Great base building, fun progression, felt like multiple good short stories leading to an amazing ending half of the book. The competition is coming up and has to make some impactful preparation. Even with all that preparation anything can go wrong, and it does. Only with luck and skill can Ed make it through the competition. Seeing how Hugo Huesca has nurtured this series, I just can’t wait for more at this point. I’m just so sad it took until book 4 to reach this level of greatness. Some of my favorite moments were following the side characters doing their individual things to improve the Haunt and Ed’s chances in the competition, the interludes staring Galio dealing with the Inquisition, and the entire competition was full of heart pounding excitement.
Audio performance was odd in this one. Jeff Hays and Annie Ellicott were amazing as always, with very special praise for Annie’s performance with the Haunts Martial and Head Researcher. However, the addition of Dorrie Sacks feels like an odd choice. Dorrie Sacks performance was fine, but her voice was altered as if she was performing over the phone or talking through a pipe. It was just a strange decision to make her sound like that and took me out of emersion from the story. Also, I’m not even sure why there was a need for a second female performer, which was odd because Annie had some of her best performance and range in this book.