The Phoenix Transformed

Book Three of the Enduring Flame

By: James Mallory, Mercedes Lackey

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 24 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

In the Enduring Flame Trilogy, Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory have given audiences a new view of the complex and fascinating world they originally created for the Obsidian Trilogy. Jumping ahead one thousand years in time, Lackey and Mallory have told the compelling story of Harrier Gillain, the first Knight-Mage in a thousand years; Tiercel Rolfort, the first High Mage in hundreds of years; and Shaiara, the young leader of a desert tribe who takes both boys under her wing but has a special affection for Harrier.

These three young people are their world's main defense against the evil called up by the rogue Wild Mage Bisochim. Bisochim's conviction that he was restoring the balance was shattered the moment Ahairan took her first breath. Now, in The Phoenix Transformed, Bisochim joins forces with Harrier and Tiercel, and the three mages search desperately for a way to destroy Ahairan as she sends her magical forces against them and the desert nomads under their protection.

Listen to the rest of the Enduring Flame trilogy.

©2009 Mercedes Lackey (P)2009 Tantor

A solid finish to the trilogy

I recently finished listening to the Phoenix Transformed, the 3rd book in the Enduring Flame series. The book straddles a strange place somewhere between older YA (late teens) and adult. It is fairly standard fantasy fare and only the depth of the characters keep it interesting. The story finally comes to some solid fruition in this final novel in the trilogy and has a decent payoff.
The narrator generally did a solid job as well.
Conclusion: I am not sure who this book is targeting. I might suggest it either for an older YA fantasy novel, however, I wouldn't suggest it for anyone else unless they are already fans of this particular series.

Found it worth the wait

Sorry to see all the bad reviews, I for one enjoyed it.

Overall, I enjoyed this series (the first I've read of Lackey's). At the time I didn't think so, but compared to the second two, the first book was a bit slow and boring. The story is really a good one and I found it easy enough to hear beyond the repetitive whining others have mentioned. I love long stories and even with the repetitive parts, this was worth listening to. So much so, I'm listening to it for a second time (starting at book 2), which is rare for me.

I know a narrator can make or break an audiobook. This guy was pretty good. His different character voices are good as well as pronunciation of some difficult words.

As for the maturity level, I am adult and still found it interesting. It is obviously written for the pre-teen or early teen crowd, but the concepts are big enough to be interesting for my mind.

Great listen

Where does The Phoenix Transformed rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This whole series was a joy to listen to the characters were brought to life in the imagination masterfully.

Loved it

I love all three of these books and the ones before. I only wished they were longer.

Absolutely Wonderful!

I honestly don't agree with many of the other reviewers for this book. This book was a very good ending in the trilogy. I absolutely loved the feelings and sensations I got while listening to the book and the two before it. You can truly feel what the characters feel. Their conflicts of emotion and sense of duty. Their fear and trepidation yet desire so strong to keep an evil from harming others that their dedication to stopping it is beyond what I personally might have.

In this book I connected even more with the main characters than I did in the previous two. It was almost as if I was them and Dufris did an even better job in this book with his narration than he did in the other two.

Admittedly there were a few things that seemed to be left unsolved and I would have liked to known what happened between two of the characters. However, I'm wondering if this was deliberate and might transition into another trilogy that takes place further down the road in the timeline so to speak. I suppose we shall see.

I definitely reccomend that you give this book a try, especially if you want to find out what happens after reading the first two. It won't let you down. It didn't me. :)

Amazing Ending I was not expecting.

Would you listen to The Phoenix Transformed again? Why?

Of course, it's just such an amazing story.

What did you like best about this story?

The real raw emotions that the narrator provided for the characters had me genuinely crying with them and celebrating their victories.

Narrator

like in the first two books of this series the narrator has pronounced too many things differently than the first series and it's painful to hear in my opinion but the story is still good

I'm sorry, the author

and all the different voiced that we're attempted to be used for the different characters was distracting and unnecessary and made me skip majority of the book. I like the book, but not the narrator.

Tiercel is likely the worst written hero character

Seriously he never accomplishes anything for being the anointed champion and is overshadowed by just about everything and everyone particularly in this book.

A wonderful story.

A wonderful story even if a little long.
Another great Mercedes Lackey story with characters of depth.