Baldur's Gate

By: Philip Athans

Narrated by: Fleet Cooper

Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Bhaal must be stopped! Someone is sabotaging the iron mines of the Sword Coast, pushing powerful realms toward a bloody war, and a young mercenary toward an unimaginable secret. Evil gods, giant spiders, murderous doppelgangers, flesh-eating ghouls, and wicked Zhentarim come to life in the action-packed novelization of the Baldur's Gate computer game form BioWare and Interplay.

©1999 TSR, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

It was ok

It was hard for me to follow at times. it was partially because of the lack of transitions when talking about Abdel then to Cerovac.

I loved this book!!

Would you consider the audio edition of Baldur's Gate to be better than the print version?

Can't tell, i haven't checked the written version.

What did you like best about this story?

I loved the way it moves through the video game campaigns, and how it narrates the battles.
In addition, I really enjoyed Abdel's personality.

Which scene was your favorite?

It might be a spoiler, so spoiler alert here.
I loved that scene when Jaheira asks Abdel if knows who killed Khalid.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Into the Maw of Madness

Any additional comments?

The narrator is awesome! He probably makes all the difference, he gets really involved, in character, and makes the story so much fun.

great story, but....

This is a sufficient summary of the events of the first game and is overall well written. The only issue I take is with the reductive view of Jaheira who becomes more of a damsel as the book goes on. Hoping the next two titles remedy this.

Just play the game, the book is too goofy.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The main character is simple and boring, easily forgettable. His dialogue and actions remind you it's a guy playing a video game,impish and far too casual. The story was great in the game, but this re-telling fails.

Great Performance - Mid Story

The story was interesting, especially in the beginning. However towards the end it started to feel rushed, with characters starting to simply fall in the standard tropes while losing their nuance.

The performance however was great, and the narrator’s effort helped make the less interesting parts more interesting than they would have been otherwise. Five star performance, three star story

Brilliant storytelling

The game is what drew me to the book and I have to say it was pretty dang good. Worth a credit for sure!

Not as good as I remembered

This was my very first novel I ever purchased and read on my own without being told to read for school, I instantly fell in love with the story as a teen and have been hooked on the forgotten realms ever since. The story was dark and brutal in a very interesting way and unlike anything I had experience before. So just recently joining audible I felt it only right to return to my roots and this was the first audio book I've ever purchased and listened to and although it's not as I disliked the story I feel a lot of the plot and the writing has holes when compared to the novels I've read of late the characters are rather bland and it's really hard to care for any of them but when all was said and done I still did enjoy the overall story of the children of bhaal so for those who no not his name this series will introduce you into a whole other world of evil.

A different take on a great game

I really enjoyed the different take that was presented on a very well made game. It may not have had some key NPCs, like Imoen, but not following the game play by play made the adventure all the more fresh for me even though I knew what was going to happen in the main plot. I don't have any real gripes about the whole trilogy after listening to them all back-to-back.

Pretty good

I liked the story overall. The characters were likable enough. Seemed a bit rushed towards the end, however.

I may check out the next books but no time soon. Give it a go, you may like it.

Some weird choices in a damn good adaptation!

A few things stood out as odd choices, the lack of canon magic users in the party, and having so just about every last party member killed in the journey to make way for a love story wasn’t great. But it did otherwise feel like a nice fun D&D adventure.