Voyage of the Mourning Dawn

Eberron: Heirs of Ash, Book 1

By: Rich Wulf

Narrated by: Marcella Rose Sciotto

A young street thief finds herself embroiled in a quest to find a powerful super-weapon thought lost during the final days of the Last War. She's never known anything but the dingy streets of her own city, but she is taken in by the crew of the airship "Mourning Dawn" and soon finds herself in strange lands filled with wonders and horrors beyond her wildest dreams.

©2006 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Decent Story with Poor Narration

The book does a decent job of portraying Eberron and exploring areas of the world and adding depth and flavor to them.

However, the narrator does not do the story justice. she frequently mis-pronounces words and names, sometimes pronouncing a name differently in the same paragraph. For example pronouncing Seren as Serena, Tristam as Tristan/Tristram, or Dalan as Dalian sometimes. Also some words like confidant being pronounced "confident". While it can easily be ignored when happening a handful of times throughout the book, it happens enough to be distracting and pulling the listener away from the story to think and decipher what the narrator was trying to say.

The character accents are somewhat distracting, especially with how poor Tristam's Irish accent is. It feels more like an exaggerated caricature of an Irish accent instead of a normal one which is much more subdued. The characters' speech is extremely flat and show no emotion at all throughout the entire book, and you can only tell the emotion of the characters because they are read aloud alongside the speech.

Not to mention the extremely boring cadence of speech throughout the book. Some narrators speed up their speech during action scenes or emphasize different words depending on the scene, but this narrator does not. Every scene has the same cadence.

I finished the book for closure but listening to it was not very enjoyable. I would like to continue the series but I'm debating whether or not listening to 20-30 more hours of the same narrator is worth it to me.

Great Introduction to Eberron

This feels like the world that I've been waiting to read about for years! Finally, a world that combines fantasy and sci-fi in a very Final Fantasy-esque way, one where the magic integrates into the technology while keeping the magic part mysterious. Its sci-fi elements lean a bit towards steampunk, but still this is very much a fantasy world. Eberron is the kind of place I could really get into knowing more. The descriptions make me long to play the game, or better yet, to see if depicted in movies or video games. Incorporating autonomous sentient robots and airships powered by magic - yes, please, and keep it coming!

This was my first exposure to the world, so from the beginning it had me really glued to the story to learn what was happening in the world. It's clearly very different from other D&D such as Forgotten Realms while still paying strong homage to that series. But I like the development of the society and the focus on character development. I enjoyed reading about the main characters, and the plot kept me interested and eager to find out what was coming next. Still, though the story itself is pretty interesting, it's the unveiling of the world that really shines. In the book's second half the plot does lose some of its originality, but overall it was enjoyable right up to the end.

I'm currently listening to the Dreaming Dark series, which is even better than this. But, I do hope to return to finish this trilogy also in the future.

Good story, odd narration

If you could sum up Voyage of the Mourning Dawn in three words, what would they be?

Never underestimate character.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The narration of this story is bizarre. It's not really the fault of Mrs Sciotto. She does some quality reading, but, as anyone would, she makes a few mistakes. The strange thing is these mistakes were not corrected. She says "increduly" instead of incredulously, close when she meant clothes, and even called the heroine Serena instead of Sarin. The parts that were edited were done very poorly, with bits from a clearly different recording spliced in.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No.

Any additional comments?

This is a very enjoyable story. It's characters are its most appealing feature. They're a colorful, interesting bunch.

Pretty good

The story is intriguing and has all the Eberron flair: investigations, intrigue, blurred morality, airships, etc. the performance had a few hiccups in pronunciation or tone, but overall I enjoyed the various accents and mannerisms the characters portrayed.

Heirs of Ash

The start to one of my favorite Eberron book series, not the best of the trilogy but still great. The narrator is a bit niche some voices are great others less so. Will definitely come back for another listen after I get around to some of the other Eberron books.

Great story, odd narration

An excellent tale set in Eberron, with enjoyable characters and action, and while the narrator takes the time to bring variety to the voices of the different characters the pace, pitch, and cadence of delivery just doesn't land for me. I warmed up to it after a bit, it was very jarring at the start, but it never felt right and relies on too many stereotypical portrayals (the villain has a deep brooding voice, the halfling is high pitched, the love interest is roguish and Irish sounding despite being an Artificer, etc.).

Good pulp, uneven narration

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

I would recommend it to someone who reads fantasy, and likes a pulp-style story. A reader who has any interest in the setting, a fantasy 1920s/30s spun partially from our world and partially from fantasy tropes, will like it even more.

What other book might you compare Voyage of the Mourning Dawn to and why?

There has to be steampunk out there that has parallels for this, but I don't know the genre well enough to cite an example.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Marcella Rose Sciotto?

I'm not sure. She shows a fair range of vocal characterization, but as someone else said she mispronounces a noticeable number of words-- some ordinary English, some that are place or character names, important to help a listener make sense of what's going on. I don't care how clumsy the splices are; I'd have liked more of them, to get rid of those errors.(The text itself isn't perfect either. If she read it right, there's one spot where the phrase 'on the desk' occurs in three sentences in a row. But there are only one or two examples of that kind of error so far.)

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I'm not done yet. :)

Any additional comments?

I am enjoying listening to the story, so the author and the narrator both get credit for that, and I do want you to buy it so the creators might make more :D But too frequently I am enjoying it despite the narrator's mistakes, and this review is the only way I have to ask, "Seriously, was there no time left in the recording budget for error correction?"

Narrator's voice gets in the way of the story.

Sounds like everyone in Eberron has a slight Irish accent. Darker characters have either the high pitch witch or the deep menacing voice.

Reads like fanfiction

There are interesting scenes for sure, but the narration and weird treatment of the female main character were just too much for me