wonderful!

I'm really enjoying this book. In the beginning I wasn't sure about Kish Sharma's narration, but as I kept listening, I started to appreciate him more and more. His renditions of the characters voices are perfect, and sometimes hysterically funny. The only (constructive) criticism I would have is that sometimes he goes too fast. The story itself is rich, evocative and fascinating. I highly recommend this.

8 people found this helpful

Use the replay speed facility

I was wondering if I could make it through this book. The narrator was galloping and I wasn’t catching names etc. I saw others had mentioned this in reviews. But then I found the speed setting for the replay. Set at 0.75 it slowed down sufficiently to not slur, and give me the detail and time to absorb comfortably. Huge difference. Great book....

4 people found this helpful

Excellent!

I really enjoyed this book! The reader is amazing! Pity the quality of the sound of the recording was muffled at times!

4 people found this helpful

Loved the book

Would you listen to Sea of Poppies again? Why?

I never listen to a book twice.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I loved this book, but I wonder if the narrator got a bonus for reading at twice the normal rate. I am glad to see that the second part of the trilogy is narrated by a different narrator.

3 people found this helpful

Didn't Finish

This is the first audio book I have not been able to finish. The narrator spoke much to quickly and words just mearged one into the other. I persevered for several chapters then gave up as I was having to rewind and listen to so many bits again to understand any of the story.

2 people found this helpful

A brilliant book....ruined by the narration

This is an absolutely cracking read, a story so vivid and sublime, I lived through the sailings, the islands, the laskars and everything unique about this period of the East India Company, indentured Indian coolies, opium trade with China and a lot more.
Unfortunately it is narrated extremely poorly. Kish Sharma absolutely gallops away and at time it’s a blur of slurred words. I had to listen at x0.8 to be able to understand anything. I suppose the reasons to select Krish Sharma could have been his Indian decent, but this doesn’t work at all. I speak the language well and it’s jarring to hear such poor accent and incorrect use of the words. Given that the book is full of Hindustani, Bhojpuri and Urdu this means a lot of words are painfully incorrectly pronounced.
I absolutely love the story and will definitely be downloading the next books. I am just extremely glad that the next book is read by a different narrator.

Not very audible

Unfortunately the story is lost in poor sound quality and mumbled reading. I gave up.

Brilliant storyteller

A wonderful story full of imagery of time and place. And the narrator's voice and pronunciation of some difficult foreign words brings the story alive.

I could listen too his voice forever and am disappointed to see he isn't the narrator for the next two novels in the trilogy.

I’m hooked

Totally engrossing story beautifully read. It’s a long book but I could have listened all over again. My only complaint is that each of the books in the trilogy are narrated by different readers. The voices of the characters have been lodged in my head now and just can’t bring myself to listen to new ones, so have decided to buy the next two books instead.

Excellent performance.

Kish is reads it so well, and makes it so visceral and real. Listening to the follow up, and it's awfully read. Going to buy the book and read it instead, because the performance is crap.