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To Reign in Hell

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To Reign in Hell

By: Steven Brust
Narrated by: Jiraiya Addams
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About this listen

The time is the beginning. The place is heaven. The story is the revolt of the angels - a war of magic, corruption, and intrigue that could destroy the universe. To Reign in Hell was Stephen Brust's second novel, and it's a thrilling retelling of the revolt of the angels, through the lens of epic fantasy.

©1984 Steven Brust (P)2019 Steven Brust Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction

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Let’s start with the narration. It’s so slow. I increased the speed through the app to 1.2 and that made most of the characters speak at a normal pace. Only one or two sounded sped up. Even at that speed some of the dialogue was still slow. I thought that the narration lacks depth, light and shade.

Sound effects. There is a really annoying “angelic harp” strum sound between each “scene”. It gets wearisome quickly and annoying as hell after 8 hours. It breaks up the book into each scene which makes it easier to realise who is “on screen”. As I said above, maybe it was originally a screenplay? Each scene can be a minute or so to 30 minutes so they are not chapters.

Characters
The author seems to think that having some characters talk in fake olde English like they are in Shakespeare while others speak modern American slang creates some sort of depth. Well it doesn’t, in my opinion anyway, it just jars when we jump from 16th century England to 21st century Illinois.


After a while many of the characters blur together. This becomes difficult when later on you realise that there are about 4 characters with similar names and played in the same style that all have different roles in the story.

Story
Each scene is a series of dialogue and descriptions by characters of what others are doing “off screen” like it has been written as a radio play and not a book, maybe it was written as a screenplay originally? .

As other reviews have said it takes forever to build the story, then the concluding scenes are over in 45 minutes (at 1.2x speed). The epilogue is another 6 minutes. I could have done without the earlier 6 hours or so.

I’m bloody minded enough to sit through it (or walk/run through it) and the sort is just engaging enough to keep me from asking for my credit back.

By the way, some people may find the story line offensive. It contains themes and characterisations that people of faith may find challenging. If this may be you I suggest you do not listen to it.

My god this is a mixed up book

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Using terminology that conjours the depth of this book, in the telling of how the battle of heaven created hell. I am no religious person quite the anti. but this book (I was given this to review so wanted to respect the Authors time given to it so continued)
But it became so compulsive, I found myself rooting for the what we would say bad guys, backstabbing and pride causing the ultimate downfall. It was narrated with a style that felt part of the scene,
A very entertaining read, flawlessly delivered and worth the read. jim

Heaven v hell. at its inception .

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Firstly the premise is really interesting, however the delivery is dull and doesn't hold the interest. The narration is monotone, he sounds bored, maybe because the dialogue is really amaturish. The harp sound that splits the scenes up is annoying

A great idea delivered very poorly

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