The Reaver

Forgotten Realms: The Sundering, Book IV

By: Richard Lee Byers

Narrated by: Eugene H. Russell IV

In the fourth book of the multi-author Sundering series launched by New York Times bestselling author R.A. Salvatore, Richard Lee Byers introduces Anton Marivaldi - a renowned reaver with an insatiable thirst for bounty and a moral compass that always leads him toward the evil he's never tried. Endless, pounding rain afflict the Sea of Fallen Stars and the coastal regions surrounding it. Harvests are failing, travel and trade are disrupted, and civilized forces are giving way to the deluges caused by the storms. In panic and despair, many have turned to the goddess Umberlee, Queen of the Deeps, offering her sacrifices with hope that they will be spared the inevitable reckoning of her perpetual tempest. Evendur Highcastle, undead pirate captain, risen from the depths to assume the mantle of Umberlee's Chosen, takes advantage of the people's desperation to strike for both spiritual and temporal power in her name. Vying with Highcastle for the hearts and minds of the people is Stedd Whitehorn, a little boy and the chosen of a god thought lost to time: Lathander, the Morninglord. In a time of such upheaval, Stedd’s message of renewal and hope runs in stark contrast to the savage ethos of Highcastle and his waveservants.When Anton captures the boy in order to collect Highcastle's considerable bounty, the reaver is quickly caught in the riptide caused by the sundering of worlds.

©2013 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Terrible narration

The narration was incredibly halting and did not flow like a normal conversation. It seemed like the narrator was reading this for the first time and dictating it into a speech to text app. The weird thing is I really do like this narrator, I have listened to other books he has narrated and they were some of my favorite stories. I don't know how he messed up this badly. It almost made me not want to listen to the story at all.

Story OK, reader very poor.

I'm in it for the Sundering series, and suffered through the poor writing of the last writer. This time the reader is the problem. Where is the QC at Wizards??? This reader is not qualified to read my mail, why was he hired to read a book? After more than a decade of listening to hundreds of books, this is the worst reader I have heard. Besides for his elementary skills at reading, he has a weird tendency to pronounce endings of certain words very strangely. Wrong, long, hang etc all end with guh. Wronguh? Very distracting. I'm not sure what they were going for, but it does not surprise me that Wizards stopped publishing novels. And I liked them, but the quality just started to tank. I will finish this and move on to the next one, but only because I want to know the history of the Sundering.

Great Story if you can get by the voice talent

The warm rich baritone voice rolled across my ears and I was at first excited. And then sentence after stilted sentence made me realize that I was stuck with this voice talent throughout. At times he tries to change his tone to indicate the different characters speaking but then either misses who is speaking or mixes them up. The editing is also at fault. Theres not sufficient pause when changing scenes or chapters and it leads to confusion.
Despite all this I muddled through. The story is heartwarming and well told. Too bad the voice talent or director didn’t know how to pronounce things like Kraken. A true pirate tale and very dungeons and dragons with characters and mythos all us long time forgotten realms players and readers will recognize.
If you want to feel like a witness to the ends of the spell plague and endless rains of the sea of fallen stars, try to get past the voice talent. I still found it worth it.

Searies weak point

I had a hard time struggling with the narration.
Was too monotonous for me, compared to the test of the series.

Good overall story, enjoyed it

A typical forgotten realms book. I enjoyed it, but would not be one I would re-read.

Great Story, sub-par narration

The story is great, as expected from anything set in Forgotten Realms. It has it's slow spots and exciting moments too! the only issue is that the Narrator's voice for each character is the same - plus or minus a few octaves. listening to him as the pirate Anton is enthralling, he's perfect. On the other hand, it falls short for any other character. I still consider it a 10/10 story despite my opinion.

Story was great

They could have used a more talented reader! He sounds like the old movie phone guy.

Good story bad delivery

Anton the pirate at first appears to be a villain out for profit and Umara the red wizard just a minion to her evil masters, This is a tale of finding redemption and doing what is right. Their transformation seems to happen too quickly and could have benefited from a longer development and more details but still believable and makes for an interesting story. Only issues was the narrator whose voice does not lend any sense of high adventure or epic happenings.

Great listen!

Truly enjoyed the characters, narration, and story. Found myself making time to listen to the story.

My first Richard Lee Byer experience.

Great story at a great pace with a great narrator. 2nd best Sundering novel so far! I'm biased towards the companions of the hall, though.