- Title:
- Absalom: The Legend of Aerrow Fionn
- Author:
- Mychaila A. Rose
- Release:
- November 16, 2021
- Format:
- Audiobook
- Narrator
- Benjamin Fife
- Series:
- The Legend of Aerrow Fionn #1
There’s much to dislike about this book. First of all, it drags ass. It takes fucking forever to say nothing, giving me the impression the author wanted to write a thick fantasy novel, and didn’t have the story and lore to pad it out. 29% of the way in and a grand total of fuck-all has happened. The one exciting moment was when the main character was in a trial, and shit went sideways for a few minutes. Then it was back to….
I always want to reference the first episode of an online machinima I love, called “Red vs. Blue.” where the character Church says “Okay, okay, look… they’re just standing there and talking, okay? (getting angry) That’s all they’re doing. That’s all they ever do, is just stand there and talk. That’s what they were doing last week, that’s what they were doing when you asked me five minutes ago. So, five minutes from now, when you ask me, “What are they doing?” my answer’s gonna be, “They’re still just talking, and they’re still just standing there!”[Citation]
The first-person PoV is really fucking grating as well. It leads to paragraphs of “I did this. I did that, I did that, I did this. Then I did this. I thought that, then I thought this.” First of all, who the mother-fuck is this guy constantly expositioning shit to as it’s fucking happening!? And he’s just an insufferable fuck. Being stuck in this jackasses head is fucking irritating. In one scene, he asks his dragon a question. The dragon tries to answer. MC interrupts his dragon with a question. And then we get the line ” ‘You didn’t let me finish…’ she interrupted.” What a fucking douchebag! I wish this dragon would eat this fucking prick.
I have mixed feelings about this narration. Overall, there’s certainly a bit of skill and talent present, but it’s not good enough. There are instances of repeated dialogue here and there as well.
The voice used for the scene-setting is the same (or so close I can’t tell the difference) as the main character’s internal monologue, the king, and his general. While the main character and his dragon’s voices are different. It’s a royal pain in the fucking ass to ever tell who is talking because of it. The scene-setting voice in general tends to be very monotone and boring, making it easy to zone out. I’m DNF’ing this shit at 29% after accidentally mis-clicking in Audiobookshelf and losing my place. Skipping around and realizing I not only had no fucking clue where I left off, I’d zoned out for much of the boring-as-shit plot/narration, and only found out where I was because of a screenshot I’d taken previously.
The narrator also puts annoying emphasis on “wh” sounds, and pronounces them as “hwite”, “hwhispered”, “hwhile”, “hwhen”, and so on. Hwhitch is incredibly fucking annoying, and distracting as shit.
Back to what I said before about the plot. I think there’s something here, it’s simply padded out with too much FUCKING NOTHING for me to be invested. I’m 29% of the way in, and I want to continue, but the narration sucks. And if jack shit has happened in that (nearly) 30%, maybe it’s time to move on to another book. I can barely pay attention as it is, making it extra difficult at my usual 2.5x speed, and painfully slow at 2.0x speed. If this book wasn’t so ploddingly fucking slow, I’d keep listening. I wish there was either a better narrator, or a revised and trimmed down version I could listen to. ‘Cause the prospect of another 2 days or more of this shit is killing my desire to listen to fantasy or audiobooks right now.
NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.