Narrated by Andre Santana
Run Time: 10 hrs and 42 mins
*spoilers in discussion
Summary:
Marcus gets swept into a fantasy world on a quest to find his father. Of course, his best friend and his new friend come along for the ride. The world is basically a utopia that’s been upset by the presence of humans.
Additional Comments:
- It’s about 8 hours too long for the story being told here. The main character spent the first 7.5 hours wandering around this world going from point A to B to C sticking his foot in his mouth and asking “what?” repeatedly.
- Was very preachy for a secular book. Main message: humans screw up whatever they touch. Oh, and we’re going to get through this on the power of friendship. The perfect people don’t have a system of money, they just trade for whatever they need. People do what needs doing just because it needs doing. That’s the surface anyway. Underneath, there’s still a system of torture used on those who would lead the masses away from party lines. Ironically, the main character wins the day by exerting his will over the bad guys, but this is okay since he has good intentions in mind and just wants to set things right.
- 1/5 stars The “bad guy” was lame. Big, great power, and defeated by a thought.
- Main character 2/5 stars: The MC was crazy overpowered. He can basically change anything he wants to about the world. The disability angle was interesting at first, but then, he learns he has this cool power and decides to keep his disabilities because they have made him who he is. He gets asked on 3 separate occasions about this. Repeatedly looking a plot hole in the eyes doesn’t make it less a plot hole. Every other human only gets 1 power, except the MC, he gets however many he wants/needs/ the plot needs. Technically, he only has the power to change whatever he wants about the world, but it still boils down to he can basically do anything: heal, catch rockslides, teleport people and objects, etc.
- Side characters 2/5 stars: literally just there so the kid can have conversations without talking to himself. 0 value.
- Plot 2/5 stars: Pretty sure we got 4 separate descriptions of the kid bathing. Took about 8 of 10 hours for there to be any sort of meaningful confrontation with the bad guys.
- Worldbuilding 3/5 stars: There’s a lot here. Rock/dragon-like people, tree-like people, merpeople, etc. The author certainly has a rich imagination. The main trouble to me was the same knit I have with a lot of fantasy stories. Every other word was something new. So, we have hours upon hours of the kids wandering around meeting new people and learning what mundane things are in that world.
- Content Comments: fairly clean. Some cursing.
- Performance 4/5 stars: The narrator distinguished between the characters nicely, but he still had to work with what he was given.
- I would listen to the narrator again, but I doubt I’d seek out anything else by the author unless it’s a completely different genre.
Conclusion:
There’s a lot of fluff in here. If you chopped all that out, it’d be a decent story. As is, it was just a really long meandering tale to nowhere.
*I received a free copy of the audiobook. This is my honest evaluation of the story. I have freely chosen to review the book.
