The Skull Throne: The Demon Cycle, Book 4

I listened to books 1-3 again before listening to this one. Am not sure what it is about this 4thbook that left me feeling almost a little bored, possibly the lack of time given to Arlen? Or maybe that the majority of this book is given over to introducing and giving the back story to yet more characters. Leesha seems to have more time devoted to her than any other character in this book, and I think I may be getting a tad bored with her character.

I found the different pronunciation of main characters names rather annoying in this version.

Either the author is building to an outstanding final instalment, or this was stuffing in the middle, which is my pet peeve when it comes to any book series.

That said, I did enjoy it, and I look forward to the final instalment.

This may well be the case of a book too far, however it was not helped by the change in narrator who pronounced a lot of names differently. Also, as mentioned by other reviewers, there were strange pauses throughout the narration. I am not sure if I will bother with the next one as not a lot seems to have happened in this and it was almost as if the author ran out of steam - or perhaps has split a longer book into two parts. It will be interesting to see if the next installment takes as long to be released as this one did..

Story – 4/5

I enjoyed this well enough, probably as much as the 3rd book, The Daylight War. I just can’t help but think that the story is really drawn out. I wouldn’t mind this quite so much if the characterisation was as good as the first book, but it isn’t. That’s not to say the backstory and character development is completely amiss, some of it is excellent still, it is just not to the overall standard I keep hoping Brett will return to.

I loved the action packed last 3 hours of this book, which made my impression of the overall story rise a huge amount. The epilogue was also very intriguing. If you have enjoyed it to this point, and loved book 3, you will enjoy this one equally.


Performance – 4/5

Another good performance from Colin Mace; who although a bit duller in parts than Peter Joyce was with the first 2 books, is quite similar; and almost as good. Audible were kind enough to swap the older versions of the audiobooks for the new ones with Mace’s narration, so I was able to re-listen and get used to his voice with the characters before approaching books 3 & 4. I would recommend doing the same thing if you struggle with any changes of pronunciation – but I barely noticed.


Overall – 4/5

Overall I like the Demon books. I usually listen/read much larger books (Peter F Hamilton/Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson) so having some shorter titles is nice.

One thing that struck me this time though is that some of the odd things I've notice in the narrator's pronunciation disappeared in book 4. For instance Coreling was pronounced Coh-Rel-Ing previously is now pronounced as the more intuitive Core-Ling. However, other strange things have popped up. A lot of the voices that were used for the characters sound different to me this time around, one of the main characters is now having his name said differently (Rojer was pronounced in a more nordic way, with the J as a Y sound (so it was Royer) but now switching to basically Roger) and pronunciation of some established words changed (Eveja went from eh-ve-ja to Ee-vee-ja), and some pronunciation of perfectly normal words is off (Incidious being the one that's struck me a few times). The word is always close, but not quite right, and always jars me out of my listening as I'm thinking "is that a mispronunciation or just a word I don't know?"

All together, it added up to the point that until I checked before writing this, I thought it was actually a different narrator and this review was going to be called "Different narrator, similar problem".

Its not enough to actually make it bad narration, but it is a bit jarring in a purely audio format that things like mispronounced words and inconsistent pronunciation are allowed through. I can't help but compare it to Kate Reading/Michael Kramer doing Wheel of Time/Stormlight Archives. Those are much larger books, with many more terms, some of which are painfully close in pronunciation. In wheel of time's case, they were produced over more than a decade, and in stormlight's case, the two were produced over 3 years apart, yet there was very little shift in pronunciation of setting specific words, and I can't think of a single normal word mispronounced. Its why I use Reading/Kramer as my benchmark for narration.

The Demon Cycle started with such promise. I enjoyed the first two books immensely, especially for the fast pace, character driven story line. The third book in the series, while good, finished with a cliff hanger ending (a warning sign that a series is about to go soap opera). Now with this fourth book I am losing my patients. This feels more like padding in order to make the most out of a successful series rather than a progression from previous books.

Disappointingly pointless.

Loved the book and the narration ( Mr Mace is one of my favourite narrators ) reading other forums about this series people have commented on the increase in romantic elements over the last couple of books but this, for me anyway, rounds out the characters

As I said earlier I'm a fan of Colin Mace and it's one of the reasons I started this series of books. He is able to provide different personalities male or female although I think his Arlen Bales sounds like his DCI Max Wolfe ( Tiny Parsons books )

The aaaaaaargh in the title is because the next and last novel of the Demon Cycle isn't out until September in hardback and paperback in 2018 so I'm not sure when the audible version will be.

Excellent book, really looking forward to the 'The Core'!!! Some great plot twists and cliff hangers.

this book didn't do what the last few did, didn't move some of the stories on that I really wanted to here.

looking forward to the next book

great book, great story, although dose have the feel of the an infill book but none the less well worth a listen, a bit disappointed that the narrator has changed again, simple little things like the pronunciation of certain words and the accents are completely different which is a real bug bear of mine

Peter V. Brett is a genius! The plot, his style of writing everything! I have read this series many times but decided to try the audio for when I'm driving. Role on the next book release!
The Colin the narrator is amazing, really captures the essence of the characters with varying accents and tones. The only thing I would say about the audio is it may be a little difficult to keep up with characters and the language and wording of the different cultures, a lot of the names and words can sound quite similar so may be easy to mix up, as read before this wasn't a problem for myself but could be to someone else. I suggest maybe acquiring the books and having a look at the translations in the back, very interesting.
Anyone else hoping to see this on screen?!?!?!?