AMNAR: THE AWAKENING
Please welcome Isabel Joely Black to the site. She’s starting the .mp3 release of her book, AMNAR: THE AWAKENING:
Everything in Io’s life is about to change. She’s grown up fixing saddles for her older sister and Daar, the errand-runners in a city on the brink of war.
She believes she’s about to join in a fight to liberate the city from the oppressive forces of an Empire threatening to destroy them.
Except she’s about to find out that in fact, she’s destined to become the next leader of the very Empire she hates.
And she doesn’t have any choice about this. The man she was convinced was her sworn enemy is about to become her very own Servant…
Joely is starting off with the first five episodes and will be adding more as she converts them to .mp3 format. If you want all five now and then new ones as Joely makes them available, get the default feed. Or if you want to get episodes one at a time on a schedule you choose, grab a custom feed from us. Either way, it’s a free audiobook!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I have only one strong suggestion; slow way down on the narration. The vocal is so fast that one has to really concentrate to catch the story; this takes away from the enjoyment of listening.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Thanks, Coleman.
I’ve been working on improving it. Unfortunately, all the recordings were completed for this book last year when I was just starting out. The latest book is much improved.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
I absolutely adore this book. True the narration at the beginning isn’t say Sigler quality but it gets better quickly. The story like most great fantasy novels you get the feeling of being in a world where there is so much to explore and discover, so much culture and history…it is just incredible.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:19 am
I’d agree completely with Ellipsis, the story is well worth getting past the quick narration in the first few episodes. Once these are past the narration is clear, and easy to listen to. The world is interesting and seems to have been thoroughly thought through with plenty of depth to it. My only slight quibble might be the short length of the episodes which is no problem listening to the complete first book but might effect the second book. But really that’s being a bit nit-picky so isn’t any reason not to listen to the story.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I was a bit sceptical at first, I read the reviews, and was worried about the narration speed. Regardless, the episodes went on my iPod and i took the book on my trip to Europe. Not the greatest of ideas as it kept me up at night EVERY night. I wanted to keep on listening eventhough I had to get up early each day and sight see. Anyhow, it’s an awsome piece of work, i highly recommend it.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
While a little rough at the start with the fast reading(which slowed as the episodes continued), The story itself was a great listen as I found Myself eagerly awaiting the next episode. The characters while familiar were enjoyable and I look forward to Io’s further adventures( I have the next one Loaded up In Itunes)
January 12th, 2010 at 8:43 am
I thought the narration was fine and in fact very pleasant. The story was very compelling and I was drawn into it fairly quickly. I look forward to more books in this series.
I looked at the authors website and am wondering if this is a trilogy? Is there a map that goes along with the book?
Thank you for sharing this story with us here on PB.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Argh. 1st episode was good. 2nd one lost me. Didn’t get into what time was when, who was who, what group was doing what and why. To confusing to follow. To many pronouns, “they were listening to them them while he was watching” type sentences. Sorry, good try though!
January 20th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
Agreed that the narration was hard to follow at first, but I’ve enjoyed the story.
One thing that I found really annoying was a technical thing. The introductions and conclusions of each episode were very much louder than the actual narration. I had to turn my volume down at the start, but then could hardly hear the narration, so had to turn the volume back up again and as soon as the episode was over, I’d have to make a dash to turn down the volume. Since I listened to a number of episodes in a row, that got to be very annoying.
Also there were a number of ‘edits’ that weren’t actually edited out. The multiple takes were there, in a row. That sounded amateurish or sloppy.
I assume if it’s the first attempt, things would improve in future.
Having said all this, I enjoyed the story enough to keep listening, in spite of these things.
March 3rd, 2011 at 1:42 pm
I agree with the above comments about the speed of the narration being a problem – shame, because it seems like a story I’d like otherwise. Maybe re-record the first few, now that you have a better feel for it?