact that they are bundled into one collection obtainable for 1 credit make this a marginally good bargain since the total duration is still pretty short at a total of less than 5 hours runtime.

First of all, here is a guide on how to listen to this:
Start with "The Powder Mage Novella Collection #1" (Books 0.1 - 0.3) and then continue here
Hope's End (Book 0.4) - Chapter 1
The Girl of Hrusch Avenue (Book 0.5) - Chapter 2
Green-Eyed Vipers (Book 0.6) - Chapter 3
The Face in the Window (Book 0.7) - Chapter 4
At this point switch back to "The Powder Mage Novella Collection #1" (Book 0.8)
Read the first book of the main trilogy aka "Promise of Blood" and return here
Return to Honor (Book 1.5) - Chapter 5

Narration 6/10
The narration for this was such a letdown for me. I expected to listen to Christian Rodska's amazing narration once more since his work for the main Powder Mage trilogy is some of the best narrations for Audiobooks. Unfortunately, he seems to be replaced for these short novels for a female narrator that fails to leave up to the expectations and meet the bar set by Christian Rodska. The narration is pretty flat and uninspired and while almost every character is male, a female narrator was chosen and her voice imitations is subpar. For me the narration for this was a big disappointment.

Story 8.5/10
These are short stories that look into the past of several main characters from the Powder Mage trilogy, and a story that takes part after "Promise of Blood". The stories are really good and engaging. However, the stories were not as interesting as the ones in "The Powder Mage Novella Collection #1".

Overall I really enjoyed this collection and would suggest to it to all the fans of the main trilogy, but I just wish they were narrated by Christian Rodska like the main trilogy.

Great addition - subpar narration

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This Narator completely detracts from strong characters rendering all male characters the same posh formal tone despite their characteristics often being the opposite.

Great stories awful Narration

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