Anonymous

Nice little supernatural short

Reviewed: 05-20-24

There was nothing too deep here, but it was definitely enjoyable. The cast, though they felt like they were voice acting at times, came together well and the story, while not too complex, did have enough twists and turns to make it enjoyable. Nice and short too -- would recommend.

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A great journey, middling destination

Reviewed: 08-14-23

I first encountered Jonathan Sims from his Magnus Archives podcast series, and much like that series, this book is a great journey with a lackluster destination.

The Magnus Archives was great at telling solo one-off stories that had mystery and intrigue, but it was when they all had to come together for a payoff that things got disappointing. That also happened here. Don't get me wrong, the ending isn't HORRIBLE, but given all the build-up, it's a bit of a let-down to find out who/what the big bad and mystery is.

Still an enjoyable listen though with a great audio cast

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Good stand-alone or series start

Reviewed: 08-06-23

This story was enjoyable enough as a stand-alone work, but also left it open for further releases in a series. Though there were some “oh come on” moments, I’d be happy with either direction to be honest.

Ray Porter did an amazing job as always

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1 person found this helpful

Cheesy, but not too

Reviewed: 08-21-22

This book could’ve ended up overly cheesy, first due to the protagonist (I always feel she tries too hard with the snark, in this and other roles) and the “on-the-nose” narration, jokes and other tidbits.

Credit where credit is due though, they reigned it in and managed to keep it at a slight chuckle reaction vs an eye roll.

The plot was interesting enough, not too heavy, but solid enough to keep the story and zany situations moving along.

Unsure this would be worth a credit, but at say 5.99 or so (or, in this case free with audible membership) it was a worthwhile way to spend a few hours

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Kids and I loved it

Reviewed: 12-13-21

It moves very quickly, is easy to follow and keeps your attention. The kids were hooked, they immediately asked if there's a followup (to be fair, it's written in a way that there kinda has to be).

Narrator did a good job, though she did kinda mumble through some longer phrases.

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Disjointed and poorly-narrated

Reviewed: 07-09-21 Listener received this title free

This story felt like a committee got together with a bunch of different ideas for what the story should be and decided to include everyone's ideas to make them happy. You've got dragons, vampires, aliens and secret government agencies to name a few. While the author does try to tie it all together, nothing is every really well-established enough for you to get a full grasp (or even care) before you're whisked off to something else.

Sadly, the same goes for the characters. Aside from Mr Sun and Moon, I can't really remember any others. They mostly sounded the same due to the narration (except for Mr Moon -- I'm not even Asian and I'm slightly offended by the stereotypical manner in which it was read) and no one really stood out

Speaking of narration, though Matt Jenkins has a voice that's easy-enough to listen to, he tends to read everything in an exasperated quiet sort of yell. Most people sound the same and the intonations seem to be way off from how the text reads. Sadly, I don't feel he helped the story any.

This book was provided to me for free in exchange for my honest review. If you want a fairly mindless romp, then it's short enough to provide some entertainment, but don't expect anything thought-provoking.

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Felt Unnecessarily Convoluted

Reviewed: 03-07-21

While this is a good standalone story with no overarching plot to bog it down and some fun cameos from past friends, it still manages to trip over itself. It tries to hard to be a clever whodunnit that it ties its own feet and trips itself up. There are far too many pieces of the puzzle and the story would have been fine without half of them.

As always, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith did an amazing job narrating!

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1 person found this helpful

Sadly Mediocre

Reviewed: 11-01-20

Unsure how this story won an award, but it might be indicative of how hard it is to find quality material in this genre.

The story was contrived, derivative and though most of what the author dreamed up as "lore" was obvious, that didn't stop them from using lots of words to make it obvious to you. Really felt like someone repeatedly explaining the punchline of a joke that you already got. In fact, most of the book was needlessly verbose. Perhaps there was a word count target for the award they were after.

The narrator had a pleasant voice, but was simply "reading" instead of "acting". There were odd pauses in sentences as if they didn't realize there was more to what they were saying. The author's wordiness could be to blame here though.

Overall, I really wouldn't recommend this. Perhaps if it were half (or less) as long it would be easier to swallow, but 10 hours for this? Pass.

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Collections are always tough

Reviewed: 09-13-20 Listener received this title free

It's always tough to review collections -- and it's even harder when the stories are from different authors.

On the whole though, I'd have to say that most of the stories were consistent in two ways: they had a black cat with a notched ear.... and they fell into the disappointing category. Many showed promise only to just end or ruin it (in my view) in some other way.

While they can all be classified as YA, some of the authors wrote in a way that can appeal to all audiences IMO.

"Bloodlines" - This was one getting really good, and then it just suddenly ended. Looking at the Amazon listing, it looks like this story is from a universe that Cass Kim created, so I guess that's forgivable, though it would've been nice to know there was more.

“Fade to Black” - I honestly don't even remember this one.

“Magician’s Weekend” was another really entertaining one that seemed to be part of a larger universe. It ended in a pretty fulfilling way though, so kudos to the author there.

“Hannah and Gregory” felt way too kiddy and, well, pointless.

“The Teller Tree” - another cool one that could have used some more writing.

“From Hell” - Another one with lots of build up and a rather lame ending as payoff.

“Constellation Boy” - Really cool one. Though I would have liked to hear more on this story, the author probably could have ended it a bit earlier than they did.

“Soul Sisters” - interesting concept, but shallow and definitely YA in nature. Felt like an RL Stine short story.

“Witches of Nine” -- cool concept that has potential to go places, but ended rather abruptly, leaving you with a bunch of world building and buildup that goes nowhere (maybe it does in another story?).

“Dawson Farms" -- really cool one. Heavy YA tone to it and the author does way too much "explaining" at the end, but it was still a good concept with nice execution.

“Location #23” - this one riffs off of Pokemon Go and Wizards Unite to create a tale that's actually kind of creepy. Would love to see this one expanded into a larger story.

“A Witch’s Ken” - meh. lots of ideas, but a bit of a mess overall. The narrator struggled with this one a bit too.

”My Own Dark Way” - a new take on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as well as Jack the Ripper. Forgettable IMO.

Courting Death” - This was a pretty touching tale and well-executed. One of the best here IMO.

The narrator by the way did an amazing job -- through the good and bad!

I was provided this audiobook free by Cass Kim in exchange for my honest review. There's some misses in here, but the hits really bring the other guys back up.

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1 person found this helpful

Disjointed and incomplete

Reviewed: 08-26-20

This story is listed as a novella, but I've listened to short stories that are more developed as huge chunks seem to be missing from the story.

The story starts off well, with lots of backstory and buildup, but then suddenly the author is in the middle of a crazy experience that we seem to just get bits and pieces of. Suddenly the protagonist knows the monster attacking him, but we don't. Then suddenly another "surprising" discovery that gets zero resolution or explanation.

The writing was decent, not great, and while the narrator was good, it was spoiled by horrible production quality. The audio sounds like it's coming through a phone line or underwater making it tough to listen to.

It's short, so that's something, but I'd still skip it honestly.

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