Dungeon Diving 203

De: Bruce Sentar

Narrado por: Christopher Boucher, Jessica Threet

Ken and company embark on their first raid. Despite Ken’s powerful [Liminal Speed] not all the boss fights are accommodating and the Haylon raid party must learn to work together in perfect concert.

Prince Albar is unsatisfied with his defeat and plots to take down Ken and Elysara despite their Royal Censor guards.

Yet, neither of them are prepared for the shakeup in the dungeon. All of the safety nets they’ve been training over are about to disappear.

©2024 Bruce Sentar (P)2025 Bruce Sentar

Still worth the listen

Much like other reviews, I came from the original reading of the series; the VA change is immediate with Threet being the one reading Ken's stat block. But in no way is this a bad change, with the change in actors we bring a different set of skills, with the imagination telling me that they started reading with this book. Maken feels like a Berserker instead of the nerdy framed character he started as, and Grandpa sounds like a man in his 90 instead of the comedic relief he had given as a break, Ken's got more flesh in that he's not as draggy when it's long spans of listening to him where you can zone. The only negative i really have with this chapter of the tale is that at the end of a hand full of chapters as the paragraphs run out you can hear the multiple clicks of a mouse reading the next chapter. But the Story is getting to a point where a lot of things could happen and that is what's going to keep me listening, it was the Adventure not the Sex that brought me to this point.

WHY would you ever?!?

I would like to start by saying that this review is in no way a negative review of Boucher/ Threets VA skills. I own many books with them doing the narration and very much enjoy them.

That being said...
Why would you ever use the same VAs for 6 books and then suddenly switch in the 7th?! Dungeon Diving 101 was the first Sentar book I ever listened to and I became very attacked to Alexander/Rader VA. Sadly I think the change is too much for me and I won't be finishing the series. #bringbackAlexander/Rader

Misstep

While this is still a good book (Great premise + Great characters + Constantly evolving plot = Great fun), for the project of this series in audio format, this is a big step back. I was prepared to re-listen to the other books before listening to this one, just to get a feel for the new narrators and maybe see if some of the story incongruities (Elysara not recognizing Felene in 202, Dwarves having red blood at one point, Penny and Hellen changing dramatically between 101 and 103), but as of this writing, I'd have to re-buy six books for the experience. And that resulted in a *jarring* shift in tone, and noticeable downshift in quality, by the new narration team. They might be great elsewhere, but they phoned this one in and at times it seems like they hadn't read the text first before doing their presentation. Not acting, so much as reading.

As for the book, the back half felt rushed. Things just kind of *happened* with regard to the character interactions, like they were being mentioned late in the book to be addressed in a later book but logically should have stopped the show. And the very end (no spoilers, but you'll understand if you read it) felt VERY rushed.

Bright spots do abound. One was Penny getting some depth. The battle scenes were also still top notch and imaginative. The world continues to be fascinating and deep. The shake up really does take the guard rails off as does the stinger at the end. (I'm curious to know what happened to Candace's family who live in a safe zone.)

I'm going to continue with this series, and you are too if you are still reading this, but in an audio book, production matters and this broke promises to the fans. I'm hoping that 204 and subsequent entries (Of which I very much still hope there are several) will go through a few more beta reads.

New narrators

I love this series it’s probably my favorite by Bruce but the new narrators didn’t even try to mimic the old voices. I’ll learn to deal with it as time progresses but I definitely miss the OG’s

good story and a narration change

So Bruce decided to swap narrators and have the whole series rerecorded (things are still wonky there but that's on Amazon/Audible). On one hand, I appreciate the narration consistency across Bruce's book and have nothing bad to say about Threet and Boucher. But I really didn't have anything bad to say about Lewis Alexander and Rozelyn Rader either. And going from listening to up to book 6 with the original narration to 7 with the new narration was quite jarring. And while I did eventually enjoy the narration, it was an adjustment. Particularly when it came to Threet's voice acting. I'm fine with reusing the voices we've heard before in other Bruce books, but there wasn't enough distinction in voices to easily differentiate the female cast. Which I know isn't the most fair complaint given it's a harem fantasy and there's like 3 semi regular male voices and a dozen female. Still, it just didn't feel as diverse in range as Rozelyn's voice acting.

I'm sure it'll grow on me more when I eventually relisten to the series (once Amazon gets themselves sorted) and start the series with the new narration.

the new voice actors

it was a change but after listening couple of time the voices are different but story still good.

Love the new narrators!

Dungeon Diving 203 is one of my favorites in this genre! Chris and Jessica really brought their A game with this switch! I can’t wait to see how this story continues to evolve

Great story

Absolutely an amazing story. Can’t wait for the next installment. Bruce Sentra has some real talent for crafting words

different VA

I liked how the new voice actors added a different depth to the story and it was great to listen to

New voice actors

Not a fan of the change to narrators. This was the first series I listened to from Bruce and really enjoyed it with the original cast. I'll still listen and continue with the story because I do enjoy it but it's also sad we won't get the original version anymore. Rader especially did a much better job with some of the characters and the new voices are difficult to enjoy.

If we had these actors from the beginning I'm sure I wouldn't have this complaint but going through 6 books with what we had only to suddenly switch is both incredibly jarring and I believe a huge downgrade in overall quality.