First off, very hard to argue with the value of a single credit for an astounding number of hours of listening. On the other hand, it’s difficult to say that this was 67 hours well spent. Or maybe better to day that I bet I could have spent 3 credits on other titles and felt better after I was finished. Overall, the story was weak, the ending was unsatisfying, and the journey was tedious.
The good: Really enjoyed the whole concept of the twin-born and the magic system. Creative and interesting, and adding the Source to the equation made that part of the story very interesting. I was completely taken in by the novelty of the concept and the people and skills that emerged in book 1. The antagonists were evil and the protagonists were good although there is enough to make you wonder! Made for clear direction and, except for a final twist, satisfying. Subsequent innovations with the formerly-sea-going-warships was innovative and cool.
The Bad and Ugly: This whole series feels like it was written without the author ever going back and editing any consistency into anything that was written earlier. People literally changed personalities when they get to book 2. Don’t get me started on the people changing sides or inventing their own objectives that seem to have no relevance to the overall book. Oh yeah, and lets not forget that the series goes from “OMG, we’re being attacked”! to “I need to kill people to ” further objectives that are obscure.
Also worth comment is the complexity of the Twinborns concept itself. Constantly referring to the twin while discussing the other twin, and even swapping their names, is very hard to track on Audible. If I’m talking to Joe, but refer him as Charlie, his twin, I have to make a major mental effort to complete the equation. Along those lines, let me also disparage the amazingly awesome, but astoundingly difficult to parse, communications between the twin-born. If you’ve read it, you know what I mean, if not, lets just say that I had to pause the book multiple times to figure out how a message got from person A to person B.
The narration was a mixed bag, I like Naramore, but he was handicapped by his range and by apparently not reading the books before reading the script. There was a jarring issue with him switching to giving the Twins the same voice towards the end of the first book. They had unique voices until the narrative made it clear they were the same (sort of) person. While it made sense that they have the same voice, the switch made you lose the verbal cues that identified individual characters. It made the whole series more confusing. I liked his Rashawn character and his snarky personality was awesome, but ultimately, his emotive range for that character was below expectations.