Tag: Full Cast

The Sandman – Act III (Audiobook), written by Neil Gaiman and performed by a full cast

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Comics/Manga, Extended Universe, Fantasy, Five-Star Books, Horror, Superhero, Tie-in Novel4 Comments

Publisher: Audible Original (Audiobook – 28 September 2022)

Series: The Sandman – Volume 3

Script: Neil Gaiman and Dirk Maggs (script adapter)

Director: Dirk Maggs

Length: 11 hours and 31 minutes

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Amazon

After falling in the love with the epic The Sandman comics thanks to their exceptional audiobook adaptations, I finally got to the third audiobook act in this exceptional series by Neil Gaiman, which was another amazing listen.

I have had an outstanding time listening to the first and second volumes of the audiobook adaptations of The Sandman comic.  Set partially in the DC universe, the original series, which started in 1989, is one of the most iconic comics of all time and features a unique adventure that only Neil Gaiman can come up with.  Following Dream, the anthropomorphic personification of dreams and human imagination, The Sandman is a truly amazing comic that blends horror, fantasy and superhero elements together.  Some people might be more familiar with the recent Netflix series that adapted the first couple of comics, and which has a second season on the way.

This series has proven to be extremely exceptional, with Act I perfectly introducing the characters and setting up the initial storyline, while Act II continues some of the key story points and places Dream against various foes, including Lucifer and other dangerous mythical figures.  Not only do these audiobooks feature an incredible story and powerful characters but they are brought to life by a truly awesome cast of celebrity actors and audiobook narrators who really lend their all to this performance.  As such, when going on a couple of fun road trips this year, Act III was a very easy choice to listen to, and I was extremely curious to see how this series would continue.

In a universe of strange and deadly creatures, many beings are considered immortal, but only seven siblings can truly claim to be endless.  The Endless, each a personification of a universal concept, are powerful and mesmerizing in their own way, but the most enchanting and mysterious is Dream.  Known by many names, including Morpheus, this being governs the Dreaming, a vast realm of creation’s collected dreams and stories, protecting the imagination that makes life worth living.  But circumstances outside of his control have set him on a dark path that not even he can escape from.

After being freed from captivity and deciding the future of Hell, Morpheus finds himself troubled by another failed romance, his own complex past, his previous monstrous decisions, and his often contentious relationship with his family.  Visited by his troubled youngest sibling Delirium, Dream embarks on an unusual quest alongside her to find their missing brother, the one member of the Endless to ever give up their role and responsibility, Destruction.  But their prodigal sibling does not wish to be found, and many obstacles lie between an Endless reunification.  To succeed in their quest, Morpheus will need to revisit the most painful chapter from his past.  However, no-one, not even a member of the Endless, comes away from a meeting with Destruction unscathed!

Unsurprisingly, Act III proved to be an exceptional listen, and I once again got wrapped up in the elaborate and compelling web of stories and characters that The Sandman is well known for.  Adapted once again by director Dirk Maggs and featuring all of Gaiman’s impressive storytelling and dark characterisations, The Sandman – Act III, was an outstanding listen, and one that I could not get away from.  Adapting the Brief Lives and Worlds’ End arcs of The Sandman comic, as well as several additional short stories, Act III was an exceptional addition to this series, especially with the truly exceptional voice cast.

Act III continues the same format and style of the previous The Sandman audiobook adaptations, with the comic broken into several distinctive parts to best tell the elaborate story from the comics.  The previously drawn adventures are brought to life here through a combination of excellent narration by Neil Gaiman, who covers many of the characters’ actions and movements, sound effects to represent other unseen elements, and the dialogue of the various characters, with their respective actors often describing the moments going on around them.  This results in an intriguing but complex listening experience, and with a runtime of 11 hours and 31 minutes, it is one that you can get through very quickly if you have the time.

This latest audiobook adaptation starts off in an interesting place with the short story The Song of Orpheus, which originally appeared in the Fables & Reflections collection of stories.  The Song of Orpheus is a fantastic retelling of the classic Greek myth of Orpheus, with the character reimagined as the son of Morphius and the muse Calliope, the latter of whom was featured in the story Calliope in the Dream Country collection (featured in the Act I adaptation).  Gaiman does an excellent job of bringing together the classic Greek mythology of the Orpheus legend with his own characters and the result is a seamless and complex tale.  Orpheus’ ill-fated marriage and journey to save his love is aided and hindered by the various members of the Endless, with Morpheus serving as a complex distant father figure.  The resulting story may seem familiar to those with knowledge of Greek mythology, but there are some added intriguing twists, and the inclusion of Gaiman’s characters ensure that there is even greater tragedy than the original Greek myth envisioned.

When I started this audiobook, I thought that The Song of Orpheus was interesting start to this act, and in hindsight it was quite a clever decision, as it sets up some of the other arcs extremely well.  The story ensures that listeners are well warned about the tragedy and elaborate storylines contained in Act III, while also drawing you in with its inventiveness and complexity.  It is also a brilliant production thanks to the combination of cast and background music effects.  Regé-Jean Page (of Bridgerton fame), proves to be an outstanding Orpheus, who stands as an interesting contrast to the other established voice actors of this story.  There are also some epic musical accompaniment and sound effects that prove vital in showcasing the full impact of this story, and which you honestly need when telling a story about the mythical musician Orpheus.  I felt that the musical elements of this chapter deeply helped to enhance the story, especially as there was some great sadness in the sound effects that mirrored the story.  This was honestly a very strong start to Act III, and I loved how well it led into the first main story, Brief Lives.

Brief Lives is a particularly epic main story arc for this audiobook which serves as both the plot and emotional heart of Act III.  Initially focusing on the incredibly fun character of Delirium, who we only briefly saw in Act II, Brief Lives sees Dream accompany his sister on a road trip to find their lost brother, Destruction.  This results in several intriguing mini story arcs as the mismatched and chaotic siblings travel through the mortal world, encountering their family, friends, and former associates of Destruction.  At the same time, sinister events begin to impact people associated with their search, and Dream must navigate the increased collateral damage his quest is incurring.

I really loved this arc, and I think that Brief Lives might be one of the stronger The Sandman storylines.  The road trip storyline with Dream and Delirium worked to tell this story in a fantastic manner, and I enjoyed how the author took the opportunity to quickly and effectively introduce new intriguing characters whose worlds become impacted by their interactions with the Endless.  The long-anticipated reveal about the missing Endless was great, and Gaiman loads in some intriguing examinations about family, destiny and duty.  Brief Lives is loaded with a great combination of dark mystery, the author’s gothic vibe, a fantastic layer of humour, and an intense amount of tragedy, all wrapped up with the most unique familial interactions you are likely to see in fiction.  The author takes the storylines in some interesting directions, and the resulting emotional richness proves very hard to ignore.  The ending of Brief Lives is particularly moving, with a resolution of family drama followed by additional tragedy millennia in the making.  This also proves to be quite a key story in the wider The Sandman story, with the consequences radiating out from the events of this road trip have chaotic impacts in the future.

I have to say that I was really impressed with how Brief Lives came together.  Not only does the elaborate story come across clearly and interestingly with the chapter split, but you really get drawn into every single supporting character that shows up.  I particularly enjoyed seeing Delirium getting a whole arc to shine in, and actress Kristen Schaal is perfect as the embodiment of personal chaos, bringing an immense childlike glee to the madcap antics of her character.  Schaal perfectly plays off the more serious characters in this story arc, and you can really feel the dancing chaos beneath the surface of her mind as well as how scattered and unconnected she is.  The reveal of Destruction as a character was also quite interesting, and I like the author’s take of him being a warm, thoughtful and entertaining destroyer, whose duty has deeply damaged him.  David Harewood brings some real compassion and charm to the role of Destruction, and I enjoyed how he played off the sarcastic talking dog Barnabas, voiced by veteran voice actor Harry Myers.  The portrayal of Brief Lives also makes excellent use of some musical accompaniment to enhance the emotional impact of the plot, including in some of the story’s heaviest scenes, and this ended up being the most compelling part of Act III to listen to.

The other major storyline in The Sandman – Act III, is the intriguing anthology storyline, Worlds’ End.  Like some of the previous arcs in The Sandman, Worlds’ End is more of an indirect addition to the plot, loaded with short stories that show snippets of Dream, the Endless, and other supporting characters, interacting with new and unique figures.  However, Worlds’ End is also quite distinctive, especially as Neil Gaiman surrenders his narrator duties in this arc, and instead features multiple guest narrators telling their own tales in a similar manner to The Canterbury Tales.  The plot of this arc starts with character Brant Tucker (voiced by Wil Wheaton) and his colleague crashing their car in a freak storm and then finding refuge in the mysterious Worlds’ End inn.  Within the inn, they discover multiple unusual travellers from across time and the realms, who have been scattered due to a reality storm and are seeking shelter.  To pass the time, the various guests tell stories based on their lives, which paint a complex tapestry of their experiences and the long-reaching influence of the Endless.

I have a lot of love for the various short stories that Gaiman fills The Sandman comics with, but I felt that the collection featured with Worlds’ End were some of his strongest.  There are five central stories featured within, and they each provide a complex and wildly different tale of life, loss and adventure, all set in the contexts of different worlds and experiences.  Gaiman manages to tell some complex tales in the short time he has with each entry, and the reader comes away with intriguing visions of these unique worlds and characters.  There are a few times where the narrative devolves into a story within a story, as narrators begin to recount tales that were told to them (and in a couple of cases you have a story within a story within another story).  However, even these prove to be very captivating, and it is a testament to how good a storytelling Gaiman is that readers can moved into multiple interlocking tales and still be intrigued by what is going on.  There is also a great mixture of tales here, from a Lovecraftian inspired dream tale, to a hilarious fantasy adventure told by a rambunctious Faerie, and even a classic nautical adventure tale of a handsome sailor boy, which features the return of fan favourite character Hob Gadling.  However, my favourite story was The Golden Boy, an intriguing retelling of the story of Prez Rickard, the teenage president protagonist of the classic, if short-lived, Prez comics, which proves to be quite entertaining and haunting, while also showing an idealised vision of America.

I felt that these five stories came across in a very organic way with the differing narrators, and it proved to be a lot of fun to experience the talents of several new or underutilised vocal talents in a strong way here.  Wil Wheaton was a great main narrator for the overarching story, and I felt he portrayed a good everyman character experiencing the unnatural for the first time.  Billy Boyd and Colin McFarlane both shine as narrators and central characters for their respective stories, and I quite enjoyed the performances of KJ Apa and Jon Culshaw in The Golden Boy, while Simon Jones was an impactful addition to the funeral-focused story Cerements.  These actors, and many others, helped to turn Worlds’ End into a compelling and distinctive arc, and I liked how effectively it contrasted with the other The Sandman arcs we have enjoyed.  This entire storyline ends on an ominous and prophetic note, as the listener is given a glimpse of major events to come, and Worlds’ End proved to be a great way to conclude Act III.

Overall, these main stories, as well as an additional couple of short stories, proved to be very impressive to read, and I love the complex plots and themes that the author tried to impart.  The continuation of a larger storyline, combined with multiple short stories that expands The Sandman universe, works to create an elaborate experience for the listener, and I deeply appreciate the immense imagination that Gaiman puts into his work.  The flow from larger, cohesive storylines to a series of shorter tales also works extremely well, and I love how the obvious palate cleaner short stories take on a compelling life of their own.  No matter how short, each of the stories in Act III were very well written, and the distinctive blend of dark storytelling, gothic imagination and complex characters makes for some addictive listening.  I especially love the recurring trend of normal humans, as well as other more supernatural beings, encountering the various Endless by chance, only to find their lives altered by the experience, often for the worst.  The often capricious nature of Dream, as well as some of his siblings, really comes through with Gaiman’s writing and the subsequent acting, and you cannot appreciate just how well-written these figures, and indeed the entire character cast of The Sandman, are, until you experience it for yourself.

Before we get to the end of this review, I must once again strongly compliment just how awesome these The Sandman audiobooks are.  Gaiman, Maggs and others do such an incredible job of converting the original comics into this new format, and all the original ideas, actions and compelling figures come across perfectly in the audiobook.  The combination of clever narration and on-point dialogue allows listeners to really appreciate the unfolding actions taking place, and effective sound effects add that extra layer of understanding.  Throw in some outstanding musical moments, which prove to be particularly impactful in Act III, and this entire audiobook hits the reader hard and ensures that are constantly caught up in the elaborate ideas of the original author.  All the storylines come across perfectly, with some slight alterations in the order they appear, and you really come away with an outstanding appreciation for The Sandman, even if you’ve never read the comics.

It goes without saying that Act III once again featured an incredible cast of actors and voice specialists, all of whom perfectly portray the characters they are assigned to.  I love how all the key stars from Act I and Act II, once again returned here, and their outstanding voices, combined with some awesome new figures, ensured that every word of this audiobook delighted its audience.  I have already mentioned a few key actors above, but I really want to once again highlight the outstanding recurring key cast, who do such a great job here.  Series lead James McAvoy is just perfect as Morpheus, and his resonate and powerful voice consistently captures the ethereal, arrogant, and thoughtful qualities of the titular protagonist every time.  It is such a pleasure to listen to McAvoy perform once again in Act III, and his excellent voice plays off every other actor in this audiobook so damn well.

Other key returning stars include Kat Dennings, who perfectly portrays Gaiman’s warmer, caring, female Death, who is frankly one of the best characters in the entire series.  Andy Serkis has a lot of fun as the raven Matthew, and his scenes with Dream and Delirium are hilarious.  Jeffrey Wright, Justin Vivian Bond and Miriam Margolyes each do an amazing job of bringing Destiny, Desire and Despair to life, and you can really feel their ancient power and alternating views of humanity.  Justin Vivian Bond’s portrayal of the feckless and fickle Desire is particularly noteworthy, and I love how well this unique character came across.  Multiple other actors and established audiobook narrators provide a range of compelling and memorable voices throughout Act III, including several of my favourite audiobook narrators like Ray Porter and Toby Longworth, and I loved every one of their voices.  Finally,  Neil Gaiman himself serves as an outstanding central narrator for much of the Act III.  Gaiman’s distinctive voice perfectly fits the gothic and mysterious vibe of The Sandman comics, and there is no-one else who could narrate these complex ideas and experiences, better than the author who originally came up with them.  You will frankly struggle to find a better cast of voice actors in any other audiobook out there, and this outstanding vocal team makes Act III, and indeed all The Sandman audiobooks, something extremely special to enjoy.

Act III of The Sandman audiobook was another exceptional listen and one that proves pretty impossible to stop listening to.  The combination of captivating storylines, outrageous characters, and a huge array of vocal and acting talents make this an easy five-star listen, and I can personally guarantee that The Sandman – Act III makes for an excellent accompaniment to a long road trip.  While I’m sure that recent controversies might impact this, I hope we get the fourth act in this epic series soon, and I cannot wait to see how Morpheus’s tragic and complex tale ends.

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The Sandman – Act II (Audiobook) by Neil Gaiman and performed by a full cast

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Comics/Manga, Extended Universe, Fantasy, Five-Star Books, Horror, LGBT+, Superhero, Tie-in Novel6 Comments

The Sandman - Act II Cover

Publisher: Audible Original (Audio Drama – 22 September 2021)

Series: The Sandman – Volume 2

Script: Neil Gaiman and Dirk Maggs (script adapter)

Director: Dirk Maggs

Length: 13 hours and 47 minutes

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Amazon

The gloomy and complex fantasy adventures of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman continues in this epic second audiobook volume that once again brings Gaiman’s unique imagination and characters to life with an outstanding cast of actors.

Back in 2022 I had an outstanding time listening to the first volume of the audiobook adaptation of The Sandman comic.  The original series, which started in 1989, is one of the most iconic comics of all time and features a unique adventure that only someone as twisted and imaginative as Neil Gaiman can come up with.  Following Dream, the anthropomorphic personification of dreams and human imagination, The Sandman is a truly interesting comic that blends horror, fantasy and superhero storylines together.  Some people might be more familiar with the recent Netflix series that adapted the first couple of comics and which has a second season on the way.

While I loved the show, I personally had a much better time with the audiobook version of the comics that was released a couple of years ago.  Featuring a truly exceptional cast of celebrity and established audiobook narrators, the first volume of this series was so damn good, and I loved how well it established the characters and universe of The Sandman while also adapting Gaiman’s unique vibes and dark themes.  This first volume was extremely addictive, and I made sure to listen to the second volume shortly after.  The second volume, or Act II as it will be called in this review, continues the comic storyline and features some amazing stories, fun characters and new cast members.

In a universe of strange and deadly creatures, many beings are considered immortal, but only seven siblings can truly claim to be endless.  The Endless, each a personification of a certain universal or human concept, are powerful and mesmerizing in their own way, but the most enchanting and mysterious is Dream.  Known by many names, including Morpheus, this being governs the Dreaming, a vast realm of creation’s collected dreams and stories, protecting the imagination that makes life worth living.  But circumstances outside of his control have set him on a dark path that not even he can escape from.

Still dealing with the consequences of his forced absence from his realm, Morpheus is working to recover everything he lost while avoiding the enemies he made along the way.  The most powerful of these is Lucifer, the fallen angel and lord of Hell, whom Morpheus insulted when he stormed Hell to take back his stolen helm.  Despite not wishing to cross Lucifer again, Morpheus is convinced to set right the biggest wrong of his life and free his former lover from Hell.  However, he is unprepared for the reception that awaits him as Lucifer chooses to damn him in a far more sinister way: by gifting him control of his dark domain.

Finding himself in possession of the key to Hell’s gates, Lucifer must determine who will become the new ruler of Hell.  Setting up a gala in the Dreaming, Morpheus receives visits from an array of gods, demons, angels, and other immortal beings, each of whom seek to control Hell for their own reason.  Soon, Morpheus finds himself in the middle of a host of scheming beings, many of whom will turn on their host to get what they want.  At the same time, weird things are happening in the Dreaming, as an ancient and unstable realm begins to drag in inhabitants from the real world and influence the waking world.  Can Morpheus ensure his realm stays whole whilst dealing with the most dangerous beings in creation?

This was another outstanding adaptation of The Sandman comics that was so damn epic to listen to.  Adapted by director Dirk Maggs and featuring all Gaiman’s impressive storytelling and dark characterisation, The Sandman – Act II was extremely impressive, and you really get drawn into the unique world of the original comics.  Adapting issues #21-40 and #50 of the original comics, The Sandman – Act II brings together the stories of Season of Mists and A Game of You, and several entries from Fables & Reflections.  All these adaptations are so damn good, and I love the elaborate and epic cast that helps to bring the tale to life.

Due to how the audiobook is set out, there are three distinctive parts to The Sandman – Act II, which provided their own unique stories and characters.  The first of these is titled Season of Mists, and features Morpheus finding himself wrapped up in the fate of Hell.  Starting with an entertaining and dysfunctional family dinner, where Morpheus reunites with all his siblings (bar one), the story then turns to Morpheus’s biggest regret, his relationship with the ancient African queen Nada (whose story was told in the last audiobook), which trapped her soul in Hell.  Travelling to Hell to free her, Morpheus finds that Lucifer has banished all the demons and damned souls from his realm and is abdicating as ruler, leaving the key to Hell’s gates with Morpheus.  Morpheus is soon tasked with deciding the fate of the dimension, which results in a flurry of immortal beings arriving at his home to request the key.  The resulting conference proves to be highly entertaining as Morpheus is forced to deal with all manner of bargains, schemes and betrayals as everyone seeks his favour.  I loved how the entire dramatic conference unfolds, and the interactions between the various over-the-top figures and the implacable Morpheus results in some great drama and hilarious sequences.  The conclusion of this storyline is amazing, as a new irony overtakes the denizens of Hell, Morpheus finds himself meeting various beings who will change him in the future, and the seeds are set for a new story around Lucifer (as seen in his own comic and television series).

Honestly, this is probably the best part of The Sandman – Act II, as not only is Season of Mists particularly gripping, but it makes full use of both the existing voice cast and several new figures to really enhance the content.  The battle of wits between several larger-than-life characters is extremely compelling and clever, and Gaiman does a remarkable job expanding the canon of The Sandman.  There are so many subtle and delightful character interactions scattered throughout this storyline, and listeners will love the impressively devious stakes that are being discussed.  This includes some fantastic and deep soul searching for the protagonist, who is forced to revisit one of his darkest deeds.  Thanks to his own experiences of being locked away, Morpheus understands his harsh past actions a lot better, especially when prompted by members of his family.  I always appreciated how Gaiman shows that Morpheus isn’t really a hero but a force of nature who arrogantly follows his own whims.  However, in this case he is a somewhat better person, even if he is still selfish in his actions, and it takes some real prompting for him to do the right thing.

Gaiman also makes sure to feature some additional amazing character arcs, the most intriguing being Lucifer’s when he decides to perform the ultimate rebellion against his father by abandoning Hell.  Lucifer’s portrayal by a returning Michael Sheen is exceptional, especially during his interactions with Morpheus, and his take on the events that led him to rule Hell are very powerful.  In addition to Sheen, Season of Mists also features the inclusion of several amazing new actors, each of whom are used to their full potential.  Jeffery Wright and Kristen Schaal are perfect additions to the Endless, voicing the taciturn Destiny and the bubbly Delirium respectfully.  However, it is the one-two punch of Bill Nighy as Odin and David Tennant as Loki that really sold this chapter to me.  Bill Nighy and David Tennant are two of my absolute favourite actors, and their takes on these two Norse gods are just amazing.  While Nighy brings gravitas and cruelty to Odin, Tennant’s wheedling, manipulative Loki was so damn fun, and both were the highlight of every scene there were in.  The rest of the cast in this chapter were epic as well, and this entire section was such a highlight of The Sandman – Act II, with its placement at the top of the book successfully drawing listeners in and ensuring they don’t go anywhere.

The other main storyline in The Sandman – Act II was titled A Game of You, and is an adaptation of one of the less popular comic arcs.  This story is an intriguing female-led additional to the series, which primarily follows Barbie, a minor figure from the previous The Doll’s House arc, who has uprooted her life and moved to New York to live with an eclectic mixture of residents in an apartment building.  When figures from Barbie’s long-lost dreams arrive in the waking world, Barbie is dragged back into a fantasy adventure, while her friends in New York deal with minions of the mysterious Cuckoo, a dream parasite preying on Barbie’s mind.  The resulting attempts to help Barbie result in chaos and tragedy as they trespass into the Dreaming and come face to face with Morpheus as a he fulfills an old bargain.

Now I must admit that A Game of You was a little weaker than I was hoping, especially when compared to the preceding Season of Mists.  The decision to focus on Barbie, who honestly didn’t stand out too much in her previous appearance, was an interesting choice by Gaiman, and this arc doesn’t have the most engrossing story.  However, I did still have a great time listening to this part of the audiobook, especially as it focuses on showcasing both the magic and danger of dreams, as well as the impacts that interactions with Morpheus can have on mortals.  The more distinctive fantasy focus of this story makes for a nice change of pace, and I liked how well Gaiman simultaneously showed events occurring inside and outside of the protagonist’s dreams.

One side effect of listening to A Game of You immediately after Season of Mists is that the less substantial cast is a lot more noticeable.  That’s not to say that A Game of You doesn’t have great characters.  There are some amazing figures featured here, including several unique protagonists who have compelling connections to previous story arcs from the series.  There are also some nicely progressive LGBT+ elements for a comic released in 1991-92, especially when it comes to the trans woman character, Wanda, who is handled with tact and who has a particularly impactful story arc.  There are also fewer celebrity voice appearances in this arc, although I did rather enjoy the inclusion of actress Emma Corrin of The Crown fame as the ancient witch Thessaly, as her intense and distinctive voice added a lot to this fantastic character.  While it is easy to nitpick A Game of You, especially after some of the previous arcs, this is s till a particularly impressive storyline, which is masterfully brought to life with this production, producing something that is very fun to listen to.

These two main storylines are impressively augmented by a series of short stories scattered throughout the course of the audiobook.  Most of these short stories fall between Season of Mists and A Game of You, with several more wrapping events up.  There is also a short story in the middle of Season of Mists that showcases the impacts the closure of Hell has, which leads to the Dead Boy Detectives series.  Gaiman comes up with some truly interesting and unique shorter stories to add to the main plot of the book.  Most of these stories involve various mortals or other supernatural creatures encountering either the Endless or some of Morpheus’s creations, and they usually serve as some form of cautionary tale.  I loved the intriguing underlying themes that Gaiman loaded into each story, including about the impermanence of power and examinations of the human condition, and the author also has fun in launching his distinctive characters into various historical periods.

While all the shorter stories contained in The Sandman – Act II are awesome in their own way, a couple do stand out due to their excellent stories and fantastic performances.  For example, the complex story Three Septembers and a January, retells the tale of Joshua Abraham Norton, self-declared Emperor of the United States, with Dream and his siblings shown to be responsible for his strange actions.  This story is both fascinating and dark, as you witness a man torn apart by the whims of the ethereal siblings.  Listeners grow particularly attached to this tale due to the performance of John Lithgow as Joshua Norton, who adds some excellent humour and no small amount of tragedy with his moving voice work.  Other great stories include Thermido, which sees the return of Lady Johanna Constantine from the first audiobook.  Voiced by the absolutely fabulous Joanna Lumley, this story follows Constantine as she steals into France during the height of the revolution to steal something from Robespierre.  This story was fast-paced, clever, and substantially dark, all of which helped it to stand out, especially with the compelling twists and ironic historical fates.  It was also amazing to get a whole story told by Joanna Lumley, who was somewhat underutilised in the first audiobook.  Finally, the tale August, which follows Augustus Caesar as he disguises himself as a beggar and tells his life story to a dwarf, proves to be quite impressive, especially with Brian Cox playing the titular character.  Each of these shorter stories are masterfully presented, and I loved how complex and powerful their stories were, even with the shorter length the author had to work with.

Overall, I really appreciated the entire story of this volume.  The blending of two fantastic main storylines, as well as the scattering of intriguing and unique short stories, makes for quite an epic continuous listen.  The short stories were well utilised as the director spread them out amongst the audiobook providing a good break between the two extended plotlines, as well as some fun listens in the epilogue.  Not only were all the entries in The Sandman – Act II fantastic and compelling, but each of them had such a distinctive feel that really highlights the author’s style and ability to blend various genres together into one powerful story.  The interesting array of over-the-top characters makes for quite a fantastic listen, especially as Gaiman attempts to capture the many burdens of having cosmic responsibility, while other stories look at how characters are affected by dreams and imagination.  The mixture of fantastic tales and dark moments is always cleverly undercut with moral lessons or complex observations about the human experience.  You honestly come away from The Sandman in deep thought while still being traumatised or wildly entertained by how events unfolded.  There is honestly nothing else quite like The Sandman in fiction, and I always have great admiration for the elaborate and multifaceted tales that Gaiman comes up with.

Just with the first volume of this epic audiobook collection, the production really captures the epic nature of the comic, which makes it a real joy to listen to.  Even with its runtime of nearly 14 hours, this is such an easy and addictive audiobook to listen to, and it proves hard to ever stop listening to the elaborate story that emerges.  A lot of this is down to the impressive nature of the production surrounding this audiobook, as the director goes out of his way to enhance the audio experience for the listener.  Everything about this audiobook, from the emotionally charged music, the elaborate sound effects, and the brilliant cast of actors and narrators, is designed to remind you what an imaginative and unique story you are listening to.  Heck, even the way that the various chapter titles are announced is epic, and I always get a kick out of the impressive way they are read out.  Honestly, the entire audiobook production is just perfect, and anyone who listens to it is in for an exceptional time they will not forget.

As part of my hyping up of the audiobook production, I have to highlight the sheer range of talent lending their voices to this audiobook production, without whom The Sandman – Act II would be nowhere near as exceptional as it was.  I have mentioned several of the newer voice actors in the review already, but The Sandman – Act II also featured the exceptional returning cast from the first audiobook, each of whom provided fantastic new performances that really stuck in the mind.  For example, Andy Serkis is so much fun as Matthew the Raven, while Justin Vivian Bond and Miriam Margolyes serve as fantastic and fitting versions of Desire and Despair respectively.  Kat Dennings proves to be an outstandingly effective incarnation of Death, especially as her positive portrayal captures the more compassionate and likeable version of Death that Gaiman envisioned for his comic.  Even Neil Gaiman has a key vocal role in the production, serving as the narrator who highlights events and details not captured by the dialogue.  Gaiman proves to be an impressive narrator for this story, and his distinctive and wise voice matches the feel of The Sandman perfectly.  However, most of these are overshadowed by James McAvoy, who plays the titular Sandman, Morpheus, in this production.  McAvoy is honestly perfect in this role, and the gravitas, sense of unknowing, and great sadness of this character is so perfectly portrayed by the actor’s voice.  McAvoy does such a good job portraying the imperialistic and arrogant tone and personality of Morpheus and the reader can really envision his actions and thoughts.  McAvoy honestly does the best presentation of this character it is possible to do (television series included), and you will fall in love with his take on this sinister and mysterious figure.

The Sandman – Act II is an outstanding and incredible audiobook production that does such a remarkable job of bringing more of Neil Gaiman’s iconic comic to life.  Perfectly adapting the distinctive and dark comics into a new format, listeners get the benefit of both an excellent narrative and some amazing audiobook production with a remarkable cast.  An absolute joy to listen to from start to finish, The Sandman – Act II was a brilliant follow-up to the first production, and I cannot recommend it enough.

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Top Ten Tuesday – My Favourite Audiobooks with Multiple Narrators

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, List5 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that currently resides at The Artsy Reader Girl and features bloggers sharing lists on various book topics.  The official topic of this week’s Top Ten Tuesday looked at books participants have read or wanted to read because of other Top Ten Tuesday posts.  While this is a very interesting topic, it’s not one that I felt I could really participate in.  However, I did have a couple of audiobook-focused lists I’d been cooking up in the background, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to post one here.

My list for this week revolves around audiobooks with multiple narrators.  Now fans of my blog will be well aware that I am a massive fan of the audiobook format, and I honestly find it the best way to enjoy a range of cool novels and series.  I have so much love for audiobooks, and a great narrator can exceptionally increase how much I enjoy an epic book.  In some particularly awesome cases, the audiobook format can feature more than one narrator, and that is what I want to focus this list on.  I have had the pleasure of listening to some very impressive audiobooks that feature a large cast of voice actors and frankly the range of voices and talents involved can add an even greater layer of awesomeness to the proceedings.  As such, I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to highlight some of the very vest multi-narrator audiobooks I have listened to so far.

To appear on this list, the audiobook in question had to have two or more narrators attached to it, with the second narrator having more than a cameo appearance to it.  I actually had quite a few options to include here, but I was eventually able to whittle it down to a satisfying top-ten list, with my typical generous honourable mentions section as well.  I think this list came up pretty well, and I really liked some of the books I selected.  All the below choices come very highly recommended on audiobook, and their great collection of narrators ensured that this format was particularly epic.

Honourable Mentions:

Caves of Ice, written by Sandy Mitchell and narrated by Stephen Perring, Penelope Rawlins and Emma Gregory

Caves of Ice Cover

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Dredge Runners, written by Alec Worley and narrated by Jon Rand, Paul Putner, Emma Noakes, Kelly Hotten, David Seddon and Andrew James Spooner

Dredge Runners

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Dark Sacred Night, written by Michael Connelly narrated by Titus Welliver and Christine Lakin

Dark Sacred Night Cover

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The Battle For Jedha, written by George Mann and performed by a full cast

Star Wars - The Battle of Jedha Cover

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Top Ten Tuesdsay:

For the Emperor, written by Sandy Mitchell and narrated by Stephen Perring, Penelope Rawlins and Emma Gregory

Warhammer 40,000 - For the Emperor Cover

Let us start off with one of my favourite Warhammer 40,000 audiobooks, For the Emperor by Sandy Mitchell.  The first book in the acclaimed and hilarious Ciaphas Cain series, For the Emperor is a very entertaining novel that follows the exploits of a cowardly Commissar who has managed to convince everyone that he’s a brilliant war hero.  This is an extremely funny read, and it’s audiobook version is greatly enhanced by the use of its three narrators, Stephen Perring, Penelope Rawlins and Emma Gregory.  All three narrators are extremely good in their roles, and I love how they split the load, with Perring voicing much of the main story, Rawlins voicing hilarious notes from an outside observer, and Gregory voicing several intentionally badly written book excerpts in an over-the-top manner.  This unique narration works extremely well and you will fall down laughing as a result.  This cast (with a few more additions), lend their voices to the entire Ciaphas Cian series, and I look forward to checking out more entries in this series in the future, especially with this brilliant cast behind it.

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The Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman and narrated by a full cast

Sandman Act 1 Cover

I had to include the first epic audio adaptation of the iconic Sandman comic here on this list, as it is a particularly exceptional listen.  This adaptation features a massive and highly talented voice cast to bring Gaiman’s elaborate story to life, including a cool mixture of celebrities and professional voice actors, who mesh extremely well together to tell a brilliant story.  Celebrities, including James McAvoy, Kat Dennings, Taron Egerton, Andy Serkis, Michael Sheen and Riz Ahmed, as well as iconic audiobook narrators like Ray Porter, do an exceptional job bringing their characters to life, and in some cases they are even better than the live-action cast from the Netflix show.  I absolutely flew through this adaptation, and the sheer range of great voices involved is so damn epic you won’t be able to turn it off.

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World War Z, written by Max Brooks and narrated by a full cast

World War Z Cover

Another massive audiobook production that benefits incredibly from an extensive celebrity cast is the adaptation of the awesome zombie novel, World War Z.  This large cast works extremely well to bring Brooks’ interview-style story to life, as they each take on the role of a specific character being interviewed.  With Brooks acting as the interviewer, each of these actors tell their character’s specific story of the zombie apocalypse in impressive fashion, diving into their charaters and telling their terrifying tales.  Honestly all 30+ actors do an incredible job here, but some of the standouts include Alfred Molina as former astronaut (with a decent Australian accent), Alan Alda as a business strategist, Masi Oka as a Japanese otaku who is totally unprepared for the zombies, and Rob Reiner and an almost unrecognisable Simon Pegg as politicians.  However, my favourite is easily Mark Hamill, who has several of the best chapters as a jaded former solider caught up in the very worst moments of the war.  This cast is just exceptional, and their use in this audiobook turns this into a first-class listen.

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Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waagh!, written by Nate Crowley and narrated by Kelly Hotten, Paul Putner and Jon Rand

Ghazghkull Thraka - Prophet of the Waaagh! Cover

One Warhammer 40,000 audiobook that particularly benefitted from multiple narrators was the impressive and exceedingly fun Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waagh!.  Featuring a fantastic story that dives into the origins of a legendary figure in Warhammer 40,000 lore, this audiobook featured three talented narrators, Kelly Hotten, Paul Putner and Jon Rand.  These three narrators switched throughout the book, depending on which unique figure was the perspective character for that chapter.  This worked to really immerse the listener in the clever, multi-tiered narrative, and I had an awesome time listening to Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waagh! as a result.  This was one of my favourite books and audiobooks from 2022 and this fantastic narration is a very strong reason for that.

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Doctor Aphra, written by Sarah Kuhn and narrated by a full cast

Doctor Aphra Audio Cover

One thing that Star Wars fiction excels at it is producing high quality and addictive audiobook versions of their novels.  This is particularly true for their audio exclusive productions that feature huge casts of talented audiobook narrators, many of whom have lent their voices to previous Star Wars audiobooks.  One of the best was probably the impressive Doctor Aphra audio production, which served as a very clever and funny adaptation of several fantastic Star Wars comics.  I had an absolute blast with this production and the sheer range of cool voices that were featured throughout really enhanced the clever storytelling and witty humour.  While there were several distinctive narrators for this production, the standout was probably Emily Woo Zeller, who voiced the titular protagonist and provided a perfect and fantastic take on the opportunistic archaeologist.  A must listen for all Star Wars fans, especially if you’ve had the pleasure of reading the Doctor Aphra comics.

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Engines of Empire, written by Richard S. Ford and narrated by Alison Campbell, Ciaran Saward, Phoebe McIntosh, Ewan Goddard, Andrew Kingston, Martin Reeve and Stephen Perry.

Engines of Empire Cover

One of the more unique fantasy audiobooks from last year was the awesome Engines of Empire, which told a story of revolution and betrayal in a fresh new fantasy realm.  This audiobook featured a huge cast of point of view characters, and the audiobook production seeks to enhance that by featuring a large group of narrators.  Each narrator voices the chapter told from a specific character, helping to create a rich and powerful audio tapestry as they capture the personalities of their respective protagonists.  This helps to turn the Engines of Empire audiobook into a great listen and I really had fun with it as a result.

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Tempest Runner, written by Cavan Scott and narrated by a full cast

Star Wars - Tempest Runner Cover

Another excellent Star Wars audio production with a large cast was the excellent Tempest Runner by Cavan Scott.  A fun addition to the High Republic subseries of Star Wars fiction, Tempest Runner followed one of the standout villains of the previous books and gives some fantastic context to her actions.  Tempest Runner featured an awesome cast of actors, and I loved some of the great performances that emerged.  Standouts included Jessica Almasy, who voiced the main character, January LaVoy who voiced a spiteful antagonist, and the leading Star Wars narrators, Marc Thompson and Jonathan Davies, who bring their very impressive skills to the fore again.  An outstanding audiobook that makes perfect use of its exceptional cast.

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The Night Fire, written by Michael Connelly, narrated by Titus Welliver and Christine Lakin

The Night Fire Cover

I have had fun with several of Michael Connelly’s audiobooks in recent years, but some of my favourites have to be the Ballard and Bosch books, that bring together two of Connelly’s best police protagonists.  One of the things that make these audiobooks so cool are the use of dual narrators, Titus Welliver and Christine Lakin, who do a particularly awesome job in the second Ballard and Bosch book, The Night Fire.  The audiobook is evenly split between each of the characters, so Welliver and Lakin split the narration down the middle, with Welliver voicing all the chapters from Bosch’s perspective, while Lakin takes on Ballard’s chapters.  This helps to produce a very intriguing and compelling audiobook, with both actors inhabiting their respective role perfectly (unsurprisingly for Welliver, who plays Bosch in the recent television adaption).  I absolutely flew through this audiobook and I cannot recommend this format enough when enjoying the epic Ballard and Bosch crossovers.

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The Way of Kings, written by Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading

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Another great audiobook that benefited from two separated narrators was the massive and iconic fantasy read, The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.  I had a brilliant time listening to The Way of Kings in this format, especially as the audiobook allows for a greater appreciation of all the detail Sanderson chucked in, and the dual narrators of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading definitely helped here.  Kramer and Reading split their duties along gender lines, with Kramer narrating all the chapters and interludes told from a male perspective, while Reading does the same for the parts of the book told from the female perspective.  This helps to produce a very elaborate listen, especially as both narrators are particularly skilled, and I liked having a variety of voices in this extremely long audiobook.  This is such a great way to enjoy this fantatic novel, and you will have an awesome time with these two narrators.

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Dooku: Jedi Lost, written by Cavan Scott and narrated by a full cast

Dooku - Jedi Lost Cover

The final multi-narrator audio production I wanted to highlight here is the Star Wars audiobook, Dooku: Jedi Lost.  Diving into the past of iconic Star Wars villain Count Dooku, Jedi Lost was an excellent and entertaining listen, that features a brilliant cast of voice actors who bring several fantastic figures from the canon to life.  This includes Euan Morton, who breaths great life into the titular Count Dooku, Orlagh Cassidy who has a great take on fan favourite villainess Asajji Ventress, and Jonathan Davis and Marc Thompson, whose respective portrayals of Qui-Gon Jinn and Yoda, are pretty damn spot on.  I had such a great time with this Star Wars production, and you have to love the dedication and power that the big cast of voice actors really brought to the table.

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That is the end of this latest list highlighting some of my favourite audiobooks that feature multiple narrators.  Let me know what you think in the comments below and make sure to recommend your favourite audiobooks with a range of narrators behind it.

Quick review – Warhammer 40,000: Dredge Runners by Alec Worley

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Extended Universe, Five-Star Books, Quick Review, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Tie-in Novel, Warhammer14 Comments

Dredge Runners

Publisher: Black Library (Audiobook – 8 August 2020)

Series: Warhammer Crime

Length: 1 hour and 1 minute

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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Prepare to dive into the dark and fun world of the Warhammer Crime subseries with the short but incredible hilarious audio drama, Dredge Runners by Alec Worley.

Fans of this blog will be well aware of my current obsession with all things Warhammer fiction, as I have been making an effort to try out a range of their recently released books, all of which have been highly entertaining reads.  One of the main things that I love about the tie-in fiction that surrounds the Warhammer tabletop games is the sheer range of different stories that can be told, especially as the various authors associated with this franchise often go out of their way to blend it with other genres and story types.  As a result, there are several great Warhammer sub-series out there at the moment, including the Warhammer Crime books, which dive into the criminal underbelly of the Warhammer 40,000 universe and presents the readers with some intriguing and unique adventures.

I have been meaning to check out some Warhammer Crime novels for a while, especially as there are some quite fascinating sounding books already part of it.  I love the idea of the grim and gothic Warhammer universe blending with a more traditional crime fiction read, and I know I am going to have a lot of fun with all of them.  As such, when I saw that a new Warhammer Crime book, The Wraithbone Phoenix by Alec Worley, was coming out, I thought that it would be a good entry point to the wider Warhammer Crime sub-series.  However, I noticed that The Wraithbone Phoenix was actually a follow-up to a previous short story by Worley, Dredge Runners, which was released in 2020 as a full-cast audio drama.  Well, I am a reviewer who likes the get the complete picture and considering that Dredge Runners was just over an hour long I figured I would listen to it quickly to get some context before diving into The Wraithbone Phoenix.  As such, I listened to the whole of Dredge Runners in one go this morning, and it proved to be quite an amazing and amusing listen.

Goodreads Synopsis:

A Warhammer Crime Audio Drama

Baggit the ratling and Clodde the ogryn fight to survive on the mean streets of Varangantua as powerful enemies close in from all sides.

LISTEN TO IT BECAUSE
Experience the sounds of a crime-ridden city and enjoy the twists and turns of a tale starring some of the more unusual inhabitants of the Imperium of Man.

THE STORY
Baggit is a fast-talking ratling sniper with a greedy eye and loose morals. Clodde is an ogryn, a brute with a core of decency and a desire for a better life. Two abhuman deserters turned thieves, at large in the monolithic city of Varangantua, where only the tough or the ruthless survive. Having landed in debt to a savage crime lord, Baggit and Clodde end up in the crosshairs of the meanest, most puritanical sanctioner in the city. Caught between two powerful enemies, and with innocent lives at stake, the unlikely companions must think fast and hustle hard before death points a las-pistol in their direction… 

Unsurprisingly, Dredge Runners turned out to be just as amusing and fantastic as the plot synopsis suggested.  I loved the idea of two abhumans, in this case a ratling (a futuristic halfling sniper) and an ogryn (ogre), getting involved in a series of disastrous criminal enterprises after getting caught between the city’s biggest crime lord and a puritanical sanctioner (law enforcement official).  Despite its short runtime, Worley achieves a lot with Dredge Runners, perfectly introducing his excellent protagonists and taking them on a wild science fiction thriller adventure that includes hilarious exchanges, failed undercover operations and explosive heists.

Told completely through dialogue (with some sound effects giving off extra context), Dredge Runners’ story draws you in within the first few minutes as the author blends the more outrageous elements of the Warhammer 40,000 universe with a dark but amusing crime fiction narrative.  Due to the length, you do not often get the full story of the events taking place, but the subsequent reaction by the characters allows you to imagine the full destructive scope of their actions, and it often proves funnier this way.  There is a real focus on humour in this short production, and I was constantly left in stiches at some of the fantastic antics that the main characters get up to as a chaotic team.  However, the story also has some real heart to it, especially towards the end when the protagonists are forced to make some tough decisions about their future, and they find their greed crashing up against their moral responsibility to other abhumans.  Throw in some memorable and deeply cynical propaganda messages from the city authorities that shows just how corrupt and repressive the entirety of Imperial culture is in the Warhammer 40,000 universe (the one that concluded the story had me laughing hard), and this proves to be an outstanding Warhammer production that I had an absolute blast getting through.

One of the main things that Worley achieved with Dredge Runners is the successful introduction of protagonists Baggit and Clodde, who serve as a fantastic central duo.  On the surface, Baggit is a thieving rattling who serves as the team’s leader and plan maker, while Clodde is the muscle, going along with Baggit’s plans and often messing them up by not understanding them.  However, there is a lot more to both of them.  Baggit is desperate to escape the dark life they currently have in Varagantua and feels a responsibility to Clodde due to their connected past.  Clodde, on the other hand, is a rather unique and amusing ogryn character, who has an unusual intellectual side after getting shot in the head (by Baggit).  As such, Clodde comes off as surprisingly deep and philosophical, and he is way smarter than he appears, especially when it comes to Baggit’s antics.  These two play off each other perfectly, especially with Clodde acting as the group’s conscious, and their eventual attempts to get justice and do the right thing, paints them in a much different light that makes them even more likeable.

I really need to highlight the outstanding way that this audio drama was presented, as the fantastic production melded well with Worley’s great script.  Acted out by a full cast of talented voice actors and narrators who tell the entire story through dialogue, this was a really fun Warhammer presentation to listen to, especially as the dialogue was also enhanced by some great sound effects and small bits of music.  I was particularly impressed by the voice actors, as each of them gave it their all when it came to their specific character/characters, moulding their voices to fit their distinctive traits and personalities.  The cast was led by Jon Rand (Baggit) and Paul Putner (Clodde), who I previously deeply enjoyed in Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh!.  These two actors did an outstanding job with their abhuman characters in Dredge Runners, and they play these two humorous figures perfectly, showcasing their different natures while also slowly revealing their outstanding hidden hearts.  These two are expertly matched by Emma Noakes and Kelly Hotten, who play the antagonistic crime lord and sanctioner respectively.  Noakes and Hotten both bring some outstanding menace to their roles, and I loved hearing these more serious characters attempt to deal with the chaotic main characters.  The voice cast is rounded out by veteran narrators, David Seddon and Andrew James Spooner, who narrate some of the fun supporting characters, and I loved some of the unique and compelling voices they brought to the table.  This entire audio drama comes together extremely smoothly, and listeners are constantly aware of all the actions going on in the story, especially with the fantastic cacophony of explosions, gunshots and screams that often happen around Baggit and Clodde.  I had a wonderful time listening to Dredge Runners in one go, and you will not be disappointed with this excellent audio production.

Overall, Dredge Runners was an awesome and highly impressive Warhammer 40,000 short, that is well worth checking out.  Not only did Alec Worley come up with a captivating and deeply hilarious narrative and script for this production but it features an outstanding and talented voice cast who perfectly perform it.  As such, Dredge Runners was a particularly epic introduction to the Warhammer Crime sub-series, and I had an outstanding time seeing just how amazing and unique crime fiction in the Warhammer 40,000 universe can be.  I am really glad that I chose to check out Dredge Runners first, and I honestly was surprised at just how perfectly entertaining this short audio drama turned out to be.  As such, I am giving it a five-star review and I am now extremely excited to see how the next adventure of Baggit and Clodde turns out in The Wraithbone Phoenix.

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Throwback Thursday: World War Z by Max Brooks

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Five-Star Books, Horror, Science Fiction, Throwback Thursday12 Comments

World War Z Cover

Publisher: Random House Audio (Audiobook – 14 May 2013, originally published 12 September 2006)

Series: Standalone

Length: 12 hours and 9 minutes

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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Welcome back to my Throwback Thursday series, where I republish old reviews, review books I have read before or review older books I have only just had a chance to read.  For my latest Throwback Thursday review I take a look at the zombie horror classic, World War Z by Max Brooks, a truly epic and outstanding read.

One of the biggest novels that I have been meaning to read for ages was the highly regarded zombie novel, World War Z, also known as World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.  Written by Max Brooks as a follow-up to his first book, the non-fictional The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z is a unique novel that fully examines a zombie apocalypse from multiple perspectives.  I had heard some great things about this novel, and I even enjoyed the movie adaptation when it came out (more on that later).  Unfortunately, I never got a chance to read it and I kind of figured for a while that it might stay in my to-read pile for a while.  However, it moved much higher up my list of books to check out after I read Brooks’s 2020 novel, Devolution, which was one of my favourite novels of 2020 (as well as one of my favourite all-time horror novels).  I had also heard a lot of praise for World War Z‘s awesome audiobook edition, so when my wife and I needed some entertainment during a recent cross-country road trip, this was our first choice.

Plot Synopsis:

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.

Holy hell, that was an exceptional book!  I loved the powerful and expansive narrative contained within World War Z as Brooks attempts to fully encapsulate the entire experience of a zombie apocalypse in impressive detail.  Literally all the good things I heard about this book were true, and I loved his unique and very captivating way of capturing the horrors of this sort of experience, both from the zombies and other humans.  An exceptional and impressively inventive read, World War Z gets an easy five-star read from me.

I cannot get over how awesome and distinctive World War Z was as a concept.  Rather than a traditional novel, Brook’s masterpiece is written as an epistolary novel, written as in-universe oral history anthology of a zombie apocalypse.  The book, which was compiled by this universe’s version of Max Brooks, contained multiple testimonials and interviews, as Brooks seeks out and talks to multiple people who experienced the apocalypse and pulls together their various unique stories.  This book contains around 40 individual stories set out across five chapters which look at the various stages of the zombie war, from its origins all the way up to the postwar ‘new normal’.

At this point I need to make a quick note about the version of World War Z that we checked out.  There are a couple of different World War Z audiobooks out there, but for our trip we listened to the World War Z: The Complete Edition, which combines two separate audiobook adaptations of the novel, and contains all the stories from the original book.  I did look over a paperback edition of World War Z before I started this review, and it looks like our audiobook version covered the full stories well, although I did notice that some of the stories were shortened or missing minor parts.  In addition, the audiobook version did not feature any of the paperback’s footnotes, which contained technical details and notes from the author.  However, I don’t think I lost out on too much of the plot from some of these missing gaps.

I really fell in love with the various individual stories contained with World War Z as Brooks went out of his way to produce the most unique and moving tales that he could.  These are mostly standalone tales, although there are a few interesting crossovers as the book continues, with some character’s mentioning events or supporting figures from other stories in their interviews.  However, as you follow the stories within these five chapters (made up of Warnings, Blame, The Great Panic, Turning the Tide, and Good-Byes), you get a full sense of the entire war, and it quickly comes apparent how cleverly Brooks was crafting everything here.  I personally deeply enjoyed both the individual shorter tales and the much larger connected story of World War Z, and I was deeply impressed with the excellent writing style behind it.  Brooks is a true master of writing deeply personal, character-driven tales of survival, and you swiftly become attached to the various protagonists as they tell their unique stories.  The action within is gruesome, fast-paced and deeply terrifying, and there are multiple over-the-top descriptions of zombie and human violence that will stick with you forever.  This was easily one of the best zombie novels I have read in terms of storytelling and action, and everything about this tale is so damn compelling.

As I mentioned, there are roughly 40 separate stories contained within this anthology, each of which contains its own unique protagonist, supporting characters, settings and unique circumstances.  Naturally, with so many stories you have a bit of a range in terms of storytelling, with some being substantially better than others.  However, I felt that Brooks did a very good job of writing each of these stories extremely well, and there were none that particularly dragged the novel down.  There is a real mixture of narratives here, with particularly gruesome horror stories mixed in with more human-focused narrative, political plotlines, military thrillers, stories that balance on the edge of science fiction, and everything in between.  The spread of these stories works pretty well, with Brooks providing an entertaining mixture of storylines throughout the book so readers aren’t constantly bombarded by tales of horror or tragedy.  Instead, there are often fascinating, humorous and humanising stories thrown in amongst the horror.  This works to make the entire novel flow at a fantastic pace.

While pretty much all these stories are fun and tell some outstanding tales of the zombie apocalypse, there are a few that stood out to me as being a cut above the rest.  I had some early fun with the Stanley MacDonald storyline, which showed an amoral illegal surgeon in Brazil unwittingly transfer a zombie heart into a patient, which led to one of the earliest outbreaks in South America.  The Jesika Hendricks plot showed a brilliant, if very dark, take on ordinary citizens trying to flee the zombies only to experience the other dangers of surviving the winter in a desperate community.  There are several amazing and cynical storylines, such as the Breckinridge Scott and Grover Carison testimonies that showcase the capitalist opportunism that surrounded the initial outbreaks.  I also really liked the South African focused storyline around Paul Redeker, which showed a former Apartheid strategist using his stark and brutal plans to save the country from the undead hordes.  I loved the particularly inventive and clever testimony surrounding the character of Arthur Sinclair Junior, which focuses on how America was reorganised after the initial stages of the war, with the country setting its sights towards industry, construction and warfare, which really highlights the author’s impressive insights into the world.

Two other fantastic World War Z storylines set in Japan focus on two unique individuals, one an “otaku” (a computer-obsessed outsider who tried to live entirely online), and a blind “hibakusha” (a person affected by the atomic bombs used in WWII).  Both characters were outsiders in Japan before the zombie war, but the zombie invasion changed their entire lives and led to them becoming renowned warriors and survivors against all the odds.  These two storylines are extremely compelling, and I loved the way that the author utilised unique subsections of Japanese society and tried to imagine how those sorts of people would survive the zombies.  There was also a really intense storyline, told by Admiral Xu Zhicai, that details a Chinese submarine’s attempt to escape the zombies with their families, which turns into a brilliant, powerful and occasionally disturbing tale of survival, loyalty and family.  I also must mention the Terry Knox testimony that details the actions aboard the International Space Station and the Darnell Hackworth story that looks at the US army’s canine units that helped scout and herd zombies (yay for mini dachshunds, the real heroes of this book).  However, out all the testimonies featured within World War Z, my favourite had to be the ones focussing on soldier Todd Wainio.  Todd battled the zombies at multiple stages of the war, and his multiple entries paint a pretty grim picture but are easily some of the best depictions of the horror of the zombies and the challenges faced by the armed forces.  His first testimony about the army’s initial inability to combat the zombies is very chilling, and it was fascinating to hear about the changes to his training and equipment as the military adapted to fight this new and strange enemy.  I am honestly just scratching the surface of these testimonials here, as pretty much all of them were great in their own way.  However, the ones I mentioned here were my personal favourites, and I had a blast listening to them and seeing how they fit into the wider narrative.

For me, one of the main highlights of World War Z was Brooks’s incredible inventiveness and insights when it came to envisioning a potential world-wide zombie apocalypse.  Thanks to his amazing range of stories, Brooks showcases a vast global catastrophe that impacts everyone no matter where they are.  I loved his depiction of how the apocalypse emerged, and rather than a continuous attack that pretty much destroys everything in a single day, Brooks imagines a gradual catastrophe that is initially ignored and mishandled before it spreads uncontrollably.  This is covered in the early chapters of the book with some substantial skill, and you really get to see how and why everything falls apart, with appropriate zombie violence included.  While there is an understandable focus on America, I found it fascinating to see how Brooks imagined different countries would deal with this crisis, with different culturally informed strategies, and there are even some compelling references to real-life figures (the Nelson Mandela facsimile reacts in a very different way than you’d expect).  The author really dives into all the details of a zombie attack and examines all the pros and cons of various strategies humans could utilise, from fleeing, staying in defensible positions, or fighting back.  There are some brilliant testimonies that cover all of them, and Brooks’s dark depictions of unprepared or overconfident humans failing to understand the threats in front of them and paying the price for it are shocking, bleak and captivating.  Brooks also comes up with some truly unique and clever problems or impacts of the zombies, many of which are referenced or experienced by multiple characters, including floating zombies, marine zombies, feral children who survived without their parents, looters, civil wars, and even crazed humans pretending to be zombies.

These intriguing insights from Brooks’s imagination are further expanded on in the later chapters of the novel, where the author explores how the world order changed because of the zombie war.  Again Brooks dives into multiple countries here, and it was fascinating to witness which countries the author imagines will be destroyed by the zombies and which would thrive.  I really enjoyed his examinations of the way that America needed to reorganise itself and its subsequent battleplans, which were perfectly covered by several of the best characters.  Seeing countries likes Russia, China, Japan and more change in drastic ways a result of this apocalypse was really cool and compelling, especially as the author covers it in such a reasonable and logical manner.  Countries like Cuba and the West Indies thriving due to their isolation was pretty fascinating, and they stood as an interesting contrast to more prominent countries that were disadvantaged or never stood a chance thanks to their socioeconomic issues or unsuitable landscapes.  I loved some of the unique issues that some countries experienced, such as the infested Paris catacombs or the mystery around North Korea, and they leave some intriguing afterthoughts as a result.  Brooks also cleverly examines other unique impacts that the zombies are having on the world, such as extinctions (goodbye whales), changes in global relations, and long-term problems, and I was deeply fascinated and enthralled by all this impressive thinking.  All of this compelling insight and imagination really enhances the stories being told by various characters, especially as they all impact humanity’s potential survival, and I really lost myself in the author’s powerful and impressive vision of a zombie apocalypse.

While World War Z is primarily about survival and the wider impacts of a zombie apocalypse, Brooks also takes the time to cover a few interesting themes.  In particular, he uses this novel about zombies to examine humanity.  While there is a certain overlying theme about the indomitable human spirit and our ability to triumph no matter the odds, there are some very noticeable depictions of the worst parts of human nature.  I found his initial depictions of most people ignoring or ridiculing the slow rising zombie threat to be pretty realistic (keep in mind that this was written 14 years before COVID).  There are also some major critiques about corruption and government incompetence in the face of disaster that I also found to be very intriguing and insightful.  Many of the early chapters that talked about military attempts to fight back had some interesting parallels to the wars in the Middle East, and I really appreciated the author’s clever critiques of these conflicts through the medium of a zombie war.  I felt that Todd’s testimony about the first major battle of the zombie war was a great example of this, as he regales the reader with how politically motivated leadership and incompetence led to a massacre.  All of this added a thought-provoking and entertaining edge to many of the storylines in the novel, especially the earlier testimonies, and I felt that Brooks did an amazing job bringing some of his own insights and critiques into his writing.

As I mentioned a few times above, I listened to the extended audiobook adaptation of this novel, which I personally felt was the absolute best way to enjoy this epic read.  Running at just over 12 hours in length, we absolutely powered through the World War Z audiobook during our road trip, and it served as an excellent entertainment for a long drive.  I often find that having a story read out to you really helps you to absorb everything about the story, and this was particularly true with World War Z.  Not only did the narration allow you to focus on all the details of the testimonials, but the horror elements and action felt a lot more intense, especially when you were dragged into some of the more gruesome scenes.  I also feel that the audiobook version of World War Z had a better flow than the paperback novel.  The testimonials with the audiobook are a lot more separated out, treated as a new chapter each time the narrator changes.  This is very different from the paperback version, which throws multiple testimonials in a quick fire manner, with everything crammed together into the five chapters.  As such, I really felt the audiobook helped to highlight the uniqueness of each testimonial and you really got to focus on each story a lot more.

However, easily the best thing about the World War Z audiobook was the truly impressive voice cast that were featured within.  Brooks, a voice actor himself, recruited a crack team of international actors to fill out his cast, including several A-listers, who give some outstanding and amazing performances.  All these actors really dive into their various roles here, conveying the emotion, fear and insights of their protagonists, and their great voice work definitely enhanced the already cool stories of their characters.  I deeply enjoyed all their voice work throughout the audiobook, and I know that I enjoyed several testimonies even more because of the talented actors voicing them.  This cast is led by Brooks himself, who voices the interviewer, asking all the questions and meeting all the various figures the novel is set around.  Brooks does a really good job here, and his calm, collected interviewing style and additional narration helps to set the scene for the entire novel and moves the other character’s stories along at a great pace.

Aside from Brooks, there are a good 40 or so voice actors featured in the World War Z audiobook, and I was pretty impressed with all their performances.  Some standout early performances include a brief appearance from Nathan Fillion as Canadian soldier Stanley MacDonald; Paul Sorvino, who gives a very fun performances as the sketchy doctor Fernado Oliveira; and Martin Scorsese, who gives an unrepentant portrayal of corrupt businessman Breckinridge Scott.  Other great performances include Kal Penn as Sardar Khan, an Indian soldier who serves an excellent witness to an act of heroism; the late, great David Ogden Stiers, who brings Ukrainian solider Bohdan Taras Kondratiuk to life perfectly as he watches a great act of evil from his government; Common as dog trainer Darnell Hackworth; and Rob Reiner as “The Whacko” a radical politician/former Vice President who shares his strong opinions in a very fun outing.  I really need to highlight some intriguing voice performances from Simon Pegg, who does a pretty good Texan accent in the role of Grover Carlson; and Alfred Molina, whose Australian accent was pretty accurate (a rare talent).

The performances of Masi Oka and Frank Kamai really brought to life the two Japanese characters I mentioned above, as does Ric Young for Chinese Admiral Xu Zhicai’s elaborate testimony.  I also really need to highlight the brilliant work of Alan Alda in this book as he voices pivotal administrator Arthur Sinclair Junior.  Alda, whose voice I have loved since M*A*S*H, perfectly inhabits the role of this intriguing figure, and I loved hearing his narration of how America’s economy was changed.  However, out of all the voice actors in World War Z, my favourite was the always impressive and remarkable Mark Hamill, who voiced standout character Todd Wainio.  Hamill was one of the main reasons why Todd was such a great character, and I loved his outstanding performance as a former ground soldier recounting all the horror of the front line of the zombie war.  There is so much weariness, trauma and cynicism in Hamill’s voice as he narrates Todd’s testimony, and you really feel the character’s resentment and anger.  The way that Hamill describes all the gruesome gore and zombie violence was just so great, and his impressive range and tone helped to really enhance the insanity and horror of the moment.  These voice actors, and the rest of the impressive cast, are extremely epic here, and they turned this production into something extremely impressive.

A quick final note about the World War Z film.  Until I read this book, I really did not appreciate how wildly off-book the film adaptation was.  None of the true magic from the original story appears in the film at all, as they turned it into a generic action flick rather than a clever analysis of how a zombie apocalypse would change the world.  While I did enjoy the World War Z movie on its own, it is a terrible adaptation, with only small elements from the book appearing in the film.  While I can appreciate that this is not the easiest book to turn into a film, they didn’t even try.  I really do hope that someone does a proper adaptation of World War Z at some point, as it frankly deserves a lot better than what it got (perhaps a television series with each episode recreating one of the testimonies).

As you can clearly tell from the massive essay above, I deeply enjoyed World War Z by Max Brooks.  This was easily one of the best zombie novels I have ever read, and it definitely deserves its epic and highly regarded status.  Brooks’s distinctive and brilliant story was just plain amazing and I loved the outstanding combination of smaller testimonies coming together into one connected and thought-provoking tale.  The author cleverly examines every single aspect of a potential zombie apocalypse, and you find yourself not only loving the insane horror elements, but the fascinating political and social impacts that come with such an invasion.  Best enjoyed in the full audiobook format which features so many impressive voice actors, World War Z comes extremely highly recommended and I cannot hype it up enough!

World War Z Cover 2

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The Sandman – Act 1 (Audiobook) by Neil Gaiman and performed by a full cast

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Comics/Manga, Extended Universe, Fantasy, Five-Star Books, Horror, Superhero, Tie-in Novel18 Comments

Sandman Act 1 Cover

Publisher: Audible Original (Audio Drama – 15 July 2020)

Series: The Sandman

Script: Neil Gaiman and Dirk Maggs (script adapter)

Director: Dirk Maggs

Cast: Neil Gaiman, James McAvoy, Kat Dennings, Taron Egerton, Riz Ahmed, Samantha Morton, Bebe Neuwirth, Andy Serkis, Michael Sheen, Justin Vivian Bond, Arthur Darvill, William Hope, Mathew Horne, Reginald D. Hunter, Sue Johnston, Paterson Joseph, Josie Lawrence, Anton Lesser, Joanna Lumley, Miriam Margolyes, Tom Alexander, Stephen Critchlow, Blake Ritson, Oris Herhuero, Karen Batke, Ray Porter, Michael Roberts, Kerry Shale, Andrew James, Simon Vance, Sandra Dickinson, Ellen Thomas, Cathy Tyson, Sandra-Mae Luyx, Amaka Okafor, Shey Greyson, Laurel Lefkow, Harry Myers, Mack Keith Roach, Laurence Bouvard, Toby Longworth, Daniel Weyman, Samantha Beart, Cliff Chapman, Felicity Duncan, Julia Winwood, Nicholas Boulton, John MacMillan, Tracy Wiles and Adam Thomas Wright.

Length: 11 hours and 2 minutes

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Amazon

Thanks to a lengthy and productive road trip, I have finally breached the realm of dreams and explored the iconic and powerful creation that is Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.  In this review I check out the first act of its impressive full-cast audiobook adaptation.

Back in 1989, mind-bending author Neil Gaiman unleashed his most iconic comic creation when he introduced the complex and dark The Sandman.  Centred on the mysterious character of Dream, the anthropomorphic personification of dreams, The Sandman was a clever and intense hybrid of horror, fantasy and superhero storylines released as part of the Vertigo comic imprint, which was associated with the DC Comics universe.  This series was considered a revolutionary success and its unique and colourful story cemented Gaiman’s legacy in comic circles, as The Sandman and its spinoffs are still very highly regarded.

Now I must make a bit of a confession: I have never actually read The Sandman and it is a bit of a gap in my comic book knowledge.  I just never seemed to be in a position to read these comics despite hearing how good they were.  However, with the upcoming television adaptation of The Sandman set for release later this year, I thought that it was about time that I tried to check it out.  Luckily, the good folks at Audible decided to make this rather easy for me as they recently released a full-cast audiobook adaptation of The Sandman.  Not only was this a great opportunity for me to check out this cool comic in my favourite format, but this adaptation featured a truly remarkable cast of actors, with the production pulled together by the highly acclaimed Dirk Maggs.

There are many strange, unusual and powerful creatures inhabiting the universe, but only seven siblings, known as the Endless, are truly immortal.  The Endless, each a personification of a human concept, have their own realms and powers, with the most mysterious and unique belonging to Dream.  Known by many names, including Morpheus, he is the manifestation of all dreams and stories, and governs the Dreaming, the vast realm made up of creation’s collected dreams.  Unchanging since the dawn of time, Morpheus’s eternal life is about to get more complicated than he ever believed.

Summoned by a mystical cult seeking to capture his sister, Death, Morpheus finds himself trapped and powerless on Earth.  Stripped of his tools of office and placed within a magical cage, Morpheus is kept as a prisoner for over 70 years.  When he eventually escapes from his captors, Morpheus returns to his realm only to find it in tatters, with several of his servants missing and his own powers greatly weakened.  To ensure the continued stability of the Dreaming, Morpheus must endeavour to regain his full strength by recovering his lost tools of power.

However, this is no easy task as all three items have been scattered across the world and are now in the hands of several dangerous foes.  To obtain them, he will have to contend with human magician John Constantine, face down Lucifer and battle the malicious Justice League foe known as Doctor Destiny.  From dangerous demons to rogue dreams and even his own siblings, Morpheus will face great challenges and unique creations on his road back from capture.  But even if Morpheus does succeed, is he prepared for the full chaos his absence has wrought on the world?

I’ve been exceedingly foolish by neglecting The Sandman for so long.  This is such a unique and epic tale that contains powerful looks at revenge, change, human perception and the power of dreams and stories, and so much more, as Gaiman cleverly examines elements of the human psyche through the eyes of an elusive immortal.  The impressive and exceedingly memorable story contained within these early entries of The Sandman, are deeply captivating and I found myself really getting drawn into the amazing narrative and distinctive characters.  Throw in an exceptional voice cast and a brilliant audiobook production, and I honestly have no choice but to give this a full five-star review.

When I first heard about The Sandman audiobook I did wonder if it would provide a more abridged version of the narrative.  However, it appears that this production was a pretty faithful and full adaptation of issues #1-20 of The Sandman comic.  As such you get an intense and fully developed story that is guaranteed to grasp your attention and send your imagination into overdrive, especially by the two major storylines contained within these first 20 issues.  The first of these, the “More than Rubies” storyline, examines Morpheus’s capture by human occultists in the early 20th century, his decades-long imprisonment, his eventual escape, and his subsequent attempts to recover his tools of office to regain his lost power.  This storyline serves as a pretty awesome and captivating start to the entire production and it contains several distinctive and addictive chapters.  The initial chapters that deal with Morpheus’s imprisonment set up a lot of major storylines for the rest of the series, give you some fantastic early impressions of this world, introduce some key concepts and provide readers with their first compelling look at the main character.  From there, the story gets even more exciting as you follow Morpheus as he attempts to recover his items of power from some dangerous individuals.  This sets up some brilliant chapters as he deals with everyone’s favourite magician, John Constantine, in a horrific tale that provides readers with their first glimpse at the true danger of dreams.  From there, Morpheus goes straight to hell as he attempts to retain his helm from an army of demons while also dealing with the nefarious Lucifer in what is possibly one of the most entertaining parts of the entire production.  That is then followed by a particularly dark storyline that sees Morpheus forced to contend with damaged DC comics supervillain Doctor Destiny, who is using Morpheus’s own powers to destroy the world.  This initial main storyline is particularly good, with an amazing and captivating flow to it that is guaranteed to make you a fan of The Sandman.

The other major storyline of this first act of The Sandman sees Morpheus attempt to contend with a new dangerous threat impacting the Dreaming.  This threat turns out to be young woman, Rose Walker, who is a powerful Dream Vortex.  To fully understand her, Morpheus finds himself getting involved in her hunt for her missing brother, and soon finds himself in conflict with several of his missing creations, each of whom has their own agenda in the real world.  At the same time, Morpheus must contend with the machinations of his powerful siblings as they attempt to manipulate him for his own ends.  This second major storyline, The Doll’s House, is an extremely good follow-up to the introductory issues and continues several plot points, with several characters returning in interesting ways.  Indeed, as you traverse through this storyline, it becomes apparent how much the author set up in the initial major storyline, and this helps to make The Doll’s House flow extremely well.  This major storyline itself is pretty damn fun, and I liked how it split between Morpheus and several of the other major players, particularly Rose Walker and The Corinthian.  The entire thing goes in some rather interesting directions, from the traumatised dreaming mind of a young boy also containing several lost superheroes, to a serial killer convention where some of Morpheus’s most dangerous creations have arrived.  This entire storyline is pretty damn twisty and trippy in places, but it comes together extremely well and has some amazing high points to it.  I particularly enjoyed the sequences depicting the serial killer convention, which was both entertaining and disturbing in equal measures but which also has an outstanding payoff to it.  The Doll’s House ends the major storylines on an extremely high note and it will ensure that you will come back for the second act desperately wanting more.

Aside from the two main storylines, The Sandman also contains several filler arcs that take place around the main storylines, including all the stories contained in the collected volume Dream Country.  While I would usually be a little disappointed to have a gap occur between some of the main storylines like this, it worked really well.  Not only do these filler chapters serve as a bit of a palate cleanser, breaking up the major storylines, but they also provide a lot of additional context for the wider The Sandman universe by expanding on many of the supporting characters, such as Morpheus’s relatives or some of the strange people he encounters through his travels.  Each of these storylines lasts for a single chapter (an issue from the comic), and are fairly self-contained, coming together and concluding in short order.  Each of these filler stories is quite intriguing in their own right, especially as these stories are a little more metaphysical and often contain a dark, thought-provoking cautionary tale.  There is also an interesting range of settings and time periods for many of these stories, as some occur many years before the events of the major storylines, due to the immortal nature of Morpheus and his siblings.  I honestly enjoyed each of these separate storylines, not only because of the fantastic ways that they expanded The Sandman universe but because of the way that each story hit a different emotional note.  My favourite was probably Men of Good Fortune (issue #13 of the comic), a brilliant story that sees Morpheus and Death encounter a man, Hob Gadling, who is certain of his desire never to die.  Intrigued, Morpheus ensures his immortality and arranges to meet him once every 100 years in the same tavern.  So begins a fantastic story that skips across centuries as you see Hob continue to exist and change through the centuries.  Watching him achieve the highs and lows of an immortal is deeply fascinating, as is his compelling and deeply personal interactions with Morpheus as they discuss his experiences and his desires to stay alive.  The conclusion of this story proves to be particularly moving, and it helps to humanise Morpheus after several issues of him being emotionally distant.  Other interesting filler arcs include Morpheus meeting with Death and following her around in her complex and sad duties, another sees William Shakespeare, who years earlier made a Faustian bargain with Morpheus, debut A Midsummer’s Night Dream to a host of elven nobility in a touching performance.  All these filler arcs, and more, add a certain gravitas to the overall book, and I think that they really helped to enhance the major storylines they were set around.

I was really impressed with all these major and minor storylines, especially as the writing behind them was particularly powerful and brilliant.  Everything flows together extremely well and you can see that Gaiman is setting up a ton of fascinating storylines for the future, while also ensuring that the current plot points stand on their own and are extremely fun.  Everything about this story is interesting, and while the author does occasionally go in some zany, grotesque and unique directions, it generally proves to be entertaining and eventually fits back into the major storylines in a great way.  Gaiman seeks to create a massive and powerful epic that not is not only filled with action and excitement but which causes the reader to stop and think about certain states of being or metaphysical aspects such as dreaming.  This is often achieved, especially in the audiobook format, with distinctive and powerful dialogues that showcase the unique attributes of the characters and the dramatic and dangerous situations they find themselves in.

I personally loved how there were a range of different styles and elements featured throughout the plot as The Sandman didn’t conform to one particular genre.  The story could at any time jump from unique fantasy adventure to a deep character driven narrative or end up being a bleak and deeply disturbing horror tale.  For example, one of the best chapters in this act of The Sandman was a dark, disturbing and somewhat detached horror narrative they fit in right after a chapter involving the Justice League and certain Batman villains.  In this story the deadly Doctor Dee, having stolen Morpheus’s dream stone, holds several people hostage in a diner over the course of a day.  Throughout this day (which is counted down hour by hour for some impressive dramatic impact), Doctor Dee toys with his pets, diving deep into their personal lives and using disturbing elements from their past to manipulate their emotions and their reactions.  This results in several extremely disturbing hours as the bad doctor makes them experience lust, despair, hatred, animalist urges, religious zeal and more to entertain him as he waits, and it turns this chapter into a horrific experience in between some more action packed or fantasy issues.  This frequent change in genre really helps to make this first act stand out, and all the different storylines and elements work well with the overall dark gothic theme of The Sandman.  It also helps to make The Sandman a bit more accessible to different readers as there is something here for all fans of horror, fantasy and comics, although some basic knowledge of DC and Vertigo comics may be somewhat helpful.

This story is greatly helped by the complex and exceedingly memorable characters featured throughout.  The most notable of these characters is the titular Sandman himself, central character Dream/Morpheus, an immortal anthropomorphic personification who lives in creation’s dreams and serves as their lord and master.  I loved how Morpheus is portrayed in this first act as the reader really gets to sink their teeth into the character and find out what makes him tick.  Gaiman ensures you get the most out of Morpheus by immediately showing him at his worst, imprisoned for decades by humans with his powers stolen from him.  While you don’t get a lot of insight into who or what he is at the beginning, once he escapes you find out everything you need about his motivations, responsibilities and personalities.  Gaiman initially paints Morpheus as a callous and detached being, removed from humanity and more concerned with his own needs and realm than the people he interacts with.  While it does make it a little harder to root for him in some of the earlier storylines, I think this coldness helped to stoke some real mystery around the character and you wanted to find out more about him and his past.  Once the first major story arc ends and you get into some of the filler stories, especially the one involving the interaction with his sister Death, you start to understand him a lot better and soon see that his a basically good person, just with some major personality flaws brought on by his immortal existence and purpose.  Don’t get me wrong, at times he is still a pretty hard character to like, especially when details about his love life are revealed, but he is generally a lot more likeable than most of the other immortal or non-human characters you encounter, and you get really invested in his continual struggles.  By the end of his first act you will become extremely addicted to his story arc, and I cannot wait to see how Morpheus’s narrative continues in the future.

Gaiman has come up with an eclectic and distinctive group of characters to support the story, with a fantastic combination of original characters, mythological figures and even a few established DC and Vertigo comic characters.  These great characters are featured to various degrees throughout the story, with some being continuously used, while others only get brief flashes.  All of them are pretty fantastic, and I loved seeing how Gaiman worked them into his brilliant narrative.  There are so many notable characters throughout this first act to talk about, especially as they were portrayed by some outstanding actors (more on that later), and I could honestly spend pages talking about all of them, however, in the interests of saving time I might just limit it to my absolute favourites.  I must highlight Dream’s sister Death; rather than a traditional mournful or skeletal figure, Death is shown as a cheerful young woman who bears great compassion and kindness to those she reaps.  This is a really interesting change to the usual personification of Death you see in fiction, and it works really well, especially as Death here serves as a great positive foil to her dour brother Dream and the other Endless.  As such, she swiftly becomes a favourite character to follow, especially with her many different appearances.  I also must mention Gaiman’s great use of John Constantine, everyone’s favourite drunk English wizard, who has a notable chapter towards the start of the story.   Lucifer himself is also brilliant as a brief secondary antagonist, and Gaiman lays some interesting story seeds here for him.  The comedic duo of Cain and Abel brings some fun to several stories, as does Morpheus’s servant, Matthew the Raven.  Rose Walker serves as an excellent protagonist of the second major storyline, and I enjoyed her very English protector, Gilbert, who has some intriguing scenes.  Finally, I was rather impressed with the great early antagonist Doctor John Dee, better known as the Justice League villain Doctor Destiny.  Gaiman went out of his way to make Doctor Dee as creepy and deranged as possible in this comic and he has some outstanding, if shockingly horrifying, scenes throughout the More than Rubies storyline.  He, and other great villains like The Corinthian, add some intriguing danger and a ton of depravity to the story, and I had an absolute blast getting to know all these great characters.

As I mentioned before, I chose to check out the full-cast audio adaptation of The Sandman rather than reading the original comics, and this greatly impacted my experiences of how I absorbed this unique story.  However, while I probably missed out on some brilliant artwork, I think that this audio adaptation was the perfect way to enjoy this elaborate and massive story.  As far as I can tell, the audio production faithfully adapts all the comic storylines throughout its run, with the movement and action of the comic page replaced with narration, sound effects and probably altered dialogue where necessary for the benefit of the listener.  While this is probably a little different than the comic, I think that it captured the tone, characters, and intent of The Sandman exceedingly well, and the resulting production is pretty damn impressive.  Not only does it feature some brilliant acting, but the production team makes outstanding use of a ton of cool sound effects and some moving music to create something extremely special.

While this audio production has many great features, without a shadow of a doubt its most defining aspect is the incredibly stacked voice cast who bring the various characters to life.  Someone clearly sold their soul to get the eventual cast for The Sandman, as some exceedingly talented actors are featured here giving some intense and powerful performances.  These great performances deeply enhance the entirety of The Sandman and turn this already outstanding story into something that you will listen to again and again.  This voice cast is led by the insanely talented James McAvoy, who voices main character Morpheus.  McAvoy is extremely good in this production, showcasing all his acting range to bring this complex character to life in all his dark, gothic and detached glory.  Thanks to the way he voices the character, listeners really get a sense of how ethereal and distant Morpheus can be, as well as the intense weight of the events of this story and the relationships he has formed.  You really get the full gambit of Morpheus’s emotions during this first act and McAvoy covers them all perfectly, embodying the character’s rage, sorrow, impatience and intense regret extremely well.  This performance really serves to enhance the character of Morpheus in this production of The Sandman, and McAvoy was the perfect actor to helm this entire series.

The rest of the voice cast is just as impressive, with several major celebrities featured here.  Taron Egerton has a notable time voicing the iconic John Constantine and his pretty damn good here, bringing the distinctive magician to life extremely well.  Edgerton brilliantly brings forth Constantine’s full emotional range throughout The Sandman, and you get a great sense of his cheeky demeanour which overlays his insane amount of guilt and despair.  This was a very good version of Constantine, and indeed after listening to this production, Edgerton would be my choice for Constantine if they chose to do another major movie with him.  In addition, Kat Dennings has a major role in this audiobook as Death.  Dennings is pretty amazing here, and she brings some real life (pun intended) to this major role, showcasing this character’s intense warmth and friendliness, as well as her exasperations when it comes to her brother.  Dennings really made this unique character her own, and I deeply enjoyed her performance.  I also had a lot of fun with Andy Serkis who voices Matthew the Raven, Dream’s messenger and servant.  Matthew is a fairly comedic role which Serkis fills perfectly, giving the raven a sarcastic and everyman feel that fit the lines really well and helped to make him a very distinctive and fun figure.

Other big-name actors include Bebe Neuwirth, who perfectly voices a prophetic cat with aspirations to change the world through dreaming.  Riz Ahmed is pretty terrifying as The Corinthian and you get some major serial killer vibes from his performance.  Arthur Davill has a great couple of appearances as William Shakespeare, while the legendary Joanna Lumley has an unfortunately short appearance as Lady Johanna Constantine, although she gets her time to shine in future productions.  Likewise, Michael Sheen has only a short appearance as Lucifer Morningstar, although he brings some incredible flair to the character, dripping style, venom and power.  Like Joanna Lumley, Sheen will get his time to shine in future instalments of this audio series, so don’t be too disappointed with his limited appearances here.  I loved William Hope as Doctor Dee, as he gives the villain some deep malevolence and insanity.  Michael Roberts and Kerry Shale are fun as Cain and Able respectfully, while Paterson Joseph has a great sequence as The Demon Choronzon.  I was also very happy to see that one of my favourite audiobook narrators, Ray Porter, was featured here, voicing multiple supporting characters.  All of Porter’s portrayals were very fun, although I think he was best as Gilbert, providing some fun British pomp to the character.  Finally, Neil Gaiman himself has a massive role in this production as the Narrator, which is pretty damn appropriate.  Gaiman is great as the narrator, with his distinctive voice perfectly moving the story along, as he describes events, actions and settings, as well as providing a massive dose of exposition.  I was really impressed with Gaiman’s continued performance here, and I honestly don’t know if anyone else could have done such an impactful and meaningful job of it.  I am honestly only just scratching the surface of this cast, as there are a ton of other actors featured throughout The Sandman in some way.  However, all of them are extremely good and their work on this show is just superb.

As you can no doubt tell from the elaborate and long-winded review above, I had an outstanding time with this audio production of The Sandman, and I am so very happy that I got to finally experience Neil Gaiman’s amazing series.  Everything about this audiobook was impressive, with an elaborate and dark narrative, gritty characters, fantastic performances and some incredible world building.  There is truly something for everybody here, as readers unfamiliar with The Sandman can easily jump in and learn everything they want to know about the series (I’m now ready for that upcoming Netflix series), while established fans will no doubt enjoy it performed by such a talented team of actors.  I had such a good time listening to this first act that once I finished, I immediately jumped into listening to the second act, which has an even better and expanded voice cast.  I will hopefully review that in a few weeks, but in the meantime do yourself a favour and listen to this incredible audio production of The Sandman, as you will not regret it.

Amazon

Star Wars: The High Republic: Tempest Runner written by Cavan Scott and performed by a full cast

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Extended Universe, Science Fiction, Star Wars, Tie-in Novel6 Comments

Star Wars - Tempest Runner Cover

Publisher: Random House Audio (Audio Drama – 31 August 2021)

Series: Star Wars – The High Republic

Script: Cavan Scott

Cast: Jessica Almasy, Dan Bittner, Orlagh Cassidy, Sullivan Jones, January LaVoy, Kathleen McInerney, Tara Sands, Vikas Adam, Jonathan Davis, Neil Hellegers, Saskia Maarleveld, Soneela Nankani, Marc Thompson and Shannon Tyo

Length: 6 hours and 5 minutes

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Amazon

The epic High Republic era of Star Wars fiction continues in Tempest Runner, the brilliant and captivating full-cast audio drama written by impressive author Cavan Scott.

Ever since its beginnings in early 2021, I have been having a lot of fun with the cool new focus of the Star Wars extended universe known as The High Republic.  Set hundreds of years before the Skywalker Saga, The High Republic has featured several impressive novels, comics and other media releases that tell a grim story of destruction and strife in the golden age of the Republic and the Jedi.  One of more interesting pieces of this fiction from late 2021 was this fantastic full-cast audio drama, Tempest Runner, which focused on one of this era’s best villains, the Nihil Tempest Runner, Lourna Dee.  This awesome audio drama was authored by the exceedingly talented Cavan Scott, who not only wrote my favourite High Republic book so far, The Rising Storm, but also a great previous Star Wars audio drama, Dooku: Jedi Lost.

Synopsis:

The Nihil storm has raged through the galaxy, leaving chaos and grief in its wake. Few of its raiders are as vicious as the Tempest Runner Lourna Dee. She stays one step ahead of the Jedi Order at the helm of a vessel named after one of the deadliest monsters in the galaxy: the Lourna Dee. But no one can outrun the defenders of the High Republic forever.

After the defeat of her crew, Lourna falls into the hands of the Jedi – but not before she hides her identity, becoming just another Nihil convict. Her captors fail to understand the beast they have cornered. Just like every fool she’s ever buried, their first mistake was keeping her alive.

Lourna is determined to make underestimating her their last.

Locked onto a Republic correctional ship, she’s dragged across the galaxy to repair the very damage she and her fellow Tempest Runners inflicted on it. But as Lourna plans her glorious escape, she makes alliances that grow dangerously close to friendships. Outside the Nihil – separated from her infamous ship, her terrifying arsenal, and her feared name – Lourna must carve her own path. But will it lead to redemption? Or will she emerge as a deadlier threat than ever before?

Tempest Runner ended up being an entertaining and captivating piece of Star Wars fiction.  Featuring another excellent story from Scott that not only dives into the past of great character Lourna Dee but continues the story set up in several of the past High Republic novels.  Perfectly told using a full cast of narrators, this was an outstanding audio drama that I had a wonderful time listening to.

It was clear that Scott was on quite a roll last year when it came to fantastic storytelling.  Tempest Runner is set after the events of The Rising Storm and continues several interesting storylines from this novel, as well as other pieces of High Republic fiction such as Light of the Jedi and Out of the Shadows.  Starting off with Lourna’s capture by the Jedi, the story shows her successfully hide her identity and get imprisoned aboard a Republic prison ship doing hard labour as punishment.  Trapped with some of the worst criminals in the galaxy, as well as former Nihil members who utilise her identity for her own good, Lourna is forced to survive while also coming to terms with who she is, what drives her and what she wants from the future, especially when she connects with one of the prison guards.  However, an enemy from her past has found out where she is and is determined to kill her no matter what.  This leads to several intense and brutal confrontations as Lourna is forced to once again bring out her inner monster to save herself and defeat her opponents, while also setting her path for future endeavours in the High Republic universe.

Tempest Runner’s narrative ended up being pretty intense, and I loved the cool and intriguing plot, especially as there are several fun twists and reveals, including that great one towards the end.  While this is a mostly self-contained piece of Star Wars fiction, there are multiple intriguing connections to other High Republic novels and comics.  I particularly loved how several of the best villains from the main two novels were used here, and it also sets up Lourna’s storyline for the next book in the series.  Scott employs an interesting and roundabout way of telling Tempest Runner’s story, utilising a series of flashbacks and interludes to continue the main plot which occasionally helps compensate for the lack of descriptive words that is characteristic of the audio drama format.  I really need to highlight the book’s great opening section in which the capture of the protagonist is recounted in compelling detail to the novel’s main antagonist, with the storyteller and his audience providing questions and commentary during the dramatisation of the events being discussed to provide context.  The storyline has a great blend of elements, and I loved the fantastic prison story, the intrigue of the Nihil, the fantastic revenge plot surrounding the antagonist, as well as the massive amount of character development that occurs around the main character.

Scott really went out of his way to explore the character of Lourna Dee in Tempest Runner.  Despite being one of the most distinctive and entertaining villains in the High Republic canon, very little was known about Lourna Dee before now, except that she is an unassailable badass who is even capable of hanging with a Jedi in a fight.  Tempest Runner, however, dives deep into the heart of this cool character, and I liked the complex and intriguing development and history around her.  Most of the story is dedicated to the modern Lourna, who, after being captured, attempts to turn over a new leaf in the prison system to survive.  This provides some interesting insights into her mind and motivations, especially as she is not as mindless a killer as some of the previous books would lead you to believe.  Instead, she is quite a complex and tragic figure, something that is made clear when you see the various flashbacks to her past that Scott comes up with.  These flashbacks tell a captivating tale of betrayal and heartbreak, showcasing what led an innocent girl to a life of hardship and crime.  This backstory is extremely fascinating, with some powerful moments of love, loss, and revenge.  In addition, the story also dives into how she became a member of the Nihil and rose in its ranks.  This interesting background weaved into the main plot extremely well, and I think that Scott showcased the character’s past perfectly, ensuring that it explains her current mentality and motivations.  I am deeply happy that we finally got to see this character’s backstory, and it really did not disappoint.

While most of Tempest Runner’s focus was on Lourna Dee, a couple of other characters really stood out to me.  This included Tasia, the former Nihil member who blackmails Lourna to help her survive in prison.  Tasia is a fun secondary antagonist, and it was very entertaining to see her try and make a power play on Lourna once she was no longer in control.  I also loved seeing more of Pan Eyta, a former Nihil Tempest Runner who was betrayed by Lourna in The Rising Storm.  Pan, who is dying thanks Lourna, goes on a big revenge mission here and ends up being the major antagonist of this novel.  I personally thought this was an amazing conclusion to his compelling character arc established in the previous novels and it was great to see him and Lourna have several aggressive and deeply personal confrontations throughout Tempest Runner.  I also enjoyed seeing a young version of High Republic arch-antagonist Marchion Ro, before he took control of the Nihil, as well as a glimpse of his often-discussed father Asgar Ro.  Several other supporting characters in this novel were also pretty fun, and I had a great time seeing some of their storylines unfold.

While I had to highlight Tempest Runner’s cool narrative and great characters, you can’t talk about this amazing piece of Star Wars fiction without mentioning the awesome audio drama format.  I have a lot of love for Star Wars audiobooks and audio dramas (such as Doctor Aphra), and this was a particularly good one.  The team behind this epic audio drama did an amazing job of combining Scott’s great story with a team of brilliant voice actors, as well as the typical Star Wars sound effects and music.  With a run time of just over six hours, this is a very easy audio drama to quickly power through, and I think I managed it in just over a day myself.  While some people unfamiliar with the format might have some issues regarding the full reliance on descriptive dialogue and sound effects rather than expositional text to describe action, I thought that Tempest Runner was adapted extremely well and I had an absolute blast getting through it.

I must highlight the exceptional cast of voice actors that were featured in this awesome audio drama, as the team behind it pulled together a great group of narrators, including several actors well known for their work bringing Star Wars audiobooks to life.  The most prominent actor in this group is probably Jessica Almasy, who voiced main character Lourna Dee.  Almasy brings a great deal of complexity to the role and I loved the semi-French accent she utilised throughout Tempest Runner, which was reminiscent of how Twi’lek characters speak in shows like Star Wars: Rebels.  I thought that Almasy did a brilliant job of highlighting Lourna’s true feelings and personality in this audio drama, and it was great to see her transform the character in several intense, emotional scenes.  This was some brilliant voice work and it was an amazing highlight of this exceptional production.

I also deeply appreciated the great work that the other actors contributed to Tempest Runner and its characters.  While there were a few new narrators here whose work I enjoyed, the ones that impressed me the most were established narrators from other Star Wars audiobooks.  This includes January LaVoy, who voiced the character of Tasia, providing her with some much-needed depth and spite.  LaVoy, who I loved in works such as Star Wars: Victory’s Price (one of my favourite books and audiobooks of 2021) and Star Trek: Discovery: Die Standing, was just great here and I really appreciated the characterisation her voice added to Tasia.  Marc Thompson, who has previously narrated all the main High Republic novels, as well as the Thrawn Ascendancy books (Chaos Rising, Greater Good and Lesser Evil), was another standout narrator, especially as he voiced three characters, including antagonists Pan Eyta and Marchion Ro.  Having this cool continuation from Light of the Jedi and The Rising Storm for these great villains helped me enjoy their appearances in Tempest Runner a lot more, especially as Thompson has come up with some extremely sinister and fitting voices for them.  I also had a lot of fun with Jonathan Davis (who previously narrated Master & Apprentice, Lords of the Sith and Maul: Lockdown), who voiced two characters here.  I particularly enjoyed his work on the mysterious Asgar Ro, and the calm and wise tone he utilises for him (which is reminiscent of another major Star Wars character), works perfectly to give him some great depth.  An overall exceptional collection of narrators, I had an amazing time listening to this audio drama.

With a great cast, a brilliant story and a great focus on an incredible central character, Tempest Runner was an outstanding addition to the High Republic range of Star Wars fiction.  The always impressive Cavan Scott came up with an awesome narrative for Tempest Runner and I loved learning more about fun character Lourna Dee.  A must-listen for all fans of The High Republic, you really won’t regret checking out Tempest Runner.

Amazon

Top Ten Tuesday – Favourite Audiobooks of 2020

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, List105 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that currently resides at The Artsy Reader Girl and features bloggers sharing lists on various book topics.  For this latest Top Ten Tuesday, participants needed to list the top ten books they hoped that Santa would bring them, however, I am going to do a slightly different topic.  As we are nearing the end of 2020, I have decided to once again produce a series of lists that highlight my favourite books for the year, judged by several different criteria.  I have previously listed my Top Ten Pre-2020 novels I read this year and now I am going to focus on something else, my Top Ten Favourite Audiobooks of 2020.

Readers of my blog only need to check out my extensive audiobook category to know that I have a lot of love for the audiobook format.  In my opinion, the audiobook is often the best way to experience a good book, and in many cases this format makes a book more enjoyable for me.  As a result, I listened to quite a few audiobooks this year, and while several of them are books that had been released before 2020 and featured in my Throwback Thursday posts, a large majority of them were released this year.  There were some outstanding audiobook adaptions this year, and while I had a few books to choose from, I was eventually able narrow my absolute favourites down to a top ten list.

For this list I have only included audiobooks released in 2020 that I have listened to and completed, so I am excluding a few books that probably had some great audiobook productions (for example, I am sure that audiobooks of The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett or Devolution by Max Brooks were amazing, but I ended up reading a physical copy of them instead).  While all of the books that made the top ten are outstanding novels, I have tried to take overall audiobook production into account while choosing my list.  Each of the books that I included below had great narrators and I think that for most of these novels the audiobook format actually enhanced the story and helped me enjoy the book even more.  I am extremely happy with how this list eventually turned out (with my typical extended honourable mentions section), and I had an amazing time coming up with this latest Top Ten article.

 

Honourable Mentions:

 

The Salvage Crew, written by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and narrated by Nathan Fillion

The Salvage Crew Cover


House of Earth and Blood, written by Sarah J. Maas and narrated by Elizabeth Evans

House of Earth and Blood Cover


Star Trek: Discover: Die Standing, written by John Jackson Miller and narrated by January LaVoy

Die Standing Cover

I was also strongly tempted to use Star Trek: Picard: Last Best Hope, but I felt that Die Standing had a stronger and more exciting story that worked well with the audiobook format.


Song of the Risen God, written by R. A. Salvatore and narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds

Song of the Risen God Cover

Top Ten List:


Battle Ground, written by Jim Butcher and narrated by James Marsters

Battle Ground Cover


The Thursday Murder Club, written by Richard Osman and narrated by Lesley Manville

The Thursday Murder Club Cover


Harrow the Ninth, written by Tamsyn Muir and narrated by Moira Quirk

Harrow the Ninth Cover


Race the Sands, written by Sarah Beth Durst and narrated by Emily Ellet

Race the Sands Cover


Into the Fire, written by Gregg Hurwitz and narrated by Scott Brick

Into the Fire


Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, written by Sarah Kuhn and narrated by a full cast

Doctor Aphra Audio Cover

While a couple of other 2020 Star Wars tie-in novels did have more compelling or original stories, I felt that the combination of the fun adapted narrative in this audio drama and the excellent full voice cast made Doctor Aphra the best Star Wars audiobook of the year.


The Trouble With Peace, written by Joe Abercrombie and narrated by Steven Pacey

The Trouble with Peace Cover


Ink, written by Jonathan Maberry and narrated by Ray Porter

Ink Cover


The Kingdom of Liars, written by Nick Martell and narrated by Joe Jameson

The Kingdom of Liars Cover


One Minute Out, written by Mark Greaney and narrated by Jay Snyder

One Minute Out Cover

 

Well that is the end of this latest Top Ten list.  All of the above novels are extremely good, and I would highly recommend each of them in their audiobook format.  There is still time for me to listen to a few more great audiobooks this year, and I am planning to listen to either A Fool’s Hope by Mike Shackle or Cyber Shogun Revolution by Peter Tieryas next.  Let me know what your favourite audiobooks of 2020 were in the comments below, and I might try and check them out.

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra written by Sarah Kuhn and performed by a full cast

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Extended Universe, LGBT+, Science Fiction, Star Wars, Tie-in Novel19 Comments

Doctor Aphra Audio Cover

Publisher: Random House Audio (Audio Drama – 21 July 2020)

Series: Star Wars

Script: Sarah Kuhn

Cast: Emily Woo Zeller, Jonathan Davis, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Sean Kenin, Nicole Lewis, Carol Monda, Euan Morton, Catherine Taber and Marc Thompson

Length: 5 hours and 35 minutes

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Amazon

The most brilliant and conniving archaeologist in the entire Star Wars canon gets her own audio drama as author Sarah Kuhn and an exceedingly talented cast of audiobook narrators present Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, the audio drama.

Throughout the galaxy Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra is renowned as a criminal and bringer of chaos without peer, but in her own eyes she is simply an archaeologist and technology enthusiast, albeit one willing to sell her findings to the highest bidder.  However, her latest venture is about to get her into the worst type of trouble, the sort that will haunt her for the rest of her incredibly short life.  Attempting to steal a dangerous weapon from a restricted alien vault, Aphra finds herself surrounded and slated to die, that is until Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and overall badass suddenly appears and saves her. 

Vader is engaging in a high-risk power play against the Emperor and Aphra has just become his most useful pawn, whether she likes it or not.  Working as his agent, Aphra must utilise her skills as a con-woman, genius technician and criminal mastermind to help Vader achieve his goals: depose the Emperor and find his new obsession, the pilot who blew up the Death Star, Luke Skywalker.  Determined to stay on Vader’s good side, Aphra, with the help of her two friendly murder droids, Triple-Zero and BT-1, helps her new master engage in all manner of shenanigans across the universe, including kidnappings, torture and elaborate heists.  However, Aphra knows that all it will take is just one mistake or slip-up to earn her new employers’ deadly wrath.  To avoid her inevitable appointment with Vader’s crimson lightsaber, Aphra will need to pull out every trick in her impressive arsenal if she is to survive.  But can even the great Doctor Aphra outsmart Darth Vader and the entire Empire, or has the smartest woman in the galaxy finally met her match?

Well this is an exceedingly fun and entertaining entry in the Star Wars expanded universe which provides a new angle to the tale of Doctor Aphra.  Doctor Aphra is an incredible and complex character who has only been recently added into the canon.  Introduced in the opening issues the 2015 Darth Vader comic book series, Doctor Aphra served as a major supporting character for much of the series run, entertaining readers with her antics and ability to survive working for Darth Vader.  Aphra proved to be an extremely popular character, and this resulted in the character getting her own comic book series (which ironically lasted more issues than the Darth Vader series she was introduced in).  The Doctor Aphra series ended up being an amazing hit thanks to some exceptional writing and it is one of my favourite pieces of Star Wars tie-in fiction (make sure to check out my reviews for the last two volumes in the series, Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon and A Rogue’s End), and there is even a second Doctor Aphra series on its way.  It seems that Aphra’s popularity has continued to grow as earlier this year this Doctor Aphra audio drama was released, written by talented author Sarah Kuhn.  This proved to be an exceptionally impressive audio release that does an amazing job bringing this fantastic character into an entirely new format.  This audio drama has a run time of around five and a half hours, which listeners are able to breeze through in no time at all.

The Doctor Aphra audio drama contains an intriguing and captivating story that follows the character as she engages in all manner of adventures in service to Darth Vader and her own survival.  Told entirely from the perspective of Aphra as she makes a series of recordings to an unknown person, and set shortly after the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, this story follows Aphra through the entirety of her ill-fated association with Darth Vader.  This employment places her in all manner of danger, as she completes a series of tasks important to Vader, including an elaborate heist; gets in the middle of a deadly conflict between Vader, one of his rivals in the Empire, and the protagonists of The Original Trilogy; and finds herself a prisoner of the Rebel Alliance before eventually attempting to manipulate the Emperor for her own ends.  At the same time, Aphra is constantly balancing on a knife’s edge, as her beloved boss has made it abundantly clear that he will kill her the moment she displeases him.  This forces Aphra into a number of tense and dangerous situations as she needs to convince Vader to keep her alive throughout the entire book.  This struggle to stay alive adds a substantial amount of suspense to the audio drama, as the listener really wants this entertaining character to survive, and it eventually leads to an outstanding and epic conclusion.  All of this proves to be an exceedingly captivating adventure, and listeners are in for an exciting and hilarious time, especially with Aphra’s entertaining and over-exaggerated narration of the events occurring. 

While I did really enjoy the story contained within this audio drama, I do need to point out that it is not actually an original tale; instead it is an adaption of several canon comic book series, namely the comics that featured Aphra’s early adventures.  The first part of the audio drama adapts most of the first two volumes of the 2015 Darth Vader comic series, Volume One: Vader and Volume Two: Shadows and Secrets.  From there the story follows the course of the crossover limited series, Vader Down, before moving on to the events of the fourth volume of the 2015 Star Wars comic, Rebel Jail.  Finally, the story returns to the Darth Vader comic, utilising parts of the fourth and final volume, End of Games.  Doctor Aphra proves to be an exceptional adaptation of these comics although they only show off the events that Aphra herself witnessed or was a part of.  I had an amazing time listening to this adaptation and I really enjoyed seeing several of the amazing events that originally occurred on the page being brought to life by this enjoyable performance. 

People interested in listening to this audio drama do not need to have read the adapted comics first, as Kuhn provides Aphra with a great deal of narration that explains her role in the story and all the events leading up to the comics.  As someone who has read the comics before listening to this audio drama, I found that there was a lot in this production for fans of the comic.  I personally really enjoyed seeing these events from Aphra’s perspective (as the original comics mostly followed main characters such as Vader, Luke, Leia, and Han), and it was extremely interesting to see her thoughts on the various events occurring.  The author also comes up with a lot of additional backstory that helps to enrich Aphra’s involvement in the narrative, which fans of the character will really appreciate.  While I had a great time listening to this audio drama, I did notice that several events were glossed over, mainly because Aphra did not witness them occur in the comics.  For example, you have no idea who is behind several of the battles or attacks that Aphra finds herself in the middle of, with Aphra herself giving limited explanations for them.  While I knew full well what was going on, people who haven’t read the comics are going to be full of questions and this may make the audio drama a little confusing at times.  That being said, this was still an outstanding and deeply enjoyable production, and perhaps it will encourage listeners to check out some of the adapted comics (trust me, they are awesome).

One of the best things about this audio drama was the way in which the narrative explored the complex and exceedingly likeable character of Doctor Chelli Aphra.  Aphra is a clever, impulsive and chaotic rogue archaeologist who is obsessed with ancient technology, particularly unusual droids and dangerous weapons.  Aphra is a wildly entertaining character who is essentially an amoral version of Indiana Jones that has no problems cheating or betraying people who she encounters, as long as she gets to hold onto the valuable antiques or can sell them for vast amounts of money (none of her loot belongs in a museum!).  Aphra appears to have a relentlessly positive personality, providing the listener with a string of continual jokes and funny observations with an infectious amount of enthusiasm.  However, deep down Aphra is actually a deeply damaged individual who has suffered a number of losses and betrayals that impact her current outlook on life and other people. 

Despite the fact that Aphra is the very definition of an unreliable narrator (she literally deletes or edits the parts of the story she does not like to suit her agenda), I felt that this audio drama does an amazing job exploring this wily protagonist.  Having Aphra’s inner monologue about the events occurring during this story proved to be not only entertaining but also very enlightening, and it showed some fascinating glimpses of her inner personality and emotional state.  While much of Aphra’s story was previously explored in the comics that Doctor Aphra is based on, this adaptation does go a little further, pulling in some backstory that was introduced in the later Doctor Aphra comics and expertly working it into this narrative.  Kuhn also comes up with some additional history that is unique to this production, including a number of scenes that explore her previous romantic relationship with Sana Starros.  While this relationship has been mentioned and discussed in several of the comics, this is probably the most in-depth examination of it in the canon and it becomes an important part of the overall plot.  I really enjoyed the way in which Doctor Aphra examined its titular protagonist and I felt that the story really captured her essence and outrageous personality.

This audio drama sports an amazing voice cast and each of them does a fantastic job in this production.  However, I really must highlight the performance of Emily Woo Zeller, who portrayed the titular character.  Zeller is an experienced and talented narrator who has contributed to a huge raft of audiobooks, including several I am quite interested in checking out, such as Cyber Shogun Revolution by Peter Tieryas.  Due to how the audio drama is written, Zeller’s voice is the one we hear the most throughout Doctor Aphra, as she recounts all of the characters dialogue and the overall narration of this book.  I really loved the way that Zeller portrayed the character of Aphra in this audio drama and I thought she got all the aspects of the character down perfectly.  Zeller gives a particularly energetic performance throughout this adaption, and listeners get a real sense of the mischievous and over confident outer shell that Doctor Aphra portrays to everyone she meets.  However, Zeller also captures the vulnerable nature of this complex protagonist, showing off the character’s full range of emotions when she is scared, angry or contemplating her many regrets.  This rich and amazing performance from Zeller really helps to make this audio drama something special, and I am really glad that she was able to bring Doctor Aphra to life in such an exceptional way.

Doctor Aphra also makes use of several other impressive voice actors throughout this audio drama, each of whom are portraying major Star Wars characters who Aphra interacts with through the course of this adventure.  This audio drama features a who’s who of Star Wars audiobook narrators, many of whose works I have previously enjoyed in a range of productions including the previous Star Wars audio drama, Dooku: Jedi Lost.  These additional narrators include Jonathan Davis (who I previously enjoyed in Star Wars: Master and Apprentice and Lords of the Sith), Sean Kenin (Death Troopers), Euan Morton (Tarkin), Catherine Taber (Queen’s Peril and Queen’s Shadow), Marc Thompson (Thrawn, Thrawn: Chaos Rising, Dark Disciple and Scoundrels), Sean Patrick Hopkins, Nicole Lewis and Carol Monda.  Each of these voice actors did an exceptional job of bringing their various characters to life throughout Doctor Aphra.  I particularly enjoyed Marc Thompson’s Darth Vader and Euan Morton’s Emperor, as both voice actors brought some realistic menace to these iconic villains.  Catherine Taber, who is best known for her portrayal of Padme Amidala in The Clone Wars animated series, does an excellent Princess Leia in this production, and I really appreciated the choice to cast her.  Sean Patrick Hopkins does a really cool Luke Skywalker, and I was really struck by how close he got to a younger Mark Hamil’s voice.  I also really enjoyed Sean Kenin’s Triple-Zero, and I felt he really captured the essence of this crazy character.  Each of these side characters added a lot to the production as a whole and, while they were not as heavily featured as Aphra, each of them had their own entertaining moments and interactions.  I particularly loved the threatening aura that Darth Vader exhibited towards Aphra, and there is also a very entertaining interaction between Aphra and Han Solo that results in some of the best jokes in the entire production.  You also have to love the fact that Aphra ends up with a posse that essentially reflects the main characters from The Original Trilogy, with a protocol droid (Triple-Zero), an Astromech (BT-1) and a Wookie (Black Krrsantan).  Of course, Aphra’s friends are all dangerous killers, which makes for some extremely entertaining and deadly encounters.

In addition to featuring an impressive voice cast, Doctor Aphra also features the full range of iconic Star Wars sound effects and musical scores that were made famous in the movies.  Pretty much every action that occurs within the book is accompanied by a sound effect, whether it be blaster fire, the sound of engines or even a susurration from other people in a crowded room.  I always love how these sound effects helped to create an atmosphere throughout the course of a Star Wars novel, and I felt that they were particularly useful for this audio drama format due to the lack of narration that a standard audiobook would have.  I also have to talk up the excellent use of the incredible Star Wars musical score that features during several key scenes of the novel.  Hearing this music during some of the most pivotal, dramatic or action-packed sequences makes the narrative seem that much more epic, and I absolutely loved hearing this music throughout this production.  The use of the sound effects and music enhances the story in immeasurable ways, and it helps to turn this audio drama into an exceptional treat for the ears. 

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra is an impressive and deeply enjoyable audio production that brings fan-favourite character Chelli Aphra into a whole new light.  Cleverly adapting several amazing Star Wars comics, the Doctor Aphra audio drama features an interesting story from author Sarah Kuhn that shows the events from the perspective of the chaotic and duplicitous titular protagonist.  Featuring an exceptional voice cast, Doctor Aphra proves to be an extremely entertaining and exceedingly addictive listen that I had a very hard time turning off.  I personally think this was one of the best audio productions of 2020 and it comes highly recommended both to general Star Wars fans and to those who have read the adapted comics.  I had an amazing time listening to this audio drama and I hope that they think about adapting the later Doctor Aphra comic book series next as there are some impressive storylines featured in there.

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