- Title:
- The Goblin Queen
- Author:
- Simon Carr
- Release:
- December 9, 2021
- Format:
- Audiobook
- Narrator:
- Jennifer Pratt
- Series: Apocalypse blockers #6 of 20
First of all, despite the cover looking like something my grandmother would have picked off the shelf for me when I was 10; this is probably something most parents wouldn’t want their kids reading. It’s vile, vulgar, and full of crude humor that people without a decent sense of humor will scoff at. It’s peppered with meta references ranging from Lord of the Rings to racial, political correctness, and politics. While those might go over younger readers heads, I doubt most parents would be happy with mentions of rape, torture, and constant cussing.
The writing style and humor were very reminiscent of Vaughn Ashby’s Aurora Wasteland literary universe. While most jokes had me chuckling or outright laughing, there was a decent number that were alright but didn’t get a reaction out of me. I found the story to be hilarious overall, though I also have somewhat of a crude sense of humor, so it may not be everybody’s cup of tea.
If you’re worried that you need to read the entire series to follow along, don’t be. I didn’t even know this was part of a series until after I listened to it. I didn’t have any trouble following along.
As far as issues with the book, the only thing I took issue with is a character who is referred to as putting his hand on his “stomach”. Your stomach is an internal organ. If you’re able to put your hands on it, you have a serious medical issue. And that’s not being nitpicky. Nobody refers to putting their hand on their head as “putting my hand on my brain”. That would be absurd.
For the audio narration, I’d put it on the low end of passable. While the character voices were decent, there were a couple of instances where the character voices sounded too similar, or sounded like the scene-setting. While several of the characters had incredibly distinct voices, others sounded outright effortless and the scene-setting was what I took the most issue with. It was dull and lifeless, there wasn’t any emphasis put on any situations that made it stand out.
At one point the book narrator was losing their shit, but the audio narration didn’t match the tone, so it felt lackluster. When a character was yelling, the narrator wasn’t yelling, they were just speaking in a way that sounded like they were trying to mimic yelling while remaining quiet. On top of it all, there were at least 4 instances of repeated dialogue that I noticed, which were distracting and showed a lack of quality control.
If you read a few reviews and decide this book is for you, I’d suggest the eBook or physical releases. The audio narration isn’t quite there.
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.