- Title:
- The Curse of Cain
- Author:
- Theophilus Monroe
- Release:
- January 25, 2022
- Format:
- Audiobook
- Narrator:
- Theophilus Monroe
- Series:
- The Vilokan Asylum of the Magically and Mentally Deranged 1 – 3
Hard pass…. I wish it was that simple, but that’s not a proper review. I like this literary universe, hell, I’d go as far as to say it’s one of my favorite literary universes. Behind the Bloodlines Reforged Saga, Aurora Wasteland Literary Universe, Relics of War series, and others I won’t name. I’ve been listening to the books from this series for several years now, almost as long as I’ve been reviewing, I think.
So when I say I dislike these 3 books, I must explain. I view this as a garbage chapter in an overall larger story. Cain is one of my favorite characters in this literary universe, alongside Mercy Brown and I feel this book did him a disservice. I think he’s an interesting character; as a side character. Apparently, he’s not nearly interesting enough to carry an entire series on his back.
All of these trials and tribulations he’s going through just aren’t interesting. And I’m not going to continue to elaborate on why, for one simple reason; The narration.
I am vehemently opposed to author narration. God–fucking-goddamn, I fucking hate author narrations. Overall, the state of this wonderful literary universe in audiobook format can be best summed up with two worlds. “This shit is a fucking train wreck.”…. I admit, that’s more than 2 words, but seriously. I’m fucking over it. While the story is told in a “Cain narrating the story” sort of way, that doesn’t solve the issue of every other character sounding more or less the same, which led to me getting bored and zoning out, losing the plot, and not even being able to scroll back because I didn’t know when I’d stopped paying attention.
If this were any other series, I’d DNF it. In fact, I think I did DNF one of the books in this literary universe because the narration was so inexcusably awful. I know audiobooks are expensive, I get that. But why are authors willing to slave over a keyboard to write these stories, edit them or pay for an editor, create or pay for a cover, publish them, etc., and then let hack narrators or cheap out on hiring a narrator at all and allow their books to be shit on by a terrible narration? I’ve said this many times, and I’ll say it again. Bad narrations ruin otherwise good stories. when every character, especially the women sounds like slightly different versions of the same voice, it’s distracting in the worst way. It’s boring and annoying and puts my mind to sleep. It goes from a story while I’m working to background noise for the sake of having background noise.
Again, I cannot fathom how expensive it would be to hire a full cast of narrators for a literary universe this vast. But if the alternative is to have different voice actors for every single book/series and half of them are unlistenable drek, then why fucking bother in the first place!?!? I want to purchase a physical copy of every book in this literary universe, but that provides me with several issues. 1) It’s expensive. 2) It takes up a lot of shelf space. 3) I’m a slow reader, and I spend most of my free time listening to stuff while I edit wikis. So I simply don’t have the time to read 35 (or however many) physical books. And when half of them are unlistenable, it’s saddening to me, as I’d love nothing more than to be able to shout from the rooftops about how much I love this literary universe, when in reality I have to say “It’s really good, but just buy the eBooks if you want to read them, ’cause most of the audiobooks are shit.”
The other issue is characters having different voice actors in every book in the world. So while I got used to Mercy Brown’s voice in my intro book to the world, I then had to adjust to her sounding totally different in another. Not just vocally, but their entire personality. This is a bit of a tangent but stick with me, as I believe it’s relevant.
For years on the show Supernatural, Mark Pellegrino played the fallen archangel Lucifer. As did Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins several times over the years. In one of the later seasons, “they” brought in a new actor to play Lucifer for a season and he was terrible. Not terrible at playing Lucifer the fallen Archangel, but Mark Pellegrino’s Lucifer. He came off as an entirely different person totally, personality-wise, and his speaking patterns and mannerisms were different. It didn’t feel like the Lucifer we’d known for 11 (or however the fuck many) seasons. And much like the Gates of Eden Literary Universe’s audiobooks, that’s EXACTLY what you have. The Mercy Brown in this audiobook wasn’t the Mercy Brown I’d cum to know and love. The man doing a poor female voice didn’t help, but in general, she felt like a hollow husk wearing her face.
Obviously, I enjoy this literary universe very much. If this were any other audiobook by nearly any other author, I’d have shitcanned it and wrote a “DNF, and here’s why.” post like I’ve done many times in the past. Maybe these books are more interesting than I give them credit for, but if/when I re-read them, it’ll be physical copies. ‘Cause I’m never going to listen to most of the audiobooks in this lit. universe ever again.
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.