Lord of the Fire Lands by Dave DuncanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Narration: Passable
This story was billed as a stand-alone part of a larger series and it seems like it lives up to that promise (which is good, because I have not read any of the other books). The Norse World Building was actually pretty decent; how it was done much less so ... To start with, there was a crap ton of talking and very little action in the beginning (Elevating the art of Info Dumping to a ridiculous level). Unfortunately, the narration actually made this worse. Then after introducing the main characters in part 1, the story then dives down a rat hole with some dude named Gerard (its was not clear to me that the next 11 freaking chapters were a flashback from a POV that was not really a character in the story ... Who does that?)... regardless, Gerard seems to be there just to give some overly detailed background that served no purpose that I could detect. Sometimes more is not better.
It was not until half way through the book that the flashbacks end and we finally get to the actual story. Fortunately, although I was tempted, I had not abandoned the book. This is where the story finally gets interesting (feel free to skip Parts 2 thru 5 ... you won't miss much). The story then picks up with Raider and Wasp on the run trying to piece together exactly who the bad guys are and why (this was the story that I was expecting). It's a fair story that includes individual conflict and some simplistic political intrigue, but using 'magic' to solve most of the mystery with a ghostly soliloquy seems a bit lazy to me. Add to that a ridiculous ability to get the bad guys to admit their wrong doing at sword when they pretty much know that they won't survive the encounter (like a bloody TV show where we get a confession as soon as the bad guy is arrested). Still, it would have secured 3 stars if not for having to suffer through the first half of the book.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
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