SHADOW PUPPETS tracks the fortunes of a handful of Card’s characters as they navigate the sociopolitical landscape after the Formic Wars. David Birney’s voice sounds purposely fatigued, beautifully conveying world leader Peter Wiggin’s frustrated resignation, and Stefan Rudnicki’s clipped, low baritone is perfect for the cloak-and-dagger email correspondence that bookends the chapters. Gabrielle de Cuir expertly handles both accents and emotion, although her voice is wistful to the point of melancholy and occasionally seems inappropriate to Petra’s fiery character. Of the four narrators, Scott Brick soars above the rest. He tackles the Bean chapters with the youthful cynicism and passion that Bean embodies in this book, capturing the character’s voice with wonderful precision. These four narrators come together to create a wholly satisfying and engrossing listening experience.
Pub Date: July 24, 2007
Duration: 11 hrs
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Eric Flint's series has been running for 12 years, and this is the book that started it all. A small mining town in West Virginia is teleported through time and space to Germany during the Thirty Years War, and its inhabitants must learn to survive in this brutal age. Narrator George Guidall brings a quiet gravitas to the often gory proceedings. He uses regional accents lightly, preferring to portray the characters through cadence and the solid pronunciation of difficult Germanic words and phrases. His best moments come in the many scenes of dialogue when the characters banter and shout. Guidall never lets the dialogue get ahead of him, reading deliberately to keep even the most emotional scenes on an even keel.
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2012
Duration: 19 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781464018282
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Dick Hill is a talented narrator, beloved for his renditions of the classics and action novels by Lee Child and Michael Connelly. Hill has gravitas; the man knows how to impregnate a pause. Movies by Albert Brooks, such as LOST IN AMERICA and DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, show actors—himself prominent among them—in circumstances so humiliating that they’re hilarious. Having chosen a futuristic setting for his first-ever novel, Brooks has upped the ante. The future is where many of us—all those unsaved—expect the worst. The combination of Hill’s deep voice and Brooks’s dark comic vision pushes hard at the line between what’s funny and what’s only sad. But hang on, because there’s a happy ending, or happyish.
Pub Date: May 30, 2011
Duration: 14 hrs, 30 mins
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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