I’m sitting in my apartment in Hobart, waiting for Jane to arrive, having flown in earlier today. I did a new thing on the flight down. I listened to a whole audiobook. It was only two hours long, and I was a bit pissed off when I bought it by accident, thinking it was a full-length Mick Herron Slow Horses title.
But it was just a short short. The List.
I’d tapped the insta-buy button at the end of Dead Lions, not realising I was blowing a whole Audible credit on a short.
But, it was actually kinda perfect. A whole self-contained story, very well executed, to last the length of the flight and no more.
I might even do this again. But I won’t waste a credit. I’ll just buy it outright.
Ahhh yeah i hate those tricksy audible short stories. I'd been listening to the Malazan series over a year and a bit, and those books start from 26 hrs for the first one to 30-40hrs for the rest (total listening time is something like over 16days straight for the ten books) so spending credits post that on a 12 hour book felt like i was being cheated lol
That series was confusing as fuck even for a seasoned fantasy reader and the idea of listening to it on audible is awful. I must have read Gardens of the Moon twice before it all clicked.
Yeah - it was definitely confusing as you just get plonked in the middle of the story and have to build exposition as you go along. Its almost as if being a fantasy reader is a disadvantage as there are preconceptions we bring with us. The audio helps with a good narrator who does different voices for different characters so you can keep a track that way. They had an awesome narrator for the first couple but for some reason switched to another great narrator for the rest, but he did things in a different style and it took a bit of getting used to. Different pronunciation of names, obviously different voices for characters etc. But i really got into it, have read them and listened to them - its a giant world building story not limited to one or a small band of protagonists (for example LOTR and all the fantasy that followed) and that they stayed away from the usual elf/dwarf/orc stereotypes is awesome as well. It does several story arcs, some present, some in the past brought up to the present and is pretty much a mind blowing exercise in writing. Keeping track of them all must have been a bloody nightmare whilst writing and tying them all together.
I'm pretty sure it was written based off the events of a GURPS game. I loved the rest of the series and the Birdgeburners will always have a place in the pantheon of bastards we're mostly glad are on our side.
i think i got hooked once i read the next one, Deadhouse Gates. That is epic. And although it's a massive task the re-read of the series helped as i had prior knowledge of how the world works and the characters and picked up even more. Its weird being immersed in such a huge story for so long though.
There are a bunch of novellas that are Slow Horse and SH adjacent. It pays to get a list as some give a back story to characters who appear in the later books. I read the Christmas SH tale out of order and both copped a spoiler and did not know what was going on. Quite annoying.
Ahhh yeah i hate those tricksy audible short stories. I'd been listening to the Malazan series over a year and a bit, and those books start from 26 hrs for the first one to 30-40hrs for the rest (total listening time is something like over 16days straight for the ten books) so spending credits post that on a 12 hour book felt like i was being cheated lol
That series was confusing as fuck even for a seasoned fantasy reader and the idea of listening to it on audible is awful. I must have read Gardens of the Moon twice before it all clicked.
Yeah - it was definitely confusing as you just get plonked in the middle of the story and have to build exposition as you go along. Its almost as if being a fantasy reader is a disadvantage as there are preconceptions we bring with us. The audio helps with a good narrator who does different voices for different characters so you can keep a track that way. They had an awesome narrator for the first couple but for some reason switched to another great narrator for the rest, but he did things in a different style and it took a bit of getting used to. Different pronunciation of names, obviously different voices for characters etc. But i really got into it, have read them and listened to them - its a giant world building story not limited to one or a small band of protagonists (for example LOTR and all the fantasy that followed) and that they stayed away from the usual elf/dwarf/orc stereotypes is awesome as well. It does several story arcs, some present, some in the past brought up to the present and is pretty much a mind blowing exercise in writing. Keeping track of them all must have been a bloody nightmare whilst writing and tying them all together.
I'm pretty sure it was written based off the events of a GURPS game. I loved the rest of the series and the Birdgeburners will always have a place in the pantheon of bastards we're mostly glad are on our side.
Damnit, now I think I need a re-read.
i think i got hooked once i read the next one, Deadhouse Gates. That is epic. And although it's a massive task the re-read of the series helped as i had prior knowledge of how the world works and the characters and picked up even more. Its weird being immersed in such a huge story for so long though.
There are a bunch of novellas that are Slow Horse and SH adjacent. It pays to get a list as some give a back story to characters who appear in the later books. I read the Christmas SH tale out of order and both copped a spoiler and did not know what was going on. Quite annoying.
Thanks for the heads up. I'm getting quite invested in this series and would like to avoid annoyances.