Spellfire

Not Ed's Best Work

Would you try another book from Ed Greenwood and/or James Patrick Cronin?

Oddly, I enjoy reading/listen to Ed Greenwood's work. I usually find it mildly funny and charming in a high fantasy/young adult line of books. This one however, was just horrible from the start and stayed down the entire time.

James Patrick Cronin was abysmal. I have listened to JPC in other Realm's series (Brotherhood of the Griffon) and he wasn't bad. But, for some reason he destroys a few of the main characters here with a sloppy English accent. You'll never want to hear the word "Lady" (he pronounces it lay-day) again.

Has Spellfire turned you off from other books in this genre?

I'm over 50 books deep on FR on audible. I'll keep going but not with James Patrick Cronin.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of James Patrick Cronin?

Honestly, anyone would have been better. He mispronounces some of the names (people and places) and some of the characters sound horrible with his choice of voice. Of course, a narrator like Victor Bevine would have been much better.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Spellfire?

At 17 hours long... the first 4 hours are a confusing mess. Ed is known for this but it's long winded just to be long winded. I found myself starting and stopping the first 8 hours countless times just so I could stop hearing James Patrick Cronin and Ed's trivial scenes.

Any additional comments?

I have enjoyed both the narrator and author before but this book was very tough to get through. Perhaps reading this novel would have been a better choice. Listen to the preview (I don't know if JPC choice for Norm and Chandrill are in there... but they're bad).

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Takes a minute to get going, but worth it.

I'm going to get the worst parts out of the way. The narrator is nothing special. Often times he drones on in a complete monotone drudge, and my personal pet peeve with some narrators, he adds no emphasis, emotion, or intonation to the characters he's reading, so often times I have to mentally go back after a vocal scene, and replay it in my head with the correct emotional portrayal between the characters.

The story however is fantastic. it starts slow, but picks up at a quickening pace. By the end of the book, I was able to forgive bad narration in favor of how the actual story played out. As for the story let's not play dumb, this is a Dungeons and Dragons book. Specifically set in The Forgotten Realms. There is going to be silliness and some slapstick banter between The cast. In that regard it mimics well the banter you may see at a gaming table. But take the book and story for what it is, and you can enjoy it well.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

High fantasy

A well written entertaining fantasy tale filled with magic, monsters, evil mages plots, powerstrugles and dragons alive... and dead. Takes some little time to get into the story, but when there its very capturing. The narrator is doing a fantastic job to make all the characters, Elminster including, very alive.

Great Listen!

The different voices were excellent and made the story memorable. Elminister's voice seemed spot on for what I would envision.

could not finish

I have this saga in paperback that I read years ago and looked forward to listening to it, like I'm doing with all my Elminster and Drizzt books.
But this narrator has one of those voices that grates on my ears like nails on a chalkboard. can't even get past chapter 2.
This one made me start sampling the books first to listen to the voice so I don't waste another credit.

a silly child's book

Struggled to finish! It was hard to follow. Very silly! It had great potential but fell short.

This was better when I read it

Maybe I'm just spoiled by the more current readers, but why not horrible, this is lacking the quality I'm used to. Maybe it didn't get the same level of effort the new books get, but the reading drew more attention to the performance than the story sometimes.

I enjoyed the book back when it was new, and is pretty good if you like dungeons and dragon stories.

Better read than listen to.

Have liked the book since I first read it years ago. Writer is average but enjoyable enough. Reader is absolutely horrible to the point where it is almost painful to listen to. Pauses in awkward places and voices that don't fit and grating.

an overall satisfying read

my lady and I quite enjoyed listening to this before bed every night. A greqt book by Greenwood, and a solid introduction to the world of the Forgotten Reqlms. My only quibble might be the narration. Some of the voices aren't consistent and some of the accents seem ridiculously out of place (Brooklyn accent? really?).
Overall, worth the download

Good memories

I first read this book back in 1988. I enjoyed it then. I still do.