Value for money, but....

I really love these omnibus/publishers packs, as you can gain a whole or sizeable portion of a series or, as in this case (and my first) sample a wide range of a particular author's work.

I had heard one of the titles before quite a while ago, but it was this title, Reincarnation Trials, which drew me in, because I'm a big fan of the narrator - Daniel Wisniewski. Unfortunately, it was neither a story nor Wisniewski performance I would have chosen to repeat had I had better recall, and was one of three that I skipped. The other two were Spartan Justice and Conquering New Earth.

Reincarnation Trials was, I felt, simply put, too gratuitously harsh, which I think about a third of these "fantasy" authors are guilty of in about 30% of their work. I'm not sure if they're trying so hard to build their world into a more unique one, but it really is a turn off. My first go round I did make it to the end, but had absolutely no interest in the rest of the series. And Daniel Wisniewski, one of my favourite vocal performers, was in his, "every sentence is a dramatic exclamation!" mode, which is super-annoying, because he has such a rich, powerful expressive voice, he actually LOSES most of the performance value and almost all of the expression he usually brings to his work when every itterance literally ends on the same note.

Conquering New Earth was simply torture as the female narrator mangled the English/Cockney accent. I couldn't even make it through the chapter introducing that character which was pretty early on, being English myself.

The female narrator in Mayor of Mythos was pretty bad at Irish accents. But, mercifully, we heard less from those characters as the story progressed, so I was able to stick with it, but it was touch and go for a while there.

In Spartan Justice, it got to the point where I couldn't tell if the female narrator was human or an AI... In a story with no AI!!

When casting, do they not audition for the full range of accents the actor will have to provide??? Because not only is it disappointing when the narrator is a poor choice in general (and I have passed on many stories/novels I've really wanted to buy based on poor narrator choice), but it's REALLY distracting when accents or character voices are bad.

The only other negative thing I have to say is, why does Han Yang dislike Orcs, Minotaurs and Centaurs so much? Outside of The Lord of the Rings, Orcs are generally Good People who value honour and bravery above all else!! This is the first fantasy author I've come across that has them enslaved, stupid and without a redeeming hero, even if they are misunderstood by mainstream/human society!! It grated terribly.

Other than these points, I enjoyed the other stories and narrators, and Yang's writing. Though, as usual in fantasy, the female characters were not well developed, were overly harsh, spoiled and generally dislikeable. The not-quite-dystopia, harsh world theme seemed to be a favourite of his too.

I would still call this omnibus value for money on the whole!

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