Pseudo-Dragon

The Blue Dragon's Geas, Book 4

By: Cheryl Matthynssens

Narrated by: Zachary Michael

When young Alador has mystical powers placed upon him, he sets off on an extraordinary quest to become a true pseudo-dragon, facing unspeakable danger from an ancient beast lurking in the shadows.

As part of his journey, Alador secretly helps the Daezun people without their knowledge and comes to rely on assistance from Rena, a young blue female dragon who is falling in love with him against her father's wishes.

But when Alador travels to the city of Silverport to take his tier test and prove his abilities, he discovers that many council members are scheming against him in a struggle to maintain control over their land. Can he successfully navigate the delicate balance of politics and the machinations of his wicked uncle without setting off any unintended consequences?

Fortunately, Alador has several contacts operating under cloak and dagger, including Nemara, who is working secretly with Jon, the death mage, to help Alador rescue all the dragons held prisoner by the evil mages of Lerdenia. In Alador's quest to end this senseless bloodshed and claim his destiny, failure is not an option.

©2016 Cheryl Matthynssens (P)2016 Cheryl Matthynssens

Great story

This was a fun listen and such a such great fantasy story with dragons in mind!

Why Cheryl WHY??

Would you try another book from Cheryl Matthynssens and/or Zachary Michael?

That's a giant MAYBE, but with some conditions: ONLY if Cheryl stops hiring these ridiculously bad narrators! Her books are being RUINED by bad narration! Cheryl, darling, dearest -- did you not read my last review of book three?? THAT Narrator (Jimmie Moreland) was terrible, and instead of listening to my pleadings, you hired Zachary, who clearly went to the same school as Jimmie Moreland! Apparently at this school, they BEAT you when you correctly place emphasis within a sentence, or when you properly pronounce words. Zachary is so bad, I haven't even finished the book yet and I'm writing this. Cheryl, you're a GOOD writer! But its literally impossible to see that through the mangled narration...Wait . . . maybe you don't have a say in who narrates your books?! Perhaps you really pissed off the guy who picks the narrator . . . If that's true . . . I forgive you... Otherwise...

If you’ve listened to books by Cheryl Matthynssens before, how does this one compare?

Honestly, i'm so distracted by the bad narration that I'm not able to give an honest answer about that...

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Oh lord . . .I blew my wad on step three. Just for fun let's talk about how excruciatingly bad Zacharay's attempts at doing a female voice are. Horrible is my kindest offering. Let's take it one step further and discuss his attempts at doing a SEXY female voice.... It's this bad: I'm now GAY.

Was Pseudo-Dragon worth the listening time?

Aaaaaghhhhhh!!!! I so want to say yes to show a kindness to Cheryl . .. .but .....god! I think I would rather have drunk a cup of dirt. It would have been less painful, and more satisfying than listening to what might have been some good writing destroyed by droning word butchers.

Any additional comments?

I have so many, but I'll just pick one. I've decided to become a Narrator, because CLEARLY ... anyone can do it.

gets better and better

allot of question were answered and new ones left. out of the 4 books this is one of the better narrators although I liked the first one as well. the voices were done well especially like the way he did the dragon voices

fun story, meh reader

Story line is a fun continuation of the previous 2 books. This reader, though, often slipped out of character voice. The readers choice was also difficult to understand while listening in the car (something I hadn't had an issue with on the previous 2 books).

Too negative...

Would you try another book from Cheryl Matthynssens and/or Zachary Michael?

Maybe. I don't dislike all of the book but sometimes I feel like she just makes bad things happen because she thinks it will make the story better, but it never really adds much and it just got depressing at times. Conflict is good and all but it just seems more and more bad things happen to the main character while the main storyline hardly progresses at all. I was disappointed that it took him 3 books to accomplish anything worth note and it was not satisfying at all after all that build up and planning, and the death at the end just felt premature, I kinda figured it would happen at some point but not so pitifully.

What do you think your next listen will be?

I think I'll read something a little more light-hearted.

What aspect of Zachary Michael’s performance would you have changed?

He seemed a bit bland to me. He would also pronounce certain words strangely and seemed to struggle maintaining an accent sometimes.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.. I barely enjoyed the book and I can't imagine me liking it better after some crappy director got a hold of it.

Any additional comments?

I think she has a lot of potential as a writer but she needs to work on her pacing.

Bad narrative

The narrator seems to be whispering most of the time - that I kept raising the volume to over come the bad experience.
In the end I switched to the book and read it instead of hearing as I did with past books of the series.