The Digital Renaissance: Review: Lost Kingdom

Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Review: Lost Kingdom

Lost Kingdom by Terry Maggert
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An entertaining take on the Lost World (Not terribly surprising given the title right). The Hero stumbles into a lost world that represents some ‘undeveloped’ past in human history … in this case, something about the planet is causing tech to eventually fail, so you have an interesting mix of failing tech and primitive civilization where the new comer (Our Hero) has certain advantages (like an embedded AI and smart surveillance drones). Most of the humor is provided by the interaction between Nathan (Hero) and Cora (AI) and is fairly fun without being too over the top.

There are s few mysteries to work out as you learn more about the world and the mysteries ‘cable’ that runs along the big river around which all civilization is dependent. Throw in an alien race or two (along with an apparent indigenous aquatic race) and there is plenty to pull you through the rather predictable story with a few twists and turns to keep it interesting. There are only a few plot lines; but they take so long to converge that switching between them actually distracts instead of advances the plot (the secondary story of the northern kingdom seems more about world building until the end). Some of these could use more attention to building up context to make them more interesting earlier.

The narration was pretty good; the only caveat would be female and child voices were not as differentiated as others I have listened to, but he makes up for that with excellent cadence and delivery. Over all I think it improved the story and made it worth a listen.

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

#LostKingdom #AudiobookEmpire #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.