Soo’s Reviews > The Legion of Flame > Status Update

I felt like this was one of the very few series that actually benefited from a change in audio narrator.

Ugh, who do you have in your version? I have no idea why he sounds so bad in this series. I've listened to Steve West narrate other stories and this NOT the same. Ugh.

I had Steve Brand for the first book in this series and then Steve West for the next two books in the trilogy.

I'm hit and miss with West. I love him in some books and hate him in others. This was one of his better performances in my opinion. I think you might have struggled a bit with him as I feel like he went out of his way to try and match Brand's performance. He did it pretty well in my eyes! The big upgrade was the fact that he performed the character voices. Steven Brand has a great voice and is fantastic with the general narration but the guy just does not perform the voices and that can kill story. West fixed that and I felt like the second and third books really benefited from having him take over as the narrator.

Oh, in that case. Nope! Normally, I think both are okay but they don't work for me in this series at all. Reading the books make the story much better than listening.

Like, West does add character by having character voices but he sounds bored/distant for the narration. That's most of the book. Blah

Soo wrote: "West does add character by having character voices but he sounds bored/distant for the narration..."

I'm convinced he was just trying to mimic Brand's style of narration. I felt like he did a good job of that and it made the transition to a new narrator smooth and easy for me. The fact that he acted out the character voices was just an added boost that made the narration better.

I'm a fan of new narrators making the effort to match the performance of the old narrator as I think it offers an audio series a much needed bit of consistency. I hate it when mid-series narrators hop on board and give the story or characters a whole new feel or personality. It sucks so bad when that happens!

Yeah, I would say that I appreciate it when narrators try to match each other. Normally. But the thing is, the first one was not good and the second one was only a little bit better. I'm planning on reading the book soon.

I get what you are saying. I liked Brand well enough when I was listening to Anthony Ryan's first trilogy but I've really gone off the guy over the years due to his lack of voice acting. He just reads the books like the old school audio narrators did back in the 60s and 70s and I much prefer the modern style of narrators "performing" the characters and the story.

I'll see how I feel about Brand again soon enough as I'm gearing up for a reread of Ryan's original trilogy so I can push on to the sequel duology which is due to wrap up with the final instalment which gets released next month. I loved Blood Song when I first read it!

As far as West goes I'm hit and miss with him. He will never be a fave but I think the newer books I've heard him narrate he has given good performances. He really won me over with this book and with Strange the Dreamer.