The Night Parade of 100 Demons

Legend of the Five Rings

By: Marie Brennan

Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab

A thrilling epic fantasy adventure in the astonishing realm of Legend of the Five Rings, as two rival clans join forces to investigate a lethal supernatural mystery.

Chaos has broken out in the isolated Dragon Clan settlement of Seibo Mura. During the full moon, horrifying creatures rampage through the village, unleashing havoc and death. When the Dragon samurai Agasha no Isao Ryotora is sent to investigate, he faces even greater danger than expected. To save the village, he must confront his buried past - not to mention an unexpected Phoenix Clan visitor, Asako Sekken, who has his own secrets to hide. The quest to save Sebo Mura will take the two samurai into the depths of forgotten history and the shifting terrain of the Spirit Realms...and bring them face-to-face with an ancient, terrifying evil.

©2021 Fantasy Flight Games (P)2022 Tantor

Great story

This is a great story. It has a few twists which were well done. Characters all had depth. Well done!!

great l5r, great story

more than just a great example of the potential of the l5r setting this was also a great story, I look forward to reading the follow up

Brilliant Story, Weak Presentation

I loved reading this book, and looked forward to the Audiobook to support the series.

However, the voice actor is so emotionless and sterile that it is next to impossible to get in the story. Kudos to them on excellent pronunciations on difficult names and fantasy words, but to be so detached from such a deep and compelling world makes the disconnect that much more stark.

Solid L5R story

"That is the meaning of duty: to do what you can, and what you must, even if it is not enough."

A remote Dragon-clan village is suffering under the depredations of many, and many sorts of, Yokai, and a Dragon Shugenja is sent to solve the problem. At the same time, a Crane scholar is drawn to the village as well, by mysterious means. To save the village, they must work together to halt the attacks.

The characters noted above are functionally co-equal protagonists, and the story alternates between their points of view. The characters are individual enough to make it relatively easy to determine which PoV is current in the narrative. Both characters have depth and both characters grow in the course of the plot.

The book does a good job of presenting the unique society of the L5R universe, and of feeling magical without the magic outshining the characters.

This relatively short volume does a good job of building characters and character relationships and also presenting a solid plot without feeling too rushed. Recommended.

Narrator painful to listen to.

Marie Brennan is one of my favorite authors and I was excited to read this book. The actual story was excellent, but I could not enjoy the narration. The reader did not give any life to the story, being sterile and emotionless. I struggled to differentiate the voices of the characters and had to rewind several times because I wasn’t sure which character was speaking/acting. A number og Japanese words were also mispronounced. I would love to hear this narrated by Brian Nishii. Overall I would recommend buying the physical book over the audio book.