Lacking Brina as Holo, but still a classic!

Little sad that Brina didnt reprise Holo for her dialogue but still a great listen. Loved the anime, loved the manga, and if I could bring myself to read the enormous omnibus of the LNs in my bookcase I am sure I'd love that too. Truly my go to feel-good romance story. We need more fantasy tales that just focus on the quiet life, it's so refreshing.

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A personal, early teen favourite of mine.

As I was going through secondary school (In the UK), I was going through a particularly rough time at English class, and could never bring myself to truly read. After a while, I had gotten into anime and manga and eventually stumbled upon what I thoroughly believe to be my favourite series.

After having watched the anime of Spice & Wolf, I found myself truly adoring setting, and surprisingly immersed within the complex political aspect of the show.

However watching both seasons of the anime, a deep, hopeless hole filled me as I pondered what to do after watching the show which unfortunately had quite the disappointing and abrupt ending.

Thats when I stumbled upon the fact that the anime was — like many other stories before it — had a series that it was sourcing it's material from.

so on my 15th birthday, and with some surprisingly generous birthday gifts of money, I bought the first three volumes of the Light Novel and was shocked to find that it was so much better than I could have possibly imagine.

The two main characters of Holo — Self-descrived "Wise Wolf" — and Craft Lawrence — a man struggling with his day to day life of being a traveling merchant being the driving force for my adorating of the series. Particularly Holo; Whom I felt was the shining start of the two. With her heart rending reasons for wanting to leave the village she had blessed for a better and more fulfilling life and to return to her home land up north. Along with her wit, Child-ish moments of bashfulness and so on, along with her infectious sass.

If i were to reccoment this book / Audiobook, it would be primarily recommend on characters alone.

However. To not draw out this already lengthy review on any longer, and not make this seem like a shameless attempt at a review on a particular video sharing website, I will summise my feelings thusly.

If you wish to read a story with characters whom come in many personalities both lovable and utterly despicable, a rich lore drip-fed through — admittedly lengthy — expositing, and a surprisingly complex depiction of socioeconomics, financial gain and loss, along with an interesting take on a semi-fictional mythos, Please, I urge you to give this Audiobook a listen, and if possible, the original books a read.

Yours sincerely, an overly devoted fan of a series that once passed this show off as a boring show about politics and weird-looking female lead.

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By far the most fun I've had with a book in a bit

From performances of characters to story, there's nothing in this audiobook that's done poorly and it's just a shame I took so darn long to get into this one because the tale of a centuries old Wolf-God that can both be - and needs - protecting is fantastic in every shape and way imaginable.
The economics sections aren't boring or overplayed, detailing why and how certain things are happening is done to a flawless degree and nothing is badly done for it, I enjoyed listening to a lecture on the deprecation of coinage and controlling other economies.
and the inclusion of the rampant zealotry and fanaticism of various faiths while not actually naming any of them is a masterstroke, are they talking about X or Y or Z or whatever, doesn't matter as it's just there to be used as an explanation for why Holo is meant to be treated well.

it's amazing and I am SO getting all of this series

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A beautiful story told by Kraft Lawrence himself

While Brina Palencia didn't co-narrate the story as Holo, I still think it is lovely hearing J. Michael Tatum reading the book as if it was told through Lawrence's perspective.

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Great listen

Early on wasn't too sure about the narrator however that was quickly dispelled, a great read and listen.

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A wonderfully written story.

Honestly, this volume blew me away. The author’s mastery of language (evident even in translation) made every part of it a joy to listen to, as did the clear fascination with medieval history and culture, as well as the subtle efforts to blend eastern and western interpretations of divinity into the setting.

My only criticism is about the narration, and even then it’s only on one point.

J. Michael Tatum is a fine VA whose voice I’ve enjoyed in a number of anime previously, but he does have an unfortunate tendency to make all male characters sound the same.

In an anime, that can be fun since it makes it very easy to be like “That’s the same guy who voiced Okabe.” But here, it just means that if I lose concentration for two seconds, there’s a chance I won’t know who’s speaking.

Other than that, he did a fantastic job and I’m looking forward to hearing the next volume.

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Worth The Wait

As a blind fan of Anime I've always felt detatched from the source material. I love the 'Spice & Wolf' series, however due to accesability issues I was never able to appreciate the light novels that inspired the show and so was unable to continue following the characters journeys. So when I learned that they were making audiobooks of the light novels to say i was excited was an understatement!!

This audiobook was great. The delivery of the narrator was on point, seemlesly witching from dramatic tones to humours breaks without any pause between. It was also a nice touch to have the orginal voice actor reprise the role of Laurence to narrate the book. Would have liekd the voice of Holo too but not going to complain too much.

The story at times was a bit clogged with buisness terms and explanations of financial structures, however it is all seemlesly fed into the narrative and does actually give you a deeper understanding of the story and the high stake involved. With the arching stroy focusing on the character development rather than action or high fantasy this layering of world building really increased my enjoyment of the stroy.

So yeah, loved the book would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good character driven drama but also with a hint of the fantastical about it....Holo is a shapeshifting wolf who's existance is simply accepted as normal. Definately one to read and a great place to start for people who may not have read light novels before.

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Unexpectedly great!

Best narration I've heard yet, after hearing a swathe of Stephen Fry narration, and even Dune.
Was gripped and made my car journeys something I looked forward to.

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GREAT

This story is amazing i listen to stories to get to sleep and this one was great so i recommend if you like worreor cats you will love this ☺️

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100% worth it for the fans and newcomers

Really enjoyable to hear Lawrence's VA doing this and does it really well. would really like to see Holo's VA do some too, maybe the volumes theatre told from her perspective? either way, I really look forward to the next volumes!

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