Plague of Shadows

By: Howard Andrew Jones

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

A fantastic new adventure of swords and sorcery, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game! The race is on to free Lord Stelan from the grip of a wasting curse, and only his old, half-elf mercenary companion Elyana has the wisdom - and swordcraft - to solve the mystery of his tormentor and free her old friend before three days have passed and the illness takes its course. When the villain turns out to be another of their former companions, the half elf sets out with a team of adventurers across the revolution-wracked nation of Galt and the treacherous Five Kings Mountains to discover the key to Stelan's salvation in a lost valley warped by weird magical energies and inhabited by terrible nightmare beasts.

©2011 Paizo Publishing, LLC (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

very enjoyable

good range of voices, and keep them spot on throught the book. At the beginning there is a small room echo effect that goes away later. A captivating story with a perfect amount of details to make you ever present in the always shifting shadows.

Immersiveand surprising

A story well written within the setting, believable not one-dimensionable characters, .. a worthwhile read!

Good -- rough recording IMO

Of the pathfinder tales I've listened to, this recording was really rough. I liked the story enough but wasn't my favorite PF tale.

A fun adventure

This story has a little bit of everything; love, betrayal, a quest, and dragons. Though a little slow to start the story picks up pace and immerses you in the adventure. Definitely worth the listen.

Captivating!

Solid captivating story with a few twists and turns. I hope we get more Pathfinder stories from Howard. The Narration performance is probably the best I heard in any Audio book. Ms. Pearlman performance is outstanding!

Each character was unique and thriving with perhaps one exception of the blunt half-orc warrior.

tinny narration

good book and story for Pathfinders, but the narrator is tinny and sounds like she's in a closet

Plague of Awesome

This stunning book is an awesome example of the Galorian setting. Who would have thought that an old adventuring group still had sho much to give. awesome story.

Howard Jones. Sword and Sorcery Pioneer!

I love this book, but quite frankly this was a very difficult listen for me. I loved the book and enjoyed the complex relationships, story, world (Pathfinder's world of Golarion is the best RPG world in existence and was decently realized here).
The reason I struggle, and I mean this not to be rude but there were a few issues I had with the narration. It sounds like it was recorded in a bubble, with a weird wooden reverberation after every word. I also hear a slight marble mouth every now and then, if that even makes sense. However, she keeps a good pace and does a good variety of pleasing voices. Honestly if the sound quality were better I would have been happier with it.

Storywise, all I can think about are some other reviews I've read that either cautioned or convinced me in reading this Pathfinder Tale. Firstly, some say the story wasn't game-ified enough, as in it doesn't make sense in the game world. I absolutely despise this take. Despise it. There is plenty here to be convincing and similar enough that it could easily take place in Golarion, even if this or that spell may not have happened exactly that way. It's fantasy for heaven's sake. And more importantly, we used to play Rpgs because we were so madly inspired by fantasy we read that we wanted to be there ourselves, and transplant our identities into social storytelling through D&D and the like. I don't read books to see if it matches every rule of a game. That is so backwards to me. Go read LitRPGs if you want numbers and rules to be front and center.

Anyway, Howard Andrew Jones is a longtime master of Heroic Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery. He squeezed his own immense talents down into this storytelling sphere of Pathfinder Tales to give us a fun ride of a time with an Elf, a Half Orc and some spellcasters. Overall lots of fun, way more nuanced than we deserve for genre fiction, twists, turns, action, and ups and downs of potential romances.

I recommend reading this digitally or physically rather than audio but if you're pressed for time it makes do. But take a look at Howard's other work as well. He has great stuff out there, including other Pathfinder Tales!

good complex characters

while the main character feels wooden at first its nice to see her develop as the story goes on.

Praise Abadar!

I’ve enjoyed the Pathfinder Tales books. If you want to know more about how Galt interacts with rural Taldor, this is an excellent story.