My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, May 23, 2024

Review: Brave Rider

Brave Rider Brave Rider by Harvey Goodman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ***

A Quick Feel Good Western

It is pretty much like you would expect from a clean western story. Just an average dude trying to be good in the Ole West despite desperadoes taking advantage of a general lawlessness as Americans begin to move into the new western territories. In this case, the MC manages to find work riding for the pony express, but before too long, end up convalescing with a tribe of native Americans … with the expected trope running true to form … which undermines any potential for edge of your seat drama … especially when there really isn’t a specific bad guy or major identifiable conflict. The research seems to be pretty good though, and this does help make the story more interesting to me.

The performance was okay as well. Character accents were good, but the range and timbre of the voices was pretty limited. Still better than having Alexa read it to you … although the default voice was a bit rushed and the enunciation was lazy enough that I missed heard a few words that confused me for a time.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#BraveRider #FreeAudiobookCodes #KindleUnlimited

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.