I’ve been mulling over how best to review this book. I read some Dave Duncan when I was a kid and really enjoyed his work. This story is epic fantasy, one of my favorite genres. And yet this book didn’t do it for me.
A group of seemingly unconnected people have been summoned to give testimony as to what they know about the Eye of Strife, a fantastical & powerful object that has been lost in history. So, we have to leap all the way back to the beginning as to how the Eye of Strife came into human hands. Rape and murder and war. That was pretty much the history of the Eye throughout the various stories.

The characters were one-dimensional so I never felt connected to any of them. The ladies in general were romantic interests or victims. Even the few ladies with some power were cliches. I was left wanting more swords and sorcery, personal goals obtained through personal strife. Instead, it was much more of a grander, impersonal scale. War and rape were repeated themes.

I had a hard time finishing this book. Nothing about it grabbed me. I had to to work at finishing it. I wasn’t in awe of the Eye. I didn’t love or hate any of the characters. The epic scale of things didn’t wow me. However, it is a complete story. It’s not my cup of tea, but it might be your cup of tea. 3/5 stars.

The Narration: Anthony Lee has a bit of an accent and it took me a little while to get used to it. His pacing is a little slow but I could tell he was enjoying the story. He had distinct voices for some of the characters, but others were muddled together. There were no technical issues with the recording. 3.5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Audiobookworm Promotions on behalf of various authors, narrators, and publishers. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it. ( )

My original Mister 5150 audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

I had a difficult time reviewing “The Eye of Strife” which is a contemporary fantasy book written by Dave Duncan and narrated by Anthony Lee. The book provides little in the way of a description to those considering a new book to read. The only details we are given is that the book is about a God who summons a number of witnesses to testify about a jewel which has been lost for centuries. The Eye of Strife is the first book I have listened to by both this author and narrator. A number of the author’s fans, in their reviews, recommend reading his other material over this book; which seems to tell me that my gut feelings after listening was correct. I cannot speak for the author’s or narrator’s other works, but this one was hard for me to complete. The author appears to be quite a prolific writer and well like author. However, as you will see in my review below, I cannot recommend the book itself nor the audiobook edition do to the number of blemishes and bumps along the way. I’m a big fan of both science fiction and fantasy genres, but there were too many flaws for me to fully enjoy this one.

As a contemporary fantasy story, I enjoyed the varied characters including priests, priestesses, kings, gods, etc. I enjoyed some of the background details, but most of the time they were lacking. I liked the premise which the author laid out in the book’s description, but for me, the execution fell too short on delivering what was promised. If I had one thing that most impacted my dislike for this story, it would be that the book felt less like a tale being told than simply a large dump of events and details like that of a linear computer game. Most of the time I felt pulled along in the story instead of being lead and shown the beauty of it.

I did not feel the book had any life nor did the characters have any dimension to them. Everything felt flat. The descriptive words used to paint the scene were often muted or back and white only. I wanted color and life which was lacking throughout the story. Maybe this was the author’s intent based on the story revolving around a trial-like environment. At times the back and forth between past events and current were confusing as they did not have any solid transitions allowing the listener to smoothly be lead back. There were also points of interludes that attempted to reveal some new information, and at times that work well. As a whole, it just did not work for me. I felt the humor and writing style was more geared towards a young adult (YA) audience than what I have come to expect in a more mature author. For me, the book lacked any level of action or suspense; and some of this may be due to the way it was narrated the story, or both.

Let me turn to the narration of the book. Anthony Lee is a newer narrator on audible and I take this into effect while writing my reviews. Even for a newer author, I had numerous issues with the book’s narration. For a book which I believed would be lively, the narration lacked inflection and felt jagged. I felt his ability to narrate the number of different characters was weak and at times confusing for the listener. The audio itself had at least one, if not two, places I noticed it was patched to correct for missing or wrong wording when first recorded. There were also quite a few places where there were volume inconsistencies between chapters. Most professional narrators I know make sure to normalize chapters to a specific level prior to release.

For parents and or younger readers, take note that this book contains a fair amount of crude humor, scenes containing adult subjects or can be graphic in nature which may not be appropriate for younger audiences. There is also a light use of vulgar language sprinkled thought out its pages.

In summary, I found the number of flaws in both the story and narration something I cannot overcome. Even though the audiobook is nearly six hours in length, there were a number of times I was going to mark it as a DNF; Did Not Finish. I expected more from an author who has written so many well-received books. As others have recommended, this may not be the best text where the author shines, and maybe a few others would have been better suited for me to listen too.

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator. ( )

A motley group are brought together to locate the Eye of Strife, given by a god to a king many years ago. A good deal of squabbling and tales told in turn bring out the truth. Duncan's prose and plotting are as good as always, and I enjoyed this book very much.

This was my first book by Dave Duncan and, for the most part I enjoyed the characters; however, I found the plot forced and weak. The entire plot revolves around who actually has the Eye of Strife, which becomes clear is not the main protagonist or most of the heroes. The reveal and conclusion, for me, were anti-climatic. ( )

I really enjoyed The Eye of Strife. A Uniquely told fantasy mystery. I often skip read over long paragraphs of desciption but I could not do this with the way way this book is written, very interesting use of words and the way they are put together. I did have trouble with trying to pronounce the names in this book, so to save myself time, I didn't bother which is a bit of a shame. Not an overly complex story but crafted like a jigsaw puzzle, I would definitely read other works by Mr Duncan.