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Middlegame

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Middlegame

By: Seanan McGuire
Narrated by: Amber Benson
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About this listen

A Locus Award Finalist!

This program is read by Amber Benson.

New York Times best-selling and Alex, Nebula, and Hugo-Award-winning author Seanan McGuire introduces listeners to a world of amoral alchemy, shadowy organizations, and impossible cities in the stand-alone fantasy, Middlegame.

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realize it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: To raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

©2019 Seanan McGuire (P)2019 Macmillan Audio Action & Adventure Adventure Dark Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Scary Middle Game

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Critic reviews

2019 NPR Best Book of the Year
2019 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
2020 Hugo Award Nominee
2020 Locus Awards Nominee
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Absolutely amazing! I don’t typically go for books over 500 pages as I always end up losing interest and lack the patience to finish them. However, this gripped me right until the very end. The narrator could have made some deferent choices for the voices of some characters as it was a little annoying at times. Other than that, I can’t recommend this book enough!

Seanan McGuire doesn’t disappoint

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I think this book is best read without knowing much about it.
It is a bit confusing at the beginning but the way this book wraps up was so amazing and I loved it so much. Only critic would be there was some kind of epilog missing... I just wanted to know how thy lived after everything.
Also the writing was super beautiful.

4.5

Why are there no half star ratings ??

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How was I not going to love this? Seanan McGuire? 2 kids who are formed by alchemy and destined to be Gods? Amber Benson narrating? Sign me up.

Hooked from the first sentence

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First of all the story is a 3.5/5 for me, but the audiobook only deserves a 2/5. Why you ask?
Firstly the quality is such that it can only be played at 1x speed or the narrator begins to sound like a tin man. As I like to listen a bit faster at 1.15-1.2, this restriction made it so I couldn't listen to the book how I wanted to. Secondly I detest some of the voices the narrator does. Reed, according to the books, sounds like an older professor who grades fairly, someone you can trust, but the narrator gave him a voice that drips in 'I am a villain' juice. Also some female voices sound like they're feral cats, which is sometimes warranted, and sometimes not so much. I do like the voices she gave to Roger and especially Dodger, and the overall narration voice.

Now the content of the book itself. The start of the book was very slow and pretentious. I wanted to DNF after 2 chapters. But I persisted. Then when I was halfway through the book I wanted to DNF again. I even researched how to return a book on Audible. The story felt slow and like it wasn't going anywhere. I put it aside for a week, but decided I was already too attached to Roger and Dodger to leave them. So once again I picked it back up. And I'm kind of glad I did. Everything really seemed to come together in the last few hours of the story. Every little thing seemed to make sense. I still can't give it full marks as the first half of the book was so slow and hard to get through, but I got what I was looking for out of this book. A unique story with well built main characters, and a bit of magic.

Don't buy the audiobook, buy e-book or paperback

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I really loved this book. I adore Amber Benson, and she did a fantastic job for the most part. I just really didnt like the voices for Leigh and James, they kinda took me out of the story. I will definitely read/listen again!

Great listen!

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