Beautifully written, pleasantly presented.. minor flaws.

Firstly, Guy Gavriel Kay is a masterful writer.. by the time you reach chapter 9 at least, you’ll agree with me. He has a brilliant way to collate image and emotions through such beautiful and poetic prose.. 30 years after originally reading this book, it still captivates and surprises me.

Yes, I originally read this book in the early 90s, and the memory of one particular chapter stuck with me from that time, as feeling like I was part of a dreamlike scene. Listening back to this version so many years later.. my opinion hasn’t changed. It’s beautifully written, if you can get past the initial premise. Let’s get to that shall we.

The initial story starts in our world with five bright and young Americans who are pulled to a strange new world of a more genre established fantasy. In this day and age, this could be considered cheesy to say the least.

However, the world to which these characters are drawn to, is so brilliantly realised that they could quite easily give G R R Martin a run for his money. The characters, the societies, the magic are brilliantly thought out!

As for the main characters, their individual journeys will have you hooked I promise.

Narration: the narrator does an excellent job of conveying the tone of this book through his pace and character voice. My only gripe would be his initial portrayal of the main female characters, which for some reason he chose to make them sound like small children. However, I said “initially” for a reason. Once the narrator truly starts to get a grip with the recording project, he clearly realises the importance of the female characters and gives them more tone and seriousness. I’m sure he’d agree with me on that one!

Anyway. I really recommend this book if you want a fantasy with a more adult tone. It’s not quite Game of Thrones, but then again, it’s not quite “Not” Game of thrones. It’s an adult fantasy with brilliant character writing. You will enjoy!

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Took effort

I had to restart this 3 times. I don't know if it was the narrator or the story itself but it seemed so jumbled at the start. Lots of characters, lots of jumping around. It comes together at the end and I always enjoy listening to Simon Vance.

The next book is also included on the plus catalogue so I'm going to continue on with the series as I know the author is very popular.

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I can't decide

I am aware that Simon Vance is an experienced narrator, and his storytelling is fine. But. Voices. Doesn't work for me. Am I the only one? Or I am just spoiled by Steven Pacey, I don't know. I think I would like this book so much more with a different narrator.

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1 person found this helpful

Great story but you have to concentrate and pay attention

This is a great book but it’s not one you can wander about listening to whilst doing other tasks. If you don’t concentrate you will loose what going on. I’m about to start the second one, I shall see how it goes.

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Fabulous

I absolutely loved this trilogy. Narration was excellent! Took a while though to get into it.

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great character based story, classic feel

classic feeling story that is quite character based, bit of a slow burn in the begining but as it goes on you become quite invested in the fates of the character's, looking forward to the next one.

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1 person found this helpful

Love the story, not so much the narrator

I am in awe of Guy Gavriel Kay and in what he does in this trilogy. I loved the story, characters, and the pacing. Not so much the narrator of this audiobook.

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Rekindled teenage memories.

After reading Lord of the Rings as a teenager and being totally encapsulated by it, I was thirsty for stories of the same ilk. The Summer Tree certainly more than achieved that. Loved this book as a teen. Now hearing it read brilliantly by Simon Vance the story comes alive once again. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended.

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3 people found this helpful

Disappointing

I think the actual storyline had great promise, but it just came over as extremely tedious to me. The pace is slow and the narration uninspiring. I was just glad that I hadn’t paid to listen to this one

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100 words instead of 10 must you use

Great narration, but oh, very frustrating writing. good underlying plot and it definitely piques interest but somewhat frustrating using LOR type names (at length) and then ye olde English or Yoda speak when it isn't warranted, so just becomes annoying, then finally my biggest frustration is cramming as many (too many).descriptives into eveey sentence as humanly possible.
One section of the book stood out as excellent, and that is the section about the riders - well written, excellent emotive, not overly adjectivised - if the rest of the book had been written like this I would give 5 stars.

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