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A review by curgoth
Dead Man's Hand by George R.R. Martin
4.0
Audiobook re-read.
I don't think I've read this far in the series since I was a teenager. This is the other half of the story from Wild Cards book 6, covering the investigation of Chrysalis' murder. It's mainly focused on Yeoman and Popinjay. There's a lot to like here - the noir-ish crime solving and wise-cracking, and the Jokers/Wild Cards issue stuff goes fairly well. It gets a solid fail on female characters, most of them being femme fatales or victims to be fridged. The Ti-Malice parts are also a strong reminder of why this series has such a reputation for torture porn. I have a fairly high tolerance for the grotesque, but some of the parts were frankly gratuitous. The story-relevant horror didn't need quite as much gore as we got.
I'm also still immediately annoyed with every sentence that includes Blaise.
In 2018, I cannot hear the phrase "human centipede" without having to suppress a snicker.
Even so, I still enjoyed it and found myself looking for reasons to listen to just a little more.
As for the audiobook specific elements, well, the readers weren't fantastic. Jay Acavone's Jay Ackroyd was pretty solid, with the significant exception of every time Hiram Worcester spoke. For some reason, the audiobooks have given Hiram a Scottish accent (Hiram mentions his father was a Scot in book 1). Acavone cannot do a Scottish accent, and his attempts wander from "leprechaun" ro "Groundskeeper Willie".
Adrian Paul might be a decent choice to play Yeoman in a screen adaptation, but Paul's natural "From a lot of places" accent doesn't fit Brennan's solidly American background, and worse, Paul isn't a good reader - you can generally tell when Paul hits the end of a line in his script, because there's a sudden pause. Paul's voices for the female characters are also overly soft, which is a frequent failure of male readers.
I'm at the point in the series where I *know* the quality drops off... soon. Number 7 is still in the range, though, where I'm willing to go for at least one more. Next up, we start the Jumper trilogy, where I suspect the depictions of sex and consent will not have aged well.
I don't think I've read this far in the series since I was a teenager. This is the other half of the story from Wild Cards book 6, covering the investigation of Chrysalis' murder. It's mainly focused on Yeoman and Popinjay. There's a lot to like here - the noir-ish crime solving and wise-cracking, and the Jokers/Wild Cards issue stuff goes fairly well. It gets a solid fail on female characters, most of them being femme fatales or victims to be fridged. The Ti-Malice parts are also a strong reminder of why this series has such a reputation for torture porn. I have a fairly high tolerance for the grotesque, but some of the parts were frankly gratuitous. The story-relevant horror didn't need quite as much gore as we got.
I'm also still immediately annoyed with every sentence that includes Blaise.
In 2018, I cannot hear the phrase "human centipede" without having to suppress a snicker.
Even so, I still enjoyed it and found myself looking for reasons to listen to just a little more.
As for the audiobook specific elements, well, the readers weren't fantastic. Jay Acavone's Jay Ackroyd was pretty solid, with the significant exception of every time Hiram Worcester spoke. For some reason, the audiobooks have given Hiram a Scottish accent (Hiram mentions his father was a Scot in book 1). Acavone cannot do a Scottish accent, and his attempts wander from "leprechaun" ro "Groundskeeper Willie".
Adrian Paul might be a decent choice to play Yeoman in a screen adaptation, but Paul's natural "From a lot of places" accent doesn't fit Brennan's solidly American background, and worse, Paul isn't a good reader - you can generally tell when Paul hits the end of a line in his script, because there's a sudden pause. Paul's voices for the female characters are also overly soft, which is a frequent failure of male readers.
I'm at the point in the series where I *know* the quality drops off... soon. Number 7 is still in the range, though, where I'm willing to go for at least one more. Next up, we start the Jumper trilogy, where I suspect the depictions of sex and consent will not have aged well.