Barryar - Lois McMaster Bujold (Audiobook)

Blackstone Audio, 2009, 11.7 hours

Original copyright 1991 

Read by Grover Gardner

Listened to: September 2025, age 47

 

Vorkosigan Saga, book 3 

 

I didn't realize that it had won a Hugo.  It was a good book, but I didn't think that it was that good.  

 

Rating: 4- 

More Than a Little Warped - Annette Marie & Rob Jacobsen (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2023, 2.6 hours

Read by Iggy Toma

Listened to: August 2025, age 47

 

The Guild Codex: Warped book 3.5 

 

I liked this one better than the last Demonized book, but it was similar - I already knew how it all worked out, so there wasn't the suspense that there could have been.  I still think that a super-group trilogy would have worked better.

 

Rating: 4
 

Delivering Evil for Experts - Annette Marie

Tantor Audio, 2021,  9.6 hours

Read by: Cris Dukehart and Teddy Hamilton

Listened to: September 2025, age 47 

 

The Guild Codex: Demonized book 4 

 

This was a real let-down after the fantastic end to the Spellbound thread.  Most of the book was playing catch-up, showing the same events of  Damned Souls and a Sangria through different eyes.  From here, it seems like Damned Souls, Delivering Evil, and the next Kit Morris book should have been wrapped together in an 'Avengers'-style trilogy, interweaving all three threads within one narrative.  Basically by here, none of it would make that much sense without the other threads anyway - might as well lean into it.  It would have smoothed out some of the redundancy as well.

 

I was happy when this book was over - enough flogging the horse, it died last book.  Not that this one was bad, but the structure made it anticlimactic.

 

Rating: 3 

Damned Souls and a Sangria - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 8.6 hours

Read by Cris Dukehart

Listened to: August 2025, age 47 

 

The Guild Codex: Spellbound book 8 

 

Well, here's the big payoff for the series so far.  It was worth it.  Another great book, and now I'm sad, because we're done with Tori and her mages.

 

This series, especially the Spellbound thread, was fantastic.  It stayed strong all the way through to the end. 

 

Rating: 5 

Space Team - Barry Hutchinson

Zertex Audio, 2025, 7.9 hours

Read by Phil Tron

Listened to: August 2025, age 47

 

Space Team book 1

 

Humour is hard.  I'm sure there are people who resonate with this style of farce, but I just found it too much.  The characters - all of them - were just so incredibly stupid through the whole book, and I didn't find that funny.  As a result, I didn't much like the book. 

 

Rating: 3- 

Lost Talismans and a Tequila - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 7.9 hours

Read by Cris Dukehart

Listened to: July 2025, age 47

 

Guild Codex: Spellbound book 7 

 

More of the same, which is fantastic.  Great series. 

 

Rating: 5
 

Shards of Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold (Audiobook)

Blackstone Audio, 2009, 8.6 hours

Original copyright 1986

Read by Grover Gardner 

Listened to: July 2025, age 47 

 

Miles Vorkosigan, book 2 

 

Or, how Miles' parents met.  Solid space opera & love story.  

 

Rating: 3+ 

Rogue Ghosts and Other Miscreants - Annette Marie & Rob Jacobsen

Tantor Audio, 2021, 7.8 hours

Read by Iggy Toma 

Listened to: July 2025, age 45 

 

Guild Codex: Warped book 3 

 

This series is fantastic.  This, though, was a bit annoying - Our hero was very stuck on rescuing a kid, and it got tiresome hearing about it.  Still fun, but not as great as the rest.

 

Rating: 4
 

Druid Vices and a Vodka - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 9.3 hours 

Read by: Cris Dukehart

Listened to: June 2025, age 47 

 

The Guild Codex: Spellbound, book 6 

 

I really like this series, especially the Tori books.  This one's no exception.

 

Rating: 5 

Storm Cursed - Patricia Briggs (Audiobook)

Penguin Audio, 2019, 10.3 hours

Read by: Lorelei King

Listened to: June 2025

 

Mercedes Thompson, book 11 

 

A pretty decent entry in the series, but it's starting to feel like maybe the series is getting a little long in the tooth.  This time, witches try to take over the pack's territory, and there's a big to-do about that.  More of what makes the series good, but also a bit repetitious.   

Rating: 4- 

Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 8.5 hours 

Read by: Cris Dukeheart

Listened to: June 2025, age 47

 

Guild Codex - Demonized, book 3 

 

Lots of fun, and the slow-burn romance is starting to pay off.  There hasn't really been a miss in this series yet.

 

Rating: 4 

Villain's Vignettes - Drew Hayes (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2023, 9.5 hours

Read by : Amy Landon

Listened to:  May 2025, age 47 

 

Villain's Code, book 2.5 

 

Unnecessary, and not my favourite kind of stories.  This was a collection of novellas and short stories, and there really wasn't much meat to them, especially since things basically needed to end right where they started in order to not mess up book 3.  

 

Not as good as I'd hoped.  

 

Rating: 3- 

Silence Fallen - Patricia Briggs (Audiobook)

Penguin Audio, 2017, 11.2 hours

Read by: Lorelei King & George Newbern 

Listened to:  May 2025, age 47

 

Mercy Thompson, book 10 

 

I liked this one a bit better than the last time that I read it.  My complaints of it being a reason to justify a trip to Prague as a work expense still stand, but the story was all right.

 

Rating: 4 

Ice Planet Barbarians - Ruby Dixon (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2017, 5.9 hours

Original copyright 2015

Read by: Hollie Jackson & Mason Lloyd

Listened to: May 2025, age 47

 

Ice Planet Barbarians book 1

 

Kinda funny, simple but reasonably fun plot, graphic descriptions of plated penises, and plenty of conventional sci-fi plot holes to allow for things like breathing, eating, and inter-species relations on a different planet.  Don't expect hard sci-fi.  It was touted as erotica, but really, it was about the level of a Harlequin romance, with aliens. The initial raping-to- establish-that-some-aliens-are-bad was unnecessary. Overall, though?  Better than it had any right to be.

 

Rating: 3+

Fire Touched - Patricia Briggs (Audiobook)

Brilliance Audio, 2016, 10.1 hours

Read by: Lorelei King 

Listened to: May 2025, age 47

 

Mercy Thompson, book 9 

Good, but this series is starting to feel like it's running in place a little bit.  

Rating: 4-

The Alchemist and an Amaretto - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 6.9 hours

Original copyright 2019

Read by: Chris Dukehart

Listened to: April 2025, age 47

 

The Guild Codex: Spellbound, book 5

 

The whole overarching series is good, but I *really* like the initial / main story.  Tory is a fun viewpoint for the insanity.  The characters don't necessarily change too much, but we get to learn a lot about why they are who they are along the way.  This instalment was a strong action/mystery story, but with some significant repercussions that look like they're going to start tying the other series in pretty quickly.

 

Rating: 5

Paladin's Grace - T. Kingfisher (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2021, 12.5 hours

Original copyright 2020

Read by: Joel Richards

Listened to: April 2025, age 47

 

 Saint of Steel, book 1

 

I did not expect a straight-up romance hidden in fantasy trappings.  It was a good romance, funny, with complicated mature characters, a fun supporting cast, and just enough mystery to keep things moving, but... straight romance.  With poor communication and mistaken assumptions as main driving forces. Not a genre that I've read much in the past 20 years, and I probably won't go back too often, but it was a nice change.

 

Rating: 4

Hellbound Guilds and Other Misdirections - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2021, 8.2 hours

Read by: Iggy Toma

Listened to: March 2025, age 46

 

Guild Codex: Warped, book 2 

Lots of fun.  This was another police procedural / duck out of water type story, and it went very well.  I haven't found any bad books in this series or the larger megaverse.

 

Rating: 4+

Bones of the Past - Drew Hayes (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2021, 35.8 hours

Read by: Amy Landon 

Listened to: February-March, 2025

 

Villain's Code, book 2

 

Really a lot of fun, and, compared to the first book, more of the story that I wanted to hear, not skipping over as much of the interesting behind-the-scenes small stories for the big set pieces.  The audiobook reader has settled in, and is better than in the first book as well.

 

Rating: 4+

NPCs - Drew Hayes (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2014, 7.8 hours

Read by: Roger Wayne

Listened to: January 2025, age 46

 

Spells, Swords, & Stealth, book 1 

A fun story that got derailed by a weak narrator.  His voices were generally good, but the 'narrator' voice was really bad, hesitant, pausing at inopportune times, and felt like he was struggling to read at times.  There were other times when the voices were contradicted by the text - "'lines in a quiet rasp', he bellowed" - things like that.

 

Rating: 3