A Kingdom Besieged

Book One of the Chaoswar Saga

By: Raymond E. Feist

Narrated by: John Meagher

After nearly 30 years and more than two dozen novels, Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Cycle has become one of the most iconic, beloved, and enduring sagas in modern fantasy. The Riftwars were epic battles between Good and Evil whose ramifications have echoed through generations. The latest entry in the epic, A Kingdom Besieged, ushers in the most fearsome threat the Kingdom has yet faced - the Chaoswar - a magic apocalypse with cataclysmic results.

Years ago, the Empire of Great Kesh failed in its attempt to conquer Krondor after the Serpentwar, thanks to the bravery, cunning, and magic of the sorcerer Pug and the Conclave of Shadows. Since then, peace has benefitted both nations, and the Kingdom has been free from the threat of another Keshian invasion. Yet now, the dark clouds of war gather again....

From the Far Coast in the west to the frontier with the Eastern Kingdoms, rumors, uncertainty, and political instability are rampant. Spies have gone missing - some were murdered; others have turned traitor. Factions are rising, powerful legions from the Keshian Confederacy have been mobilized, and an attack on the kingdoms of the Isles and Roldem is all but certain.

As the men of the Western Realm begin to mount a defense, Martin conDoin, the middle son of Lord Henry, Duke of Crydee, finds himself leading the charge against the invaders - like his legendary ancestor, Prince Arutha. But Arutha had an entire army at his command. Martin has just a ragtag force comprised of a few old men and young boys.

As Kesh's invading hordes once again descend upon the Kingdom, no one is safe - not experienced masters of intrigue Lord James Dasher Jamison and the beguiling and deadly Lady Franciezka; not the brave warrior Knight-Adamant Sandreena and a new generation of loyal yet untested defenders; not even the great Pug himself, the most powerful magician the world of Midkemia has ever known.

©2011 Raymond E. Feist (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

enjoyed the book but the narrator is horrendous

This narrator does not have the necessary skills to do his job. He reads past the breaks for point of view changes so you cannot tell he is either on a new chapter or changed scenes.

His Voice does not pull you into the story at all, he is boring, and his character voices are terrible.

the publisher needs to have these readings redone. His reading is detrimental potential fans as it makes the book not enjoyable to listen to.

Narrator improving, but still bad

This book is best listened to using speed of 0.85, otherwise the narration is way too fast for actual enjoyment.

After that, you can look forward to rabid and consistent mispronunciation of midekemia specific words such as Keshian (KESH-ee-uhn, NOT KEESH-ee-in).

Sounds petty, but the truth is that hearing poor pronunciation is like someone tying rope around your waist and then tugging on it randomly in random directions while walking down a hallway: you cannot get anywhere fast and it ruins an otherwise nice walk,

Very annoying, and now I wonder why I paid money for someone to connect my testicles with wires and then plug it into an electrical receptacle in the wall.

Do you smell something burning?

Will it ever end....

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I'm half way through this book and I must say the narrator was a poor choice. He's not too bad when performing some of the characters voices, but he's insufferable any other time.

What didn’t you like about John Meagher’s performance?

nothing......really......nothing

recording quality is shockingly bad

I can't believe they would actually allow a recording this bad to be published. I loved the book and it fit with the rest if fiests work.

Fix your audio

Did you record this in a server room?! As an audio engineer it hurts to listen to this. How can you ignore the MASSIVE amount of background noise. EQ, deEssing, reverb.....all crap. Production value of this is awful. I had to fix it before I ended up listening to it.

Bad narrator

What happened to the previous narrator? This guy speaks to quickly, doesn’t have a good variety of accents & most importantly mispronounces names & places. If the story wasn’t so good, I wouldn’t bother. Has the producer never heard of continuity??

Great story, poor performance

It's a standard continuation of the Riftwar Cycle. Much of what comes is rooted in it's past. Don't expect grand new ideas, but revel in the fan service. Sadly, a subpar reader mars damages this audiobook but it isn't unlistenable. Be prepared for the just most wrong fantasy word pronunciation ever.

Unfortunate narration

While I suppose narrators have to get experience somewhere, it is a shame for this series to be concluded by someone with out the skill to properly service the work. They story is great. The performance, not so much.

Tough to follow

The most important thing I can say about this book is that you need to like stories with a many-branching focus that follows many different characters and locations. This book follows maybe 5 different stories all in the same universe but, as far as this book went, largely unrelated. There is a war that traverses most of these storylines but that's about as much connection as you'll get in the first book. I'm sure in later books it will all come together.

The style is very classic fantasy. There are multiple worlds connected by portals with humans, demons, elves, and all the other cliche races. There is a lot of magic involved but no stated magic system as of yet so don't expect an explanation of how any of it works. In that sense it really is magic but this also means it has no real depth for the listener because you have no idea what is or isn't possible or why anyone chooses to use magic as they do.

The main reason that my experience with this book was poor is that it jumped around so much that I never felt involved with any of the characters and what time was spent on each of them was mostly idle chatter. Basically, I never got drawn in and often found that I had stopped listening for minutes at a time and had to rewind, though there was little gain for doing so. I'm not by any means going to say this proves it's a bad book. I admit that I prefer stories that have just one or two main foci and that is simply a preference but I do feel this book did little to invest the listener in any of the characters. It probably gets more gripping in the later books but I'll be stopping here.

Book is great but this reader is terrible.

Great book the entirety of Feist's work is amazing. This reader is terrible. His pronunciation of simple words is bad enough to cause cringing of anyone that read the series themselves or has listened to the other readers. Kesh is not pronounced Keesh. He struggles with even more basic words
Overall a great story but would be better of downloading the text and have Microsoft word read it back on text to speech.