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Pawn of Prophecy
- Belgariad, Book 1
- Narrated by: Cameron Beierle
- Series: Belgariad, Book 1
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
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Summary
For yet a little while, his dreams of innocence remained safe, untroubled by knowledge of his strange heritage. For a little while... thus begins The Belgariad, an epic fantasy of immense scope set against a history of 7,000 years. It tells of the struggles between ancient gods and mighty Kings, and of men in strange lands facing fated events, all bound by a prophecy that must be fulfilled.
Critic reviews
"Fabulous! Eddings has a marvelous storyteller style. Exceedingly well portrayed." (Anne McCaffrey)
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What listeners say about Pawn of Prophecy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Hevpais
- 23-11-07
couldn't agree more
This is one of my all time favourite books. Like reviewer one I will probably get them all because I like them so much and, after a whole book, am now slightly desensitised to the appalling reader, but oh, who on earth picked this reader, and where on earth did they dig him up? I found the pronunciation and (most of) the accents excruciating, but the one that really had me shouting at the story teller was his pronunciation of 'quay', not pronounced 'key' as is usual (I think) but 'qway', just as I do when I'm being silly. Really spoiled a fabulous story for me.
79 people found this helpful
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- Stacker
- 27-09-16
Pick an accent......any accent!
What did you like best about Pawn of Prophecy? What did you like least?
This is a great story. I feel in love with these books many years ago and despite having read them often, thought I would treat myself. I did read other reviews about the narrator, but thought how bad could it be?! Well, honestly? Bad. I would not have liked to have had this narration as my introduction to the books as it's quite hard work to listen to as the characters change their accent mid way through a sentence. For example, Silk at one point speaks with an upper class English drawl (which I think quite suits him!) before changing - mid speech - to an impression of a comedic Transylvania Dracula.....
Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Cameron Beierle?
Anyone else! I'm not a huge fan of Stephen Fry, but his narration of the Harry Potter books is masterful. I also love Steven Briggs too as he is brilliant at the Terry Pratchett books and I think he would bring a greater depth to this book. Cameron Beierle has a vast number of accents available to him, but he uses them randomly for the same character which makes it quite hard to follow. If he stuck to one accent per character it would improve his narration immeasurably - and I haven't even mentioned the narrators habit of mispronouncing of words and names (Pol becomes Paul.....).
If this book were a film would you go see it?
I'd be wary to watch this as a film as the current fashion seems to be for directors to use the fictional world and make up big parts of the stories themselves, which has ruined some films recently for me. It would have to be faithful to the book to tempt me!
Any additional comments?
Please get these books narrated by someone else, has anyone at Audible actually listened to them? It's not very fair selling a product which, quite frankly, is an amateurish attempt. It's a shame.
33 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 31-05-16
Old favourite
The story is great but the narrator is horrendous - unable to pronounce easy words!
33 people found this helpful
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- Bill
- 10-06-17
Horrible mechanical voice
it has a horrible mechanical voice the mispronounces word ruins the story. Do not buy this travesty.
28 people found this helpful
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- Guy
- 18-03-17
Great story, dreadful narrator
Read these books years ago
It's a real shame they couldn't find someone who speaks English to read it.
The narrator seems to only have a passing knowledge of words and how they are pronounced and his accents are so mangled as to make it a job in itself working out what the characters are saying.
26 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Michael
- 02-11-07
Great book murdered by the reader
Eddings has written fantastic books The Belgariad is an amazing series and followed by The Mallorian (not a complete series yet on audible) and the individual books Belgareth ... and Polgara.. (not yet available on the site). With such great writing how could anything go wrong but Oh my it has. Cameron Beierle chews his way through every place name and character (Pol pronounced Paaaul) (Adur pronounced Aldoor) (Senadria pronounced Send- er - ia) to the point that the listener is distracted from the rich story line and finely rough character development
I love these books and will probably listen to them all but this guy works too hard even simple words in English sound like they are being delivered by a Russian ?migr? living 20 years in the deep south of the USA with Stephen Hawking
71 people found this helpful
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- Brendan
- 09-04-11
Great book. Avoid this narrator like the plague!
I'm a huge Eddings fan and own every book the guy wrote, so I was really pleased to see his work finally available in audio format. My friend had Pawn of Prophecy and lent it to me, much to my excitement. Thought it would be great for my upcoming holiday so settled down for a good listen. Oh dear!!! Where oh where did they find this narrator? Probably in the unemployment line (at least that's where I hope he is now)!
It's such a shame that some publishers don't seem to properly vet their narrators. This guy butchers his way through character and place names with a perverse pleasure it seems. His accents, characterisations and affectations are so jarring that it just killed the story for me.
Take my advice and stick to reading these books yourself as this guy will just murder these books for you!
41 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Peter
- 07-09-10
Great Book - Disappointing Reader
I agree with Michael's comment totally. I love the book - read it to my kids and was looking forward to getting the set on my ipod -but, alas one volume was enough. I can live with the very intrusive overall vocal mannerisms of the reader but not with the total failure to keep the same voice for the same character. How come Durnik is mock cockney part of the time and Polish the rest - often in the same sentence! Any chance of a second reading? - I would do it myself for free!!
41 people found this helpful
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- Angus1
- 27-11-16
Very poor narration
The story in itself is very good, however, the narration is dire. Having read the books numerous times over the years the voices bear no resemblance to the characters. I listen to many audible books as I do a lot of driving and this is the first time I haven't been able to get beyond the first few chapters. There is a definite lack of interest in the story from the narrator. I recently listened to The Dragonbone Chair series, Magician and In the Name of the Wind and they were all excellent.
17 people found this helpful
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- Ryan
- 24-01-18
Great Story, Awful Narration
I was lucky enough to find these books when I was younger and read them so I already know how good David Eddings is at making you feel immersed and invested in this world and it’s characters, but the narration is so bad that all that magic is lost.
Read the books they are awesome but skip this audio version, you will more then likely just be more angry at the way this guy pronounces words. Just purely awful.
15 people found this helpful
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Overall

- Michael
- 27-07-09
My literary "comfort food"
First, I want to say that, reading others' reviews, it becomes clear how very subjective preferences in narration style and voice can be. Some people love Mr Beierle's interpretation; some really don't.
Myself, I'm in the former category. These audiobooks (for I've listened to the whole series, now) do a remarkable job, for me, of bringing the stories to life in a new way, having read and reread them over the years. While it's true that his accents shift around a bit, and not all of his interpretations match what I had in my head, by and large I find his reading excellent, for one key reason: it sounds very much like these are stories Mr Beierle truly enjoys, and understands, and wants to share; and not just like something he's reading as a job.
The stories themselves are layered. On one level, they are quite simple, but there's some complex ideas floating around at deeper layers. What I've always liked best about them is that they aren't black-and-white. The "good guys" all have flaws and occasionally do some unpleasant or unflattering things; the "bad guys" all have reasons for what they do that make perfect sense to them.
These are not, perhaps, "classic" literature, but they're good reads, and as audiobooks, well read. The characters and their interactions are memorable and entertaining and occasionally insightful. Definitely worth your time!
95 people found this helpful
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- Benjamin
- 01-08-16
Entrancing Story, Weak Reader
I read this book on paper when I was a kid. It is the book that made me a reader. I inhaled Eddings as a kid and a teenager. This book holds magic for me and is difficult for me to evaluate objectively since it was a formative event for me when I was young. I only have this one word: Spellbinding.
Beierle has the potential to be an ok reader. He makes bold choices in voice characterizations which I normally appreciate, and if he makes some choices that are different from how I imagine characters, that is not his fault. But hang it all if he isn't overdoing all the in-book names. There is hardly a world-concept that he doesn't over-pronounce into inscrutability. He manages to over-enunciate and slur his speech all at the same time to make these words, which read pretty easily on paper, into incomprehensible verbal globules. Stop trying so damn hard!
20 people found this helpful
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- So Fain
- 30-11-09
Loved This!
Just got finished listening to the first book. I read the entire series twice when I was younger. After reading the reviews, I was worried that the narration was terrible... It wasn't. Do the accents get scrambled a few times? Yes. Does the narrator change pronunciations a time or two? Yes. Does this ruin the audiobook experience? Absolutely NOT. I enjoyed the reading and although it wasn't perfect, it was read by someone who cares about the content being read. I loved this and am continuing on with the audio series. Highly recommended for fantasy fans.
42 people found this helpful
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Overall

- M.Mussio
- 23-06-08
Well Read
I picked this particular book as my first Audible download as it is a story I have read and re-read several times when I was younger, and I was looking forward to having it "read to me" And I was not let down.
I read the customer reviews several times before actually making the purchase and some left me very apprehensive and worried that I was making the wrong decision. Several people complained about the narrator and his delivery of the story. Of strange pauses or enunciation of words. Or the delivery of the characters voices.
I am happy to report that I have enjoyed this book enormously, and am able to recommend this to other listeners. I do admit that from time to time pauses occur at strange times, or when switching characters there is some "bleed-through" of voices. We might want to keep in mind before making critics of Mr. Cameron Beierle that he is reading aloud a very long book. Pauses and a certain amount of leeway should be granted. I mean he is sitting in a room for x amount of hours a day reading and re-reading sections/chapters. I'm sure a few of the pauses can be pinned on the audio splice together too. However, this is an extremely good story teller, who I enjoyed listening too.
I've gone ahead and purchased the rest of this series and plan to purchase the rest of Mr Edding's books that are here on Audible. And I have no worries or concerns about listening to Cameron Beierle, who I've found to enjoy his reading style and voice. Keep up the good work.
34 people found this helpful
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Overall

- Amazon Customer
- 04-04-18
Great story bad narration
I have always loved this series, but I cannot stand the narration. The narrator just seems to be trying way to hard. It doesn't seem to feel natural. He tries to put accent on everything.
10 people found this helpful
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Overall

- D. McMillen
- 10-06-08
Rip-roaring fantasy adventure
I'm honestly baffled by all the hostility toward the narration of this series. The narrator uses accents to represent the different nations, and that's a bold choice, one that can be jarring at first --but after a while, I came to really appreciate it. The nations of the West are sort of like European countries in size and diversity, and on reflection it made a lot of sense that they would have varying accents: Sendarians sound vaguely British, Arends vaguely French, and so on. It's true that the accents do drift around a bit, he doesn't hit them spot-on every time, but I didn't find this at all a problem.
The story itself is a classic, and sure to be enjoyed by young (and young-at-heart) adults, with strong, memorable characters and a story of grand adventure to carry them along.
I'd recommend it strongly (and the other four books in the series)! Don't be scared off by the negative reviews of the narration without at least checking out the sample and seeing for yourself.
31 people found this helpful
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- Robert Usher
- 13-02-17
Outstanding Book--reader could have done better
outstanding story with believable characters for a world of magic of Sorcerers and Magicians. If the reader was better at pouncing the names of the characters I would have enjoyed listening to the reading. I had already read the book and felt that Edgings made the story come alive starting right from the prologue by establishing the problems that even Gods have.
As the story unfolds you learn the names of the main characters and the beginnings of the challenges they will only begin to understand. Having read several of the books that continue the story beyond this first book I was always glad that I was able to have such dynamic characters grow until they were ready to fill the rolls they would be required to fulfilled. It was easy to believe how each of the characters grew to fulfill the roles fate and prophesy had required.
I will be getting more of the audio books to enjoy the continuing story that has just so beautifully began with this book.
7 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 17-12-13
performance
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
I think it was worth the time, but I had to not cringle because the reader was so bad
What did you like best about this story?
Everything
Would you be willing to try another one of Cameron Beierle’s performances?
I am because of the story
Was Pawn of Prophecy worth the listening time?
Yes
Any additional comments?
Get a new performer
7 people found this helpful
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- Tomoko
- 21-06-09
Worth listening too even if a little old-fashioned
I really enjoyed this book, and just completed the second title in the series as well. I very much recommend the series, but it is not for action junkies. At least not through the second book...
For newcomers to Eddings work like me, compared to new fantasy titles, you'll notice that the violence is very much toned down. This isn't a bad thing, and actually made the battle scenes (when they occur) that much more tense and rivoting.
I think of the series as a "good old read" for someone raised on the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books. I also consider this a good series for young readers as well, as they look for ways to transition from Potter, to the wider, weirder, more adult versions of modern epic fantasy.
Narration is also top notch, and I enjoy listening to how Cameron successfully keeps the multiple parties separate in his mind and on tape.
17 people found this helpful
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- Ronald
- 10-03-08
Harsh Reviews
I hesitated to download this title because of several fairly harsh reviews of the narrator (Cameron Beierle). I was concerned about not being able to lose myself in the telling of the story. Personally, I feel that people find it all too easy to be critical of things (overly critical in fact)... especially on the internet where they can be safe to say anything they want in their anonymity.
Having said that, I am happy that I decided to go ahead and download this title in spite of the reviews here. I have always been a fan of this series and I am now a fan of its reading. The narrator does a nice job of lending unique voices to each character. Yes, there is some bleed-through when he switches between them on occasion, but never to the point that it interferes with the flow of the story. In particular I find his voice for the main character (the boy Garion) to be well done (sounding both young and innocent compared to the gruff and heavy accents of other characters). He even does a fair job of representing the main female (Polgara).
Setting the narration aside I can definitely say that the story itself is one of the most enjoyable fantasy series I've read. Filled with characters you will hold in fond memory and a story filled with adventure that is told from the eyes of an innocent youth. Not so much the orcs, dragons and epic wars of many fantasy series, but somewhat more akin to the epic travels of the Wheel of Time series.
34 people found this helpful