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Sixty-One Nails

The Courts of the Feyre, Book 1

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Sixty-One Nails

By: Mike Shevdon
Narrated by: Nigel Carrington
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About this listen

There is a secret war growing beneath the streets of London. The immense Sixty-One Nails follows Niall Petersen, from a suspected heart attack on the London Underground, into the hidden world of the Feyre, an uncanny place of legend that lurks just beyond the surface of everyday life. The ancient peoples are at war - but is Niall really the one who can wield the dark magic of the Untainted, and save them all?

Mike Shevdon lives in Bedfordshire, England, with his wife and son, where he pursues the various masteries of weapons, technology, and cookery. His love of fantasy & SF started in the '70s with C. S. Lewis, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov and continued through Alan Garner, Ursula Le Guin, and Barbara Hambly. More recent influences include Mike Carey, Phil Rickman, Neil Gaiman, and Robert Crais, among many others. He has studied martial arts for many years, mainly aikido and archery. Friends have sometimes remarked that his pastimes always seem to involve something sharp or pointy.

©2012 Mike Shevdon (P)2014 Audible Ltd Fantasy Fiction England Heartfelt War
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The reader is overly dramatic in places, which jusy feels awkward. And the book itself is a little ho hum. I finished it but it could have been way shorter and really not suffered for it

Overly dramatic reading of dullish story

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Interesting story, fairly typical in the urban fantasy genre but good fun and interesting right from the start

Easy listen

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The plot is reasonable, but definitely a slow burn. Being the first book in a series, and the first by the author, some allowance should be made. Even so, the writing is wordy, to say the least and the 13 hours could easily have fitted into ten. It is not necessary to share the complete, very slow (and often frankly idiotic) thought processes of each participant in an argument! This is not helped by the very slow tempo which, even at 1.15 speed, dragged. The narration is good in other aspects.
I made it through this book but unless I can get the others on special offer, I will stick to Ben Aaronovitch and Jodi Taylor's excellent series in this genre.

Sixty-one nails

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If you could sum up Sixty-One Nails in three words, what would they be?

Neverwhere meets Fayre

Who was your favorite character and why?

Well, i'd say the protagonist Nial, i think every decision he made i would of done the same, and i found him to be a very believable character, given the very unbelievable situation he finds himself in.

Have you listened to any of Nigel Carrington’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Not that i recall, but this was very good.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Probably the hammer scene , no spoilers though.

Any additional comments?

I would have to say that after going through as much of the fantasy section in Audible as i could find this one is up there with the better of them. Its not quite as good as lets say Name of the Wind, but it's certainly as good as the likes of Neverwhere... i hope this review inspires some people to give it a go, you don't be disappointed.

Suprised it had no reviewers

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I was expecting, if not plagiarism at least an imitative version of Neverwhere. I was wrong. The story has vague similarities but nothing more. I found it really exciting and wanted to find out more. It was difficult to stop listening because I thought an explanation or justification was just coming. I enjoyed the story and, as a fan of fantasy fiction, found it plausible. Will listen to more.

Better than expected, intriguing and dramatic.

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