Out of this world fantastic

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What a book! Mr Maxey has the most wonderful imagination. The characters, Infidel, Stagger, Aurora are so brilliant, each one is so carefully thought out and brilliantly drawn. I loved The Goons. There is absolutely everything in this story; fantasy, romance, love, hate, betrayal, dysfunctional family relationships, the whole range of writing genres. As if the genius writing is not enough, the book's level is raised to an even higher stratosphere due to the narration by Jake Urry. How he manages to make all the voices of all the different players and keep them separated in his head is beyond me. He even makes No Face's speech consistently incomprehensible, (you'll understand why this is important when you listen to the book!). This is a work of art, written by a master author and narrated by a master actor and most definitely should be listened to by all. It will take you to places you'd never even dreamed of! 5 stars simply don't seem enough!

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2 people found this helpful

Brilliantly Narrated

Where does Greatshadow rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Greatshadow ranks highly on my list of audiobooks I've listened to so far as it's a fascinating story narrated brilliantly by Jake Urry.

Have you listened to any of Jake Urry’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Yes, I have and he just keeps on getting better and better.

Any additional comments?

I loved this audiobook, the story came to life in the capable hands of Jake Urry who, in my opinion, is one of the best narrators I've come across so far. A fabulous and enjoyable listen that I would highly recommend.

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Thank you Jake Urry!

I would never have picked this book, but the narrator gave me a code so I decided to give it a go. I’m so glad I did! Absolutely brilliant and fab narration as always by Mr Urry! Can’t wait for the next one :-)

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Such a lot of fun

This was my first ever dragon book, it is also the first book in a four-part series, but it works perfectly fine as a standalone.
Told in first-person, the narrator isn't the protagonist making this quite an original way of relaying the story. Stagger, the narrator, actually dies right at the start of the story. Following his long-term companion around in ghost-format, Stagger tells the story of Infidel, a super strong female mercenary, and his secret love interest.
I really enjoyed Stagger's perspective. He was funny and endearing although he had basically been a drunk and a scoundrel most of his life.
The plot itself is a fairly typical action-adventure quest featuring a group of incompatible rogues setting off to slay a powerful dragon, Greatshadow, the dragon of fire. As I'm generally not a huge fan of fantasy epics, I appreciated that this was fast-paced action and entertainment rather than loads of world building. Characters were introduced with sufficient history and they, as well as the setting, were described thoroughly enough to make it easy to imagine the island, the dragons, the immortals, the orcs etc.
The rather mixed bunch of characters surrounding Infidel were all likeable and fun despite the expected tension within their group. I really enjoyed the "romantic" elements of Infidel's story as well although some of it was getting very close to being cheesy. Still, the arc about Stagger and Infidel's relationship, which neither of them had honestly and fully appreciated until Stagger wasn't alive anymore, was an interesting addition to all the sword wielding action.

Jake Urry brought the characters to life in a spectacular fashion. His dragon voices were menacing, his portrayal of The Three Goons was wonderful, in particular No Face. I like how Jake makes female characters sound believable and not like cartoon-type characters. There was a large cast of characters involved, but it was always clear who was talking due to Jake Urry's differentiation and tones. To be honest, I wouldn't have sat down to read this in book-format, it's just not my thing, but listening to this was phenomenal and so much fun.

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3 people found this helpful

Great book

Loved it. Just love fantasy and this book didn't disappoint. The writer kept me captivating the whole way through. it is an excellent start to a serie. Can't wait to listen the the rest of the serie.

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Enjoyable

Not my usual genre but I enjoyed this.
Fantasy & always moving story.
Jake Urry as always did a great job narrating and keeping the story flowing with life.

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1 person found this helpful

Book 1 in title, but strong as standalone

An interesting set of characters, a novel twist for the narrator and an entertaining writing style results in a book that despite being the first part of a series more than stands on it's own merits rather than the collective ones of that series.

The narrator within a book not being the main character can sometimes detract from a story if the author doesn't get the tone quite right, but thankfully that is not the case and the nature of that narrator makes for an interesting change too with him being inextricably linked to the story but still somewhat apart. I will refrain from revealing the twist even though some of the others have mentioned it, but for those who have unfortunately seen it in those other reviews, don't worry as knowing doesn't detract from a minor element that happens before the main part of the story in any case.

Moving onto the actual narrator of the book, he gave a strong overall performance, with a clear tone and suitable levels of distinction between the various character to nicely enhance the audiobook version of this novel.

Overall, I found this to be an entertaining listen and am interested in the subsequent books in the series because of it.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

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Great start to the series

I really love dragon stories so looked forward to listening to this one.

The book is very different from most books as it is told from the point of view of a dead person who is following the main person around as a ghost.

The story follows a woman who is a mercenary as heads out to steal the treasure of a dragon.
The book is really well written and i loved the narration on this story.

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Great story

All I can say is, Audible, hurry up with books three and four, please!
The story is told from a strange perspective, it is third person but really it is first person, without spoilers, I can't say any more than that, but it is a nice change. :)
As for the story, it is, roguelike dragon slayer fantasy, if you like the types of books you'll love this, I immediately bought the second book.
Jake Urry is a great vocal artist but this story is told at quite a slow pace, so you may want to turn up the speed a little.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

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Top notch narration - extraordinarily good fun!

This was extraordinarily good fun - the narration by Jake Urry is faultless: atmospheric, crisp, with a different voice for each character and great different tones and dialects, simply top notch!
The story itself took me completely by surprise - I picked it up because I love the narrator, and I’m always a little sceptical with fantasy, as it so easily falls into tired tropes and clichés. This, however, was full of heart, adventure and humour, with a great cast of characters, well rounded world building and an original way of telling the tale. A great start to the series and I’m looking forward to the next one!

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