This is a book where the author decides that the narrative is best conveyed to the reader/listener by describing the story in extremely lengthy expository narratives rather than allowing the characters themselves to do so in the form of their dialog. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Additionally, the characters and the story were both flat, boring, and completely uninspired. I just couldn’t care less about anything in this book. The narrator was meh. Mikael Naramore is what I’d consider a moderately decent narrator, his range of voices for different characters is fantastic. Unfortunately, his straight narration is extremely boring, and since this book is 99% narrative with almost no dialog, that makes the whole thing intolerable. I believe the reason this collection is receiving such high reviews is because of J.S. Morin fanboys; his books are terrible, everyone I’ve tried reading. This is a no bang for your buck “deal” that lies flat and leaves the listener agonizingly bored. What a waste of time.