Shadowless

By: Randall McNally

Narrated by: David Sweeney-Bear

Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

What if the gods themselves wanted you dead?

A young boy lies on a beach on a warm summer's day. While trying to block the sun from his eyes Arpherius makes a shocking discovery; he has no shadow. Confused and bewildered he asks his uncle why he is shadowless. What he learns is a terrifying secret that will change his life forever.

Set in the Northern Realms, Shadowless is a fantasy novel about individuals born without a shadow. Spawned by the malevolent deities of this world these children of the gods are persecuted at every turn. Hunted by the high priests who carry out the wishes of their gods, hunted by the Shadow Watchers; armed soldiers who are assigned to each temple, and hunted by the gods themselves.

Part-mortal and part-god, the Shadowless live for centuries and face a battle for survival, constantly on the run or hiding in far-flung corners of the Northern Realms.

Soon their lives and fates become intertwined, expedited by the mysterious monk Amrodan. Driven by a series of visions Amrodan travels through the Northern Realms, seeking out the Shadowless and trying to enlist their help to take a stand and fight back against the gods.

©2017 Paul Burns (P)2022 Paul Burns

Excellent book, great performance

I have listened to hundreds of books so its getting hard to find a good new book, I took a chance and was pleasantly surprised to stumble into this. The world and the magic are unique and the story is told as a vignette of points of view of the main characters over a long period of time. The righting style is a mix of Joe Abercrombie, Angus Watson, RS Ford, and Richard Nell. Subject: The gods (men with super human traits) descend occasionally fathering children with mortals, the children have no shadow hence the title. Narration: Narrator is excellent, except there is some (needless) music between chapters, and few rare sound effects, of which I am not a fan, otherwise not to distracting.

Highly absorbing

The narrator made the characters come alive in an excellent way, especially with there being so many different and varied characters and settings used in the story. I found the voice changes used by the narrator to portray different characters brilliantly well done and it was essential to be able to do so in order for the listener to be able to follow the story properly. I also found the sound effects very good and for me they enhanced the telling of the story a great deal and added to the imagination of a scene. I was rivetted to listening to the audiobook all the way through as it gripped me from the very start.
I thought the writer used so many seemingly unrelated little episodes in telling the overall story that I would have to listen to it all again to connect the whole thing up fully and there were some parts which didn't seem to quite tie up right at the end.

Didn't finish

I got through a few chapters, and it seems to be a collection of 20 stories in the same world. I might have missed something, but I have never read anything so disconnected before. The chapters are very systemic and of equal length (~1 hour). Each chapter involves a new name in the title - so that alone, is ~20 characters you would follow. It might make sense in the end, but I didn't want to waste any more time,

Even if the book might appeal to some, then the audio production is beyond annoying with sounds effects etc.