I think James is a great voice actor being able to capture the frustration or desperation of our MC. Jeff Hays is great as well playing the villain in this case. Annie Ellicott however, leaves much to be desired.
If I am being completely honest and truthful, I never really like any of Ellicott’s voice acting, at least I haven’t liked it in the Life Reset Series or War Aeternus series. But she did a decent job in the Dungeon Lord series which is why I am so upset. I feel like she has potential and I know she can do better voices but it just didn’t happen here. It was too cheesy.
Let me explain. Ellicott plays an AI that is called ELLE. She helps Zorin and is the most prominent character beside Zorin himself. The ambience and sound effects generated by sound booth theater affect her voice making it be more robotic in nature. It is interesting to hear but also kind of grating on my ears. But the main problem his with her acting.
ELLE tries to psycho analyze Zorin and keeps pulling his strings to get him to be the hero. This is usually what we want with a supporting character. But Ellicott’s acting makes the AI sound condescending, patronizing, insincere, and fake. This wouldn’t be a problem if the AI was supposed to be this way but she is actually trying to encourage Zorin, making this very hard for me to listen to.
Overall, the book was good. The crafting and upgrading aspects were fun. Zorin felt like a real person that I could relate to. I enjoyed the story. The leveling seemed a little slow but thats alright. I’d still recommend this book since I am kind of biased when it comes to voice actors.