Magic Time

By: Marc Scott Zicree, Barbara Hambly

Narrated by: Armin Shimerman

When an overworked team of government physicists unwittingly invites something catastrophic into the world, rising young New York lawyer Cal Griffin is forced into a strange new role in a world of nightmare and wonder.

A spinster schoolteacher, a lonely miner, a refugee doctor, a visionary street person, and a brooding Secret Service agent all share a staggering responsibility with the young attorney to make sense of the surreal chaos and to follow an awesome destiny, for they are to be soldiers in a titanic battle between darkness and light.

And its raging hell fires will affect the most astonishing transformation of all, turning a young man of pure heart into that rarest of creatures: a hero.

©2001 Paper Route, Inc. (P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Sheer entertainment, this book is a rousing success." (Booklist)

"One of the most interesting and promising new fantasy series to come along." (Orlando Sentinel)

Great narrator Original twist on one of my favorite genres

The idea of elements of the fae realm/genre suddenly becoming a part of our own
Looking forward to reading book 2

Nothing wrong with the sound

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book to a friend.. nice winding story and good characters.

What about Armin Shimerman’s performance did you like?

He is easy to listen to..

Story yes, reader no

I really am enjoying this story but the reader is only ok. I'm eager to see how it ends...

love this series

I love to listen to all these books. different with likeable characters. I am sad when it ended

Good story; terrible recording

The most important part: the story is very good. There've been dozens of books based on the idea of magic somehow re-emerging into our modern world. This one is a very creative, very interesting take. It's very well done - it actually considers how things like transportation, food supplies, and economics would be affected. But it doesn't focus on those things - they're just part of the background - but as a part of the background, they help drive the story, and make it feel much more real.
The story itself is fun. It's got interesting, engaging characters, with multiple plot threads that intersect in believable ways.
But on the downside, the recording is the worst I've ever heard. It sounds as if random sentence fragments were recorded at different times, and then re-assembled. It's got awkward edits all over the place, and the narrators voice frequently changes pitch and speed in mid-sentence after an audible click as they switch between different recorded segments. Armin SHimmerman manages to give the different characters very distinctive voices, which is good. But either he couldn't read a single sentence without making an error, causing everything to be spliced from multiple takes, or whoever managed the recording process didn't know what they're doing: at times, it's actively painful to listen to.

Be patient with book's beginning-adventure unfolds

Initially I found the beginning of this book to be confusing as it jumped around to what seemed to be disparate locations and characters. What appears to be disjointed will unfold to be connected if you give this adventure time to unfold after the initial character introduction chapters. So be patient and enjoy what turns out to be the creation of a fascinating landscape with interesting characters created by "The Source." You will be pleasantly rewarded.

A pleasant way to pass the time

I enjoyed the story line for the most part in this first book of the series reminding me of either Dean Koonz or Stephen King.

The narrator was horrible. I felt like I wandered all over his house with him while he recorded this. I think I even know the acoustics of his bathroom.

I was happy to see he didn't narrate the second book because I was considering just buying the second in the series in book form.

Good book, jarring narration

This book is just fine to whittle away the time, and reasonably unique in it's story-line and plot arc. My only complaint is with the narration. The narrator's voice and distinction between characters is just fine, but the editing of the actual recording is full of these sudden changes in tone, and sometimes volume, which seem to have been spliced in from another session. To me it seems as if the audio was also edited to remove all pauses between sections; throwing you into another location and set of characters with a confusing lack of transition.

If you can get over the recording faults, however, this is an entirely enjoyable novel, and I've already bought the sequel.

Is This For YOU?

If you want depth of characters, an intertwining plot that rides the cusp of both the supernatural and science as we know it...if you want expresive "pull you into the story" writing...if you long for an audiobook that has a rich variety of characters, sharing with them their thoughts and passions...if you liked Stephen King's apocalyptic "The Stand" and want fantasy characters blended in...this is for you. I read this book in it's first printing, and was very pleased to enjoy the story once again by audiobook. The narrator offers a supurb variety of dialects. This is worth the listen, as is the entire trilogy. Enjoy!

Magic Time!

Very creative and fun to listen to. The voices are wonderfully done.