The audio performance made by the studio and the performers are excellent enhancing the words of the book greatly.
However, the plot and the writing becomes frustrating with the main character showing falling for the tricks of the antagonist over and over again with the same tricks. The author attempts to bring political intrigue and conflict for the main cast to wade its way through, but the antagonist is so simple and incompetent that he is forced to bring down the intelligence of the main cast to make it dramatic. The greatest frustration is having a competent character from the first book not learning anything from his previous experiences and suddenly taking an extra dose of stupidity.
***Spoilers***
The main antagonist of the story is a usurper of the throne in a country bound by honour. A medieval city where the honor or at least the pretense of honour is important and the main antagonist humiliated the rightful ruler with what is essentially a recorded porno. The main cast are introduced to the evil ruler as a benign and rude but slowly the readers learn that he is dishonorable, will mouth that he is honorable, but acts in bad faith. I say the readers learn, because the characters say that they know this man is unreliable and deceitful but still trust him anyways. They know that he sacrifices loyal honorable men that are loyal to the throne but willingly walks into the same traps over and over again.
They learn he’s a racist. Okay that’s fine, racism is an issue that many medieval cities had.
They learn he had an honorable older brother that killed himself. Okay here’s the hook
They learn the story of how the honorable older brother was kicked out of the family under suspicious circumstances.
They find the older brother who reveals clearly that the younger is evil, in a cult, has no honor. They decide, maybe this guy is not too good
They get wrongfully arrested by the younger brother and receive a mission to complete for the return of his dragon. The main character learns this mission was a trap. The main character completes the mission and returns to the ruler and expects him to behave honorably and receives the escort of a high ranking member of his court to retrieve the dragon. At this point, we saw the ruler stake a high ranking member of his court with no explanation given to the main cast. Why would the main character believe that retrieving his dragon would not be a trap?
I had to stop listening at this point. I love the main cast, but by partnering an incompetent villain, the author has to bring down the competency of the rest of the cast making it difficult to listen to.