The Dragon’s Eye (Erec Rex Book 1) by Kaza Kingsley

Rating: 5

The Dragon's Eye (Erec Rex)The Dragon’s Eye (Erec Rex)

Author: Kaza Kingsley
Reader: Simon Jones
Extra: Introduction by author Kaza Kinglsley in which she explains how she got the idea of Erec Rex and some of her process of creating the first book.

Short Review: Entertaining fantasy in which a 12 year old boy discovers a parallel but hidden world of magic. Fun characters plus a great reader makes for a captivating audio book.

Long Review: Kingsley has created a rich tapestry of a world which our protagonist Erec and his new friend Bethany must learn to navigate in order to find and rescue his mother. There are many mysterious things going on, and Erec and Bethany make a great team (along with a few other new friends) to unravel what must be done while finding their proper place in this new world. There are some nice messages here about taking advantage of your own gifts and doing the right thing for others. Jones is a great reader with distinct voices for each character and good pacing.

While some may look at Erec Rex and only see a Harry Potter clone, I found an inventive, fun story about a young man discovering a magical world in which things are not quite right. Yes, Erec is twelve and has to go through a magical competition in which he must compete with much more advanced magical children (some of whom are mean bullies), but there is plenty to this story to distinguish it from the world of Hogwarts.

The best plug I can give for this book is that my six year old son absolutely loved it. He was willing to sprawl on the floor of the living room for hours listening intently. Attempts to turn off the book were greeted with tears and pleading for more. One thing to note is that my son rated The Dragon’s Eye as ‘less scary’ than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (which in my son’s world was a good thing). While he only got a few chapters into the 2nd Harry Potter book before setting it aside – he flew through the next 2 Erec Rex books. When I catch up to him I will post reviews of them here of course!

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The Precipice by Ben Bova (The Asteroid Wars)

Rating: 4.5

The Precipice by Ben BovaThe Precipice (The Asteroid Wars)

Author: Ben Bova
Readers: Scott Brick, Amanda Karr, Christian Noble, Karesa McElheny and Stefan Rudnicki(with a cameo by Theodore Bikel)

Short Review: Well-woven story set in a not-too-distant-future full of corporate intrigue and environmental chaos, both on earth and in colonized outer space. The amazing readers bring our cast of characters to life – I highly recommend it and am scheming for when I can start the next book in the sequence.

Long Review: The story is set in a not so far off future in which earth has hit what they call a “Greenhouse Cliff”. After decades of ignoring global warming, the balance of earth’s environment has gone over the edge leaving behind rapidly melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, flooding and violent weather of all types. The moon has been colonized, science and technology have made dramatic breakthroughs, governments are still generating more red tape and tycoons still want to make more money. Different countries are tackling the increasing number of disasters in their own ways, but you get a strong sense that all this is too little too late. Some folks seem to have found this book a bit too preachy on the woes of global warming and imminent worldwide natural disasters, but for me it worked well as the backdrop to the story being told. Ultimately, a lot of our story takes place up on the moon or on space ships.

What I love most about this story are the people. I especially appreciate that it was not immediately obvious to me who was meant to be the “good guys” or the “bad guys”. The story isn’t that simple. People aren’t that simple. Bova has done a fine job with giving us individuals with strengths and weaknesses. Some of them you would love to get to know over dinner, some you likely would give a lot to avoid – but the way their stories intertwine (plus the suspense and intrigue about how it all will turn out) should keep your attention.

Each shift in point of view is accompanied with a change in reader. I am not sure I always understood the logic behind the selection of which narrator used for each section or why music was included sometimes and not others – but overall it worked. After a while of listening to audio books, a familiar voice is like an old friend. Seeing Scott Brick’s name listed on this book immediately boosted my confidence that it was likely going to be a good listen – and I was obviously not disappointed.

This is just the first volume in the Asteroid Wars series and I am excited to move on to the next book and find out what Bova has in store for us. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Local Custom by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Local Custom

Author: Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Reader: Michael Shanks

Short Review: Star crossed lovers set in an intricately woven universe including space ships, elements of magic and linguistics. The reader needed someone to insist on better pacing in an otherwise very solid performance.

Long Review: The list of things I enjoyed about this audio book is fairly long. Deeply developed characters with a solid back story, a carefully crafted universe and enough suspense to keep you guessing.

Often with a story like this, the author is tempted to start too early – but Lee and Miller toss us into the middle with fine results. I love books with compelling characters, and on that front this one definitely delivers. I care about the whole lot of them. I want everything to work out, but am not quite sure how it might. I also like that just when I was getting frustrated by the lack of communication between characters, one of them steps forward and starts dealing. Much of the fabric of this story is tied up in how hard it is to communicate with someone who cannot totally understand local customs. Even the learned linguist who can manage to navigate conversations that require careful use of  just the right ‘voice’ cannot anticipate culturally based responses to her actions.

It was only after I had finished listening to this book that I realized that it is in fact Book 1 of a full series set in the Liaden Universe. It does not seem that any others are available (yet) in audio form, but I like the story enough that I plan to read the rest on paper.

The biggest drawback to this audio book was getting used to the reader. Michael Shanks, who portrayed Dr. Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1, does a fine job with the actual reading and voices.  My frustration is with his phrasing. The first time he shifted to a new character’s point of view I was very confused for a minute or two until I figured out that I was now hearing someone else’s thoughts. I often experienced a sort of point of view whiplash throughout the book.

I haven’t seen this book in paper – but a quick peek Local Custom on Amazon.com shows me that there are in fact numbered chapters and paragraphs separated by extra space. There is no mention of chapters and no pauses between sections. It sometimes felt like he was in a rush to keep moving through the book. I was able to adjust to this odd pacing, but your mileage may vary. You can download the first three chapters for free from the Buzzy Multimedia page for Local Custom, so you can easily see if this bothers you before you purchase it.

I wish they could re-edit it and just add in more pauses and chapter breaks. It would bring this book up to a five star experience.

Free Audiobook Short Stories from Barnes and Noble!

Barnes and Noble is offering nine audiobook versions of short stories by wonderful authors absolutely free! The books appear to cost a penny each at first (still a steal), but when you check out you won’t be charged a single penny. You do need to create an account on barnesandnoble.com to get the freebies, but you can associate it with a paypal account if you prefer. They’re only available for a few weeks. Run! Go! Get free books! Your ears demand it!

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

james  James and the Giant Peach

Author: Roald Dahl

Reader: Jeremy Irons

Short Review: One of my favorite Dahl books, read enchantingly by the inimitable Jeremy Irons.

Long Review: I love Dahl in general and this story in particular. It’s a wonderful book that manages to reward the main character’s kindness, and bravery, punish his evil aunts, exemplify great comic poetry, and lionize bugs. It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s filled with black humor . . . it has so many things to recommend it as a book read on paper. Irons’ narration makes it even better. He throws himself so completely into the reading, building excitement, savoring the poetry, playing with accent and pronunciation, and just generally having such a great time that I couldn’t help but have a great time listening to him.

I know the book itself has been challenged a number of times as inappropriate for children, but I think the claims against it are ridiculous. Yes, the two villains are criticized for their body types, but no more so than would a woman in any fashion magazine. Yes, there is profanity in it, as well as smoking and drinking–big deal. The world is full of all three, and kids know it. The book has also been attacked because it encourages children to rebel against adults. I think that is perhaps the truly telling attack: many people are so busily wishing kids would just do what they’re told and forget there are times when children absolutely need to rebel against adults who are wronging them. My heart soars each time I think of James breaking the yoke thrown on him by his evil aunts and finding friends who appreciate his cleverness and bravery.

I love the book. I’ll listen to it again, and I’ll share it with my nieces and nephew. If their parents complain about anything in the book, I’ll have a hard time working up an apology.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

dress1 Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Author: David Sedaris

Reader: David Sedaris

Short review: One of Sedaris’ best books of essays and stories, read tenderly and hilariously and scathingly by the author. Several pieces are live performances, and many of them are downright great.

Long review: I’m a fan of David Sedaris, and this book has a lot to do with that. This time around, he includes more stories about his family and growing up in North Carolina, including some really poignant pieces about his own weaknesses. “Repeat After Me” is particularly important to me, because Sedaris deals with his guilt and his family’s anguish over being used as fodder for his work. Sedaris is generally funny, but he’s also clearly a man who loves his family and isn’t particularly comfortable with the way he exposes them to scrutiny by writing about them. I love that about him, in part because I’m always terrified that I’ll hurt my family and friends in my own (nowhere near as successful) writing.

“Six to Eight Black Men” is a side-splittingly funny story about Dutch Christmas traditions. Sedaris’ pieces about travel and other cultures always get me, but this one succeeds because of both how very ridiculous the traditions seem to Americans and the reaction of the live audience.

Sedaris’ significantly-younger brother Paul is perhaps the star of this book. He features in two great stories: “Rooster at the Hitchin’ Post,” about Paul’s wedding, and “Baby Einstein,” about Paul’s daughter’s birth. The first is read in front of a live audience, which I particularly appreciate. Within the confines of the stories, the contrasting sexuality and temperaments of the two Sedaris brothers make for a wonderful dichotomy. Paul pokes at David’s homosexuality (referring to him as “Big gay hoss”) and David explains that his would-be macho brother is short and sloppy, with a higher voice than David’s nasal high tenor. The portrayal could seem cruel in another writer’s voice, but David Sedaris skewers himself right along with his little brother to keep things fair. But it all seems loving. Sedaris’ constant turns from the sweetness of love and birth to the family’s odd jokes about kids’ names, sexuality, in-laws, and the like keep the pace moving quickly and allow the shock of his humor to build over and over again.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Rating: 5

metalk Me Talk Pretty One Day

 Author: David Sedaris

 Reader: David Sedaris

 Short Review: Sedaris’ funny, self-deprecating, heart-breaking stories about moving to France with his partner Hugh, learning French, his family, and his own flaws and experiences. The author reads his own work in his distinctive voice, never flinching as he excoriates himself either in front of a live audience or alone in a studio. Sedaris is an amazing, brave writer and reader. I’ve listened to this particular book three or four times, and I know I’ll keep returning to it.

Long Review: I adore Sedaris’ stories. I learned of his work listening to his pieces on NPR’s This American Life. I’ve read several of his books on paper, but because I fell for this writer reading his own work, I truly prefer his audiobooks to their paper siblings.

There are a few real standouts in the book. My favorites are “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” a description of his traumatic time in a French class taught by a heartless misanthrope; “Jesus Shaves,” a recounting of his French class’ strange discussion about how holidays are celebrated in their home countries; “A Shiner Like a Diamond,” about his sister Amy’s habit of transforming herself into strange characters and how it tortures their father; “The Youth in Asia,” about the Sedaris family’s relationship to their pets; and “I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing,” about his father’s strange views on food and frugality.

Some listeners may be put off by some of Sedaris’ topics. He openly discusses some medical and dental issues that may gross out the delicate. He’s gay and out, and there are some people who still take offense at that for whatever reason, though I doubt they’d settle on Sedaris’ work for entertainment in the first place. And he openly discusses some very self-destructive drug use when he was a student. None of those things throw me, though. It’s his honesty that makes me love Sedaris’ work so much, and I have a deep-seated appreciation for people who describe their faults without hesitation.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Rating: 2

lost The Book of Lost Things

Author: John Connolly

Reader: Steven Crossley

Short Review: A decent book with a major flaw, read beautifully by Steven Crossley. Connolly’s book starts out as a promising depiction of the interior life of a bookish, depressed boy with apparently undiagnosed epilepsy and OCD. Unfortunately, it continues on into an all-too-familiar series of retellings of classic fairytales, several of which villanize women for no clear reason. I expected and hoped for more from the book itself. Thankfully, I truly enjoyed Crossley’s narration, and allowed it to carry me through a book that otherwise left me scratching my head and feeling disappointed and maligned.

Long Review: I’m a true mythology buff, so I’ve read many books that recast fairytales and myths in new lights. Some authors do a wonderful job with such work–Neil Gaiman, Angela Carter, Anne Sexton, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and T.H. White all come to mind as masters. But many others can’t meet the task and end up producing novels that can’t match the wonder of the original tales or modernize them in interesting, contemporary ways. I think Connolly’s book falls in that later group.

There are some shining moments in the novel. I love David’s wondrous relationship to books, and how that connects him to his mother, arguably the only positive female character in the book. Her explanation of how real stories feel about the inconsequential stories in newspapers is lovely, and will stay with me. The end of the book is also very appealing to me. I love thinking of the adult David continuing to serve books and being a good man, once all is said and done. In general, I think Connolly is a good writer with a good sense of pace and language. I think his take on sibling rivalry is interesting, as is his vision of a child’s relationship to reality, fantasy, and death. While I was listening early on, I enjoyed the book and the narration equally. It was when I was thinking about the book between listenings that I became frustrated.

What truly disappoints me is the misogynist twist Connolly gives most of the tales used in his book. Every major female character other than David’s mother is criticized for her eating habits or weight, sexual choices, appearance, strength, weakness, hunger . . . it’s too much and too common in the book to ignore. Two persistent villains are male, yes, but we expect a werewolf and a Trickster to be villains. I won’t quibble about the child-eating witches who show up in the book as villains, since they were villains in the original forms of the tales. But was it really necessary for Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and all of the other women who show up in the book to be morphed into disgusting, senseless villains? Even Rose, David’s step-mother, is attacked for eating too much and having sex out of wedlock. What is that about? Could Connolly think of no way to retell or change those classic tales without turning all of the female central characters into monsters? Why could none of the kind characters in the book who help David in the other world be female? It really makes me wonder about the author’s views on women. Over and over again, the misogyny forced me out of the story. If Connolly needed to make so many women villains, he should have given more thought to why he needed to do so and addressed that in the book. As it is, the thread seems to reveal more about Connolly than it does about David, and it leaves me loath to bother with the rest of Connolly’s catalog.

As angry as Connolly’s misogyny makes me, I stuck with the book because Crossley’s reading is downright beautiful. I fell for him as a narrator with In The Woods. If anything, his work improves with this novel. His voice is clear and layered, his diction is great, and he voices the different characters distinctly without making too much fuss. I will absolutely seek out more books read by Crossley. I wish we’d set up our review system here at Books For Ears so we review books and readers separately: Crossley gets five stars, Connolly gets 2, max.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Rating: 5

charlie Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

Author: Roald Dahl

Reader: Eric Idle

Short Review: Dahl’s award-winning children’s book read wonderfully by Eric Idle.

Long Review: Eric Idle does a fantastic job with the book. Fantastic. He’s a man who understands humor, kids, storytelling, and his own vocal and acting abilities. I picked this up at the library expecting a nice nostalgic trip back to Dahl’s universe. I knew Idle would do a good job, but I also knew I’d read this book many times, and had it read to me, and seen a couple of film adaptations of the story. I didn’t expect to be blown away by a book that blew me away when I was 6.

I should have known that Eric Idle would knock it out of the park. His diction is great, his accents are great, and he developed distinctive voices for each character. He doesn’t hold back at all–his reading is energetic and funny and passionate in all the best ways. I laughed out loud at several points while listening (which can be problematic when you commute via public transit like I do), so I can imagine that an engaged kid would be rolling around on the floor laughing at choice moments.

I don’t have kids, but I wouldn’t hesitate to play this for my nieces or nephew, who range in age from 5 though 12. There are a couple of words in the book that some parents may not want their children to hear–”ass” is used to refer to human anatomy at one point, and I’m sure some other words passed my notice. The book has received some sharp criticism over the years both for long sections describing the Bucket family’s poverty and for the depiction of bratty kids who receive strange punishments. I happen to think such criticisms are silly and give children too little credit for their strength, sensitivity, and abilities to reason and think in the abstract. You may want to take my opinion with a grain of salt, however, since I’m the type of liberal Auntie who almost always comes down in favor of a child’s autonomy and freedom. I am an Auntie who grew up with a bookshelf full of Dahl, Seuss, Tolkein, Sendak, L’Engle, and the like, afterall, so I guess it’s to be expected.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Rating: 3

anathem Anathem

 Author: Neal Stephenson

 Reader: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, Neal Stephenson

 Short Review: A pretty good but overly long book from one of my favorite authors, read less-than-ideally. This alternate future tale depicts a world where the intellectual elite are forcibly cloistered in pseudo-monastic communities around the world where they’re free to think and learn but denied access to many technologies and to “saecular,” (i.e., non-intellectual) society. The protagonist Fraa Erasmus is layered and likeable, but the book could stand to lose a couple of hundred pages and the narration isn’t as good as it should be. In this instance, I think I would have preferred the paper book to the audio book.

Long Review: This book has gotten a lot of attention on the web. Stephenson is a very important, very good sci-fi writer, and his work is particularly popular among web monkeys like me. He wrote The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, i.e., oh-my-god-the-best-sci-fi-book-everrrrr. My heart breaks to criticize him. He’s brilliant, and he writes great women and interesting plots, and he clearly knows more about science than I do, so I won’t criticize him there. But, sometimes, he needs to be reigned in. It feels like he just plain wasn’t this time. I don’t shy away from long books. I love long books, as long as their length is merited. This time around, Stephenson came up with a huuuuuge concept and fleshed out every little bit of it. I wish he’d paired things down.

Stephenson has a habit of going on tangents that get a bit out of hand. Some of the tangents, like the those about mythology in Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, amuse me to no end. In Anathem, some of the tangents were less appealing to me because they tended to be about mathematical theory, but in an alternate reality where each theorem has a different name. It just got to be a bit much. But, I’m a mythology buff and not a math buff, so another reader could have the opposite reaction.

Most of the major characters in this novel are compelling and likable, which is perhaps its greatest strength. Erasmus, Orolo, Ala, Lio, Jad, Sammann, Cord, and Yul are the kind of people who should populate more books. So many sci-fi and fantasy writers can only write plot, and fill their plots with little more than thumbnail sketches of people. Stephenson gives a lot of thought to his characters. He ends up constructing personalities we want to continue to follow, ever after hundreds of pages with them.

My biggest complaint about this book is the narration. William Dufris, who does the lion’s share of the narration, uses some inflections and has reading habits that really, really annoy me. In moments of tension, Dufris uses volume changes and breathiness to impart emotion rather than, you know, emotion. The result is swaths of text that are hard to understand because his attempts to emote just end up being hard to hear. Over and over, I’d be happy with the narration for ages and then I’d smack right into another instance of over-wrought, odd readings. It made my ears itch. And because this is a very long book, each instance bothered me more than the last, and each made me like the audiobook less. In all fairness, the spaces between these instances were generally good. I’d be fine with Dufris for an hour or two, and then I’d want to throttle him, and then my annoyance would pass and I’d forgive Dufris until . . . Remember, this is 32.5 hours of listening. Even if Dufris was annoying for only 5 percent of that time, that’s a lot of time with itchy teeth.

There are other narrators, who largely serve as the voice of a dictionary, introducing new words at chapter openings. Tavia Gilbert read from the dictionary several times, and her voice is wonderful. I will seek her out in other audio books. Neal Stephenson also reads some of the definitions, and I vastly preferred his narration to Dufris’. Whenever Stephenson would read a portion of the book, I would latch onto his voice and wish he’d continue for the rest of the work.

All in all, this is perhaps my least favorite book of Stephenson’s, and I’m not happy with the main reader. It is the longest audio book I’ve listened to, and I knew that the whole time I was listening. I couldn’t forget its length. Far too often, it felt like a lengthy homework assignment rather than an enjoyable passtime.