Very slow start but finished very welll

Loving all of Bernard cornwells books I was excited to listen to this one.
For the first 6/20hours it was painfully slow with very few moments of excitement that kept me super engaged.
Once it got going it was good, as expected.

The later parts of the book were great and I really really enjoyed them.

The final chapter was epic and amazingly well written and worth waiting for.

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The narrator was excellent

The narrator was excellent and saves the overall performance from the limited story. But overall a great listen.

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Gripping

I just couldn’t stop listening! Bernard Cornwell is an expert story teller. I can’t wait to start the second book in the series. The narrator does a great job too.

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1 person found this helpful

Almost gave up

Took me a while to get into this one & I admit I almost gave up.
However upon reading other reviews I found I was not alone. The first 5-6 hours are hard going but keep at it to be rewarded with a great read.

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Interesting spin on the story

Before I started the title, I did see other reviews, and heeded the warning of it being a little slow to start while the characters and settings were drawn up., and that is certainly true. But once that is established, it was a great story, and quite engaging. Most a familiar with the Arthurian legend, and the direction this story goes is all the more interesting because it takes a slightly different path, although Merlin is still Merlin, and that is good, and I enjoyed the telling and the narration of that character. I am finding myself being quite the fan of Bernard Cornwall, having recently finished his "Warlord" saga, and this is leading up to being equally good.

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painfully slow start

don't get me wrong the book is extremely well written as you would expect.
but the introduction to characters really robbed the start of the book, to the point I wanted to give up on it

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This is Excellent

The Warlord Chronicles is easily the best series written by Bernard Cornwall. I have the original abridged audio books read by Tim Piggot-Smith, which are a classic. When I saw this new unabridged reading (by a narrator I was not familiar with) I thought "this can only be a let-down". How wrong I was! Jonathan Keeble has done a superb job, and the full unabridged version brings much additional richness to the tale of Lord Derfel Cadarn and Arthur. For die-hard fans like me, you will find the different pronunciations of the names interesting, and the tempo of the unabridged version is very different.

All this said, Tim Piggot-Smith's characterization of both Merlin and King Aelle in the original are still the gold standard.

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a good fictional story

The book is an easy listen, good battles with an interesting portrail of familiar characters

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Fantastic

Story line was beautifully written and character development had depth and wit.

I’m excited for the next title in the series!

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Outstanding

My favourite book series. Cornwell is incredible and Keeble is superb. Do yourself a favour x

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