Tag Archives: Audiobook

Audiobook Review: Idolfire, by Grace Curtis

Format: Audible Audio

Published: March 13, 2025 by Hodderscape

‘Times like these you wish you had something to pray to’

Idolfire is an epic sapphic fantasy inspired by the fall of Rome from the author of the Frontier and Floating Hotel .

ON ONE SIDE OF THE WORLD, Aleya Ana-Ulai is desperate for a chance. Her family have written her off as a mistake, but she’s determined to prove every last one of them wrong.

ON THE OTHER, Kirby of Wall’s End is searching for redemption. An ancient curse tore her life apart, but to fix it, she’ll have to leave everything behind.

Fate sets them both on the path to Nivela, a city once poised to conquer the world with the power of a thousand stolen gods. Now the gates are closed and the old magic slumbers. Dead—or waiting for a spark to light it anew . . .

My Review

I listened to this over several days, usually while walking to the pool and back. I’ve also got an special edition of the hardback on the shelves. I have all of Grace Curtis’ books and I’ve noticed a theme running through them. All of them contain people on a journey who learn about themselves in the process of completing their journey.

In this book we find Kirby who discovers that the world is bigger than she thought it was, and that there are more options than marrying a local boy. Aleya discovers an internal source of strength to make the changes she knows her city of Ash needs. Nylo learns to stop being a bigoted prat, just before he dies in battle.

The world building draws heavily on the ancient world and the author’s note does explain their inspiration. Kirby feels like she’s from the north east of England (helped by the accent the narrator has), while Nylo screams of Sparta, and Aleya is from somewhere in Mesopotamia. The landscape is vividly described, as the group sail and walk across the world from their various homes to Nivela as they try to complete their individual quests. The land and seascapes are an important part of the plot, which adds to the tension (especially that undersea tunnel and the wastelands around Nivela!) in what is a pretty standard quest story.

The magical system, idolfire, is powered by worship and limited in scope. It drains the power source and can harm the person using it. Magic without limits is a deus ex machina. Aleya’s inability to use the idolfire at difficult moments brings tension to the plot. It also provides the odd last desperate attempt to survive.

I enjoyed the characters of Kirby and Aleya, while Nylo got on my nerves. He’s a tit, who’s perspective is egregiously clouded by his prejudices. Both Kirby and Aleya have their prejudices, but it doesn’t cloud their perspective as much as his does. There were other minor characters that I found entertaining, like the little seer who takes Kirby to see a sheep’s skull after calling Aleya a liar.

Overall, a good quest story set in a vaguely familiar world that isn’t pseudo-medieval north western Europe.

Audiobook Review: Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Narrated by Sophie Aldred

They looked into darkness. The darkness looked back . . .

An utterly gripping story of survival and first contact on a hostile planet from Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Children of Time.

A commercial expedition to a distant star system discovers a pitch-black moon alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is deadly to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances can a human survive Shroud’s inhospitable surface – but a catastrophic accident forces Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne to make an emergency landing in a barely adequate escape vehicle. Alone, and fighting for survival, the two women embark on a gruelling journey across land, sea and air in search of salvation.

But as they travel, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s unnerving alien species. It also begins to understand them. If they escape Shroud, they’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all . . .

Continue reading “Audiobook Review: Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Narrated by Sophie Aldred”

TBL Review: Days of Shattered Faith, by Adrian Tchaikovsky


The Tyrant Philosophers, Book 3
Narrated by David Thorpe
Release date: 05-12-24
Language: English
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins

Bloomsbury presents Days of Shattered Faith by Adrian Tchaikovsky, read by David Thorpe.

Welcome to Alkhalend, Jewel of the Waters, capital of Usmai, greatest of the Successor States, inheritor to the necromantic dominion that was the Moeribandi Empire and tomorrow’s frontline in the Palleseen’s relentless march to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world.

Loret is fresh off the boat, and just in time.

As Cohort-Invigilator of Correct Appreciation, Outreach department, she’s here as aide to the Palleseen Resident, Sage-Invigilator Angilly. And Sage-Invigilator Angilly – Gil to her friends – needs a second in the spectacularly illegal, culturally offensive and diplomatically inadvisable duel she must fight at midnight.

Outreach, that part of the Pal machine that has to work within the imperfection of the rest of the world, has a lot of room for the illegal, the unconventional, the unorthodox. But just how much unorthodoxy can Gil and Loret get away with?

As a succession crisis looms, as a long-forgotten feat of necromantic engineering nears fruition, as pirate kings, lizard armies and demons gather, as old gods wane and new gods wax, sooner or later Gil and Loret will have to settle their ledger.

Just as well they are both very, very good with a blade…

My Review

I enjoyed the first two books in this series, but I think this third book is my favourite. We encounter re-occurring characters, like Jack, the former priest, and some of the crew from the hospital, who have settled in Alkhaland, and set up a new hospital in the poor district of the city. Jack has made a new friend who runs the local prison and has an un/comfortable relationship with his demon bride. This comes in very handy later in the story.

Into a complicated city comes Loret, a young, scared woman from Pallisand, sent to be aide to Gil, the Resident. Except Loret is a very bad aide, other than rescuing Gil a couple of times. Loret knows what has been happening in the isles and it scares her. She is too scared to tell Gil, and we learn what happened after the characters from book two return to the Palleseen Sway – the ‘infection’ of belief in Jack’s former god, a healer, and the Fisher King, who is very much not a healer, spreads in the army and then in the general population.

I loved this development in the background story, which travels through all three books. It’s the landscape that the stories take place in, with each book being a focused pinpoint in the wider picture. Nothing in the story-world is static, although the Palles want the world to be static and perfect and are constantly fighting against difference and variation.

Alkhaland has an elderly, grief-stricken ruler, who has three sons and a daughter. Tradition says that only a whole man can rule. The eldest is in exile, the second son, Cam, is his father’s right hand and designated heir, the third son is a child obsessed with death. His daughter is a pawn in the game of alliances.

The worldbuilding and descriptions of Alkhaland’s culture and society are vivid and lively. The characters are individual and have their own complex motivations. Gil is truly distressed by the difficult choices she has to make and her complex relationship with Cam.

When the ruler dies, the sons go to war. Except the youngest who goes to meet death. The daughter joins the demon at the hospital. Cam wins with the help of his friend Gil and her Palleseen troops, who promtly move in and make themselves at home.

The people of Alkhaland do not want to be part of the sway, and after some difficulties they free themselves, with the help of a motley crew of aliens, disaffected Palls, demons, and pirates. The final battle is climactic and exciting to read. The advances and reversals, the personal decisions that could make or break the battle, are brilliantly written.

It’s a complex story, exploring how imperialism sneaks into free places around the world, and the small things and well-meaning people that help it along. The Palleseen Sway reminds me of the British Empire, especially the way we took control of India. Trusted representatives of different European states rolled up in the Indian kingdoms and started cultivating influence, until the kings supported one or the other, and then European states sent armies to ‘help’ the Indian kings, until they control the states themselves.

Adrian Tchaikovsky leaves an author’s note that the places in the book aren’t based on real places but he was influenced by the podcast Revolutions. I don’t think I’ve listened to that podcast but I’ve had a quick scan of the episode titles, it seems to cover the revolutionary period from the reign of Charles II onwards. I shall have to have a listen. I also recommend Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff if you’re interested in revolutionaries.

I highly recommend this book and the series in general. I need more stories set in this world, but I think this trilogy is complete as it is, charting the beginning of the end of empire. I hear there’s a short story hiding in an anthology somewhere, so I need to get hold of that anthology.

The narration was excellent and fully embodied the different characters.

Audiobook Review: Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Format: Audible Audio
Published: June 6, 2024 by Tor
Language: English
Narrated by the author

Description

To fix the world they first must break it further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labour and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.

My Review

I listened to this book through the ‘get one audiobook a month using Amazon Music’ thing, so I can’t keep it, but as soon as the book comes out in paperback, I’m getting it.

Charles is a valet robot who murders his master. But he doesn’t know why. Sent to be assessed and probably destroyed, he discovers freedom. He’s very confused by the world outside of the manor where he served is reclusive master for years. It’s all very disorderly and untidy. Estates are falling down, robot servants are rusting at their posts, and there’s no humans about.

Until Charles meets ‘The Wonk’. For the sake of Charles not getting crushed, The Wonk tells Charles, now going by UnCharles, that she’s a robot too. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Charles believes this to be the case almost to the end of the book. It is quite funny. UnCharles sets off to find humans to serve and The Wonk sets off to find the Library.

They meet later, and then go off on an adventure together, first to find the Library, and then to meet god. Turns out god is an A.I. judge, programmed to mete out justice. He also knows a lot about why Charles killed his master. And why the world collapsed.

Adrian Tchaikovsky can never be accused of not being political. His work always has a point. In this one, the subject of A.I. is discussed using humour and allegory. A.I. can only learn from what we feed it, it can only work within the parameters given.

Tchaikovsky also alludes to the compounds and bunkers wealthy people are building all over the world to escape to, when disaster strikes. They’ve managed to hoard all the wealth and destroy everything, and then they plan to run away when consequences occur. Since a lot of these people are the same people playing around with A.I. this is an easy inclusion in the novel.

But everyone dies. You can’t hide from death. Hopefully, the evil gits will die in attempting to run away and the resources they’ve hoarded can be share fairly among the survivors. (I don’t like billionaires.)

I enjoyed this novel, especially UnCharles’ confusion, and The Wonk’s sarcastic responses to his desire to serve. The vision of a destroyed wasteland was haunting and the critique of the way humans treat each other is spot on.

Adrian also did a very good job as narrator.

My favourite Sci Fi and Fantasy 2024

Midwinter greetings.

The year isn’t over yet, so more might be added before 31st December.

TBR/L Pile books

Blog Tour Books

Non-fiction TBR/L

TBL Pile Review: House of Open Wounds, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world. As their legions scour the world of superstition with the bright flame of reason, so they deliver a mountain of ragged, holed and scorched flesh to the field hospital tents just behind the frontline.

Which is where Yasnic, one-time priest, healer and rebel, finds himself. Reprieved from the gallows and sent to war clutching a box of orphan Gods, he has been sequestered to a particularity unorthodox medical unit.

Led by ‘the Butcher’, an ogre of a man who’s a dab hand with a bone-saw and an alchemical tincture, the unit’s motley crew of conscripts, healers and orderlies are no strangers to the horrors of war. Their’s is an unspeakable trade: elbow-deep in gore they have a first-hand view of the suffering caused by flesh-rending monsters, arcane magical weaponry and embittered enemy soldiers.

Entrusted – for now – with saving lives deemed otherwise un-saveable, the field hospital’s crew face a precarious existence. Their work with unapproved magic, necromancy, demonology and Yansic’s thoroughly illicit Gods could lead to the unit being disbanded, arrested or worse.

Beset by enemies within and without, the last thing anyone needs is a miracle.

My Review

I immediately started listening to House of Open Wounds after finishing City of Last Chances, and am now impatiently awaiting the release of Days of Shattered Faith. Where book one does and industrial fantasy take on the revolts and rebellions of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, book two takes us to the battlefield hospital, a la M.A.S.H., with outlaw priests and tortured souls performing miracles to save the lives of their conquerors.

We follow Yasnic who has become a smuggler of gods and his punishment for rebellion against perfection is to work in a field hospital, patching up Pall soldiers along with a crew of outcasts, led by a poisoner and a necromancer. It’s a bit bewildering for the priest, who is and isn’t a priest. He’s in an on and off relationship with his god. He falls in love with a daemon and discovers one of his colleagues is a king. It’s quite harrowing, especially when his god starts healing soldiers.

Who can no longer fight. This sedition spreads through the army as people discover that actually they quite like not dying horribly in battle. It causes a bit of a stir.

Other stuff happens, but you’ll have to read the book for yourself.

I enjoyed the development of Yasnic’s character and his relationship with his god. It’s complicated and he goes through a lot of emotions as he trues to break away. Like anyone, or any society, moving away from religious belief, he realises he depended on his god for companionship and that the relationship is abusive and co-dependant, and finally breaks free, although longing for the simplicity of his previous life. It’s subtly done and though provoking.

The language is evocative and highly descriptive. I love the change of perspective between characters, seeing events from different sides, although we mainly follow Yasnic. We get a glimpse of the complex histories and societies of the world, and the inherent hypocrisy of ‘perfection’ and imperialism is cleverly explored. The lies of imperialism are skewered nicely.

The magico-scientific basis of religion and technology is consistent, although different cultures and traditions manipulate the same forces in their own ways, and have their own explanations. I quite enjoyed the way Tchaikovsky uses the use and abuse of Divinati magic to point out the complications of trying to force one system into working within another, and the loss of context and safe guards that go with it. It is particularly resonant as I was also listening to a book about indigeneity in North America and the cultural of indigenous practices and their co-option by non-indigenous Americans. If you take the practices of of their context, then the power of the practice is removed or even corrupted (think wellness wankers using sweat lodges and killing people).

Tchaikovsky always has a point to his work, or at least I can always glean a theme and lessons in reading his books. That may just be a me thing, but even so, I end up thinking.

This book is the second in the series and I think it could happily stand alone, as you get enough background for the characters and the world in reading it, but reading in order helps to put some events in context and in the wider world.

Excellent narration. Love the accents.

Another fantastic book from Adrian, highly recommended.

TBR Review: City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Format: 496 pages, Paperback
Published: May 2, 2023 by Head of Zeus — an AdAstra Book
ISBN: 9781801108430 (ISBN10: 1801108439)

Description

Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller Adrian Tchaikovsky’s triumphant return to fantasy with a darkly inventive portrait of a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution.

There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse.

What will be the spark that lights the conflagration?

Despite the city’s refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood – that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores.

Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.

Ilmar, City of Long Shadows.

City of Bad Decisions.

City of Last Chances.

Continue reading “TBR Review: City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky”

New audiobook review: Not Till We Are Lost, by Dennis E Taylor

Series:Bobiverse (#5)
Narrator: Ray Porter
Format: Audible Audio
Published: September 5, 2024 by Audible Originals
Language: English

Description

The number one best-selling series that Audible listeners call “wonderfully entertaining”, “packed with humor, geek references and thought-provoking storylines”, and performed by “a true master story teller and actor” returns as the Bobs face their deadliest challenge yet.

The Bobiverse is a different place in the aftermath of the Starfleet War, and the days of the Bobs gathering in one big happy moot are far behind. There’s anti-Bob sentiment on multiple planets, the Skippies playing with an AI time bomb, and multiple Bobs just wanting to get away from it all.

But it all pales compared to what Icarus and Daedalus discover on their 26,000-year journey to the center of the galaxy. Sure, it could settle the Fermi Paradox for good (and what Bob doesn’t want to solve a mystery of the universe?). But it also reveals a threat to the galaxy greater than anything the Bobs could have imagined.

Just another average day in the Bobiverse.

My Review

I might have done a happy dance when I got the notification that this audiobook was available, and even more when I realised I had an Audible credit to use.

I love the Bobiverse series and I always want to know what will happen next. In this instalment, we follow Icarus and Daedalus on their adventure to Sagittarius A* and their side-tracks, which leads them home at last, but with terrible news. It’s certainly an entertaining and clever solution to the Fermi Paradox, although I maintain my hypothesis that the other sentient species of the galaxy took one look at us and decided to leave us to our own devices because we were too much trouble. The second plot is Howard and Bridget’s adventures among the dragons. Another is the mission to develop wormholes, defeat the self-aware AI Thoth that the Skippies have let loose on the galaxy, and deal with increasingly hostile humans, while the Quinlans get their own ‘net and Charles makes a confession about the origins of Starfleet.

There are always a few plot lines in a Bobiverse book, because they’re an ensemble cast, but it gets confusing. I really enjoyed the different plots but I’d love it if I could just focus on one at a time! The plots are mostly linked, but sometimes they’re just separate stories. Howard and Bridget’s adventures among the dragons could have been a novella, for instance. I think Bob and Teresa’s story definitely needs more attention, too.

As ever, Ray Porter is a superlative narrator. I love his voice!

Overall, a great return to the Bobiverse, but may need more than one listen to get everything that’s going on. I shall be relistening soon.

Audiobook Review: The Lord of The Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrated by Andy Serkis

I don’t need to introduce LOTR; by now everyone has heard of this book, read it or watched the films. You might even be watching Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. I have a rather large Tolkien collection, different editions of LOTR and The Hobbit, a couple of copies of The Silmarillion and a few of Tolkien’s other works. The collection isn’t as large as my Discworld/Pratchett collection, but it’s not bad.

Last September new audiobooks, narrated by Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in The Hobbit and LOTR films, were released. I only found out earlier this year. Obviously, I had to add them to my collection.

I like Andy Serkis. He’s an excellent narrator. His familiarity with the story and characters is obvious. He provides each one with a distinctive voice, showing their characteristics, and bringing the story to life. Reading LOTR can sometimes be a slog, but listening to Serkis read the book is not. He even sings the songs, rather well in my estimation. Highly recommended.

TBR Audiobook Review: Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao

Audible Audio, Unabridged
Published September 21st 2021 by Penguin Teen

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labelled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed. 

Continue reading “TBR Audiobook Review: Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao”