14-year-old Monson Grey faces the same challenges that any freshman high school kid would. Difficult classes, weird teachers, food fights…girls. Except Monson Grey is not Monson Grey. At least, when he looks at himself in the mirror, the scarred face staring back is not someone he recognizes. Now he finds himself attending an extraordinary school, the recipient of an incredible scholarship, among ridiculously rich classmates, and with no memory of how he got there or what to expect. As bizarre events start to unfold around him, Monson wonders what secrets lay locked in his hidden past. Add all this to a mysterious silver stone, an Indiana-Jones-copycat professor, Merlin the wizard, and even Atlantis, and you’ll find yourself in a fantastic tale in which magic does exist and everything is never as it seems.
How We Would Describe This Book: Fantasy for sure, but no dungeons and dragons, dwarf and elf type here. We disdain using the words in mixed company, such as this blog, but if you blithely asked, "What is HoG similar to?" we would use the HP word [Harry Potter, for the strong of stomach, insistent on knowing folks on the other side of this screen]. Teenagers with budding hormones, mysterious origins for the hero, struggling against powerful, dark, and obscure magic, that sort of stuff. Had HP stopped after the second book, maybe our visceral response to it would be less distressing, and HoG could be seen as on par with it, but HP's descent into books 3 through infinity (well, it feels like there are that many, and we keep saying 'so far', because thirsty animals return to the watering hole when stressed, in spite of the hazards; but we digress).
NARRATION: Stellar, absolutely state-of-the-art superb. While Collin Earl wrote this epic, Chris Snelgrove did the entire gargantuan narration, and we point to it often on PB.com's Mentorship pages as one of the Gold Standards. Chris has professional phrasing and cadence, unbelievable range, spot on reproducibility of characters, and just enough of actor show-through to allow the listener bond with him as a personal level. No more need be said, 20 points, period.
EDITING/TECHNICAL ELEMENTS: Again, state of the art, professional and seamless. We recall hearing once in the half decade unfolding of this tale hearing a mis-edit, that's how good the production was. Sound effects, music, pacing, and segues were all marvelous and added to the joy which was the consumption. Level 20 points, of course.
ORIGINALITY OF STORY: We like Collin Earl, knowing him as we do through Twitter and other new media sources. Wonderful fellow, in spite of his other career involving The Bar ( no, not a bar, The Bar. If it were the former, we'd respect him just fine, thank you). That stipulated, HoG is, as alluded to above, a teenage coming-of-age journey of self-discovery, friends like you'll never have again, maniacal evil fiends attacking type tale. Nothing wrong with that, the genre works for a reason and resonates with the audience instinctively. While not fresh, the format can be refreshing, as it is here with HoG. There are nice original aspects, which differentiate HoG from its numerous cousins, and they are imaginative and well developed indeed. We snatch a score of 12 from mid air for HoG on this count.
QUALITY OF WRITING: Did we mention we liked Collin? Prince of a guy, real stand up type. Yes, well, we were dreading this category's arrival, as we loved HoG like ice cream on a hot summer's evening, and simply had to review it, but we kept remembering someone (wait that was us!) put this pesky criteria in the ranking protocol. So, accentuate the positive, Mary Poppins once told us, so be assured HoG is far from poorly written. Large segments are credible, well worded, snappy and most entertaining. But, and there had to be a but in there somewhere, major issues plague the book which whack the score down rather soundly. As a reminder, this is an audiobook, audio drama, podcast, and is not presented anywhere as a text, with Collin's writing is more a screenplay than novel, so Dickensonian prose was never his goal. However, when inexperienced teenage swordsman turn to talk to their girl friends during a fight they are losing, and characters appearing from nowhere are enbued with powers and secondary goals far in excess of which chance would support, we are left a tad slack jawed. Monson is told in a dream to tell his 'guardian' a very important fact [a gate has been breached, whatever that was] and yet he does not tell anyone, including his legal 'guardian', who turns out to be 'The Guardian' , so why was that part of the plot? Monson goes to a cave with an enigmatic date where there are wondrous lights, but we never found out what the lights were, why they were entered into the stream of the story, and the cave did not return later to help resolve any issue. Monson is in the process of saving the babe he's got the hots for, but inexplicably leaves her unconscious and goes off on some chase. There are these dolls, which Monson finds, that look like students and warriors, and seem to have magical voodoo powers or something, but we for one cannot for our live's sake tell what they were used for, why they were mentioned, or where they acted downstream to effect anything, let alone something pivotal. Then there's the ending. After such a long tale, we would have expected to have a tighter, more satisfying resolution. Yes, sequels must be set up, but still, the story deserved a better crafted conclusion. We trust you take our general point concerning this aspect of HoG. We like Collin, love HoG, and perhaps as fault of these affections award 10 points for writing prowess.
WOW FACTOR: OK, forget about those wordy things immediately in front of these wordy thingies, HoG is nigh on the definition of wow. Stellar narration, fast paced entertaining tale, quality beyond price production value, and fun characters. In fact, we defy anyone to listen to this joyous gift and not be fully wowed. You heard that, we challenged you, now go out and download and be wowed this very instant. What if you are not wowed, you ask, after completing our personal challenge issued so dramatically? Well, then we will not be hoping to spend much time hanging out with you, and we might even use you as an example of how poor a judge of merit some PB.com subscribers are, truth be told, are. 20 out of 20 wowful points.
EXTRA CREDIT: Though technically not an ensemble production, Chris' narration garners some credits in this grouping, do to his sheer brilliance. Also, come on, 5 years in the making, let's share some love here, OK? 5 bonus points.
TOTAL SCORE: 87 consummate points total for this true gem of a tale. Thanks to Collin and Chris for their yeoman's work and this special gift of a podcast. The only problem we envision is coming up with subsequent efforts equal to the standard that HoG will always be. Thanks Dudes, and party on.......
You can find out more about HoG, and it's creators at: http://houseofgreybook.com/. As an added bonus, Collin has a lively and dynamic forum you can find there to which he welcome one and all.
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