Shadow Raiders

Dragon Brigade, Book 1

By: Margaret Weis, Robert Krammes

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Length: 24 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

The known world floats upon the Breath of God, a thick gas similar to Earth's oceans, with land masses accessible by airship. The largest of these land masses are ruled by the rival empires of Freya and Rosia. Magic is intrinsic to the functioning of these societies and is even incorporated into their technological devices. But now a crucial scientific discovery has occurred that could destroy the balance of power - and change the empires forever.

©2011 Margaret Weis & Robert Krammes (P)2011 Tantor

WHY are fantasy writers obsessed with the past?

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The book description talks about technology but don't be fooled. Unless you think candles and muskets are technology.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Get it out of the past.

What three words best describe Kirby Heyborne’s voice?

Reader was great.

Could you see Shadow Raiders being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Couldn't make me go to a period movie.

Any additional comments?

Please fix the description.

Starts Very Slow, gets interesting, left hanging

For me this started out painfully slow with far to many detailed decriptions. For the first 8 hours segment I was almost ready to leave it. The story line started to pick up, come together and become more interesting to me around the 13th hour. Then just as it starts to feel like a real story and you finally start to care about the characters... boom it is over and you are left hanging with many questions. Obviously meant to get you to move on to the next book. If a cliff hanger is what you are looking for then this would be it and be prepared to have to wait for the next book to answer those question.
The narrator does a good job with the story and the many characters, but in the slower parts of the book he does sometimes tend to drone (him or the book?). However, when the story heightens so does the narrator.

Very Good Read

I cannot wait for the next book to come out. In the audio book genre, the books are successful in large part to the voice they use to tell the story. Kirby Heyborne was the perfect choice for the book. I hope Kirby stays through the rest of the series.

Great beginning to an exciting adventure

Story and performance were very good. Easy to listen to and enjoy. Looking forward to the next book.

A good Start for a Saga

Would you consider the audio edition of Shadow Raiders to be better than the print version?

Do not have the print version but the narration was very well done

What other book might you compare Shadow Raiders to and why?

The Kingkiller Chronicles

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Countermagic exist

Slow start but ...

This story reminds me of my first reading of Lord of the Rings about 40 years ago. For the first 50 or so pages it bored me and I kept putting it down,picking it up again and reading a few more pages. This went on for several days when suddenly the story gripped me with the force of a tornado and plunged me into a fantasy world beyond my wildest expectations. Over the years I have repeatedly escaped into Tolkein's masterpiece to re-experience the unique universe of wizards,hobbits,elves and dwarves. Shadow Raiders has opened up a whole new and unique world for me to experience with an unparalleled multi-dimentional world totally different from other fantasy realms. What incredible concepts: sailing into God's Breath, floating islands, magical constructs, savants, etc. and that paired with dragons!!!

Have no doubt that I will search for sequels to Shadow Raiders and devour them greedily. What a wonderful,exotic and captivating new world the authors have created fo me to experience.

Narrator sounds so bored it put me to sleep.

I love Margaret Weis - I have never found a book written by her (regardless of co-writer) that I didn't like. This sounds like a very interesting story but the narrator sounds like he is bored and so I drift off and find myself thinking of other things. I'm about 3 hours into the story now and I will try to get through the rest of it, but it's a bit frustrating. It is, however, motivating me to do other things I need to do (laundry, dishes, homework, etc.)

Perhaps the pace will pick up soon - there is an interesting mystery developing. I know the narrator is affecting a calm and soothing voice that is pleasing to hear and would work well for a short commercial or other short spots, however it does not work well for this venue. As a former officer in a national voice over talent agency, I find this choice of style puzzling and I hope there is a change for future books.

Don't get me wrong, Kirby Heyborne does a fine job with clarity and with periods of character dialogue, it's just the general narration that has me wondering if I'll get through the first part, let alone the entire book. As I said, perhaps the action will pick up and as a result the narration will become more animated.

Again, there is an interesting mystery developing and I do find the system of magic interesting. There seems to be a great deal of court intrigue to be found within the story and at this point I do not foresee a great deal of overly gruesome and detailed fight scenes.

I've rated the book at 3 stars due to narration. I've given it as many as 3 stars because the actual story seems like it will be as good as other of Weis' books. I will update the review and rating if I am able to finish the book.

I managed to finish the story, barely.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I finished the book but this is clearly a series and I won't be getting book 2. I wish I had listened to one of the other books I had waiting.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

The book is written from multiple viewpoints the view is omniscient. The authors have this horrible habit of rewriting the same scene from a second or even a third perspective repeatedly through the book, even after the reader knows what has happened. It is very frustrating and makes the story drag. The book could have been cut down 25-35% and told the story in 15 hours and just as well, but it felt as if there was a page count they were targeting.

Which character – as performed by Kirby Heyborne – was your favorite?

The narrator was generally good, and did well with translating the feelings into tone. This did detract from the book in places as, when the characters were frantic, it made listening to the story difficult.

Do you think Shadow Raiders needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No, this one needs to be re-written and shortened. Only then would a 2nd book be worth listening to.

Any additional comments?

The author writes to get from point A to point B in the story, in preparation for book 2. In a couple of instances things happened which are clearly impossible based on the timeline set by the authors themselves. No spoiler alerts here but, right at the end, it is clear the authors want to leave the main characters in a very specific place and position and something is manufactured to make that occur. When the reader gets to this point there are comments about the actions of from 1 faction which imply communications had to have occurred which clearly fall outside of the timeline. You can't send a message about person A to person B weeks before you even know you are going to meet up with person A to begin with. This is a book, so the author controls everything, but this feels obviously manufactured considering the setting and when I as a reader see that it is very frustrating and distracts from the story.

George R. R. Martin's books suck compared to this!

Excellent first book! Plenty of well written action and a good story to go with it. Great characters that you will quickly come to love and root for........and unlike George R. R. Martin's pitiful story, this one actually has heros!
Really looking forward to the next book in this series.

Loved it

I loved the dragonlance series all of them, this is a great story as well, can’t wait to start the next book.