The Ghost Rebellion

Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, Book 5

By: Pip Ballantine, Tee Morris

Narrated by: Tee Morris, Pip Ballantine

From authors Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris, the award-winning steampunk series continues.

The chase is on! After rescuing Queen Victoria from the clutches of the Maestro, Agents Eliza D. Braun and Wellington Books are in hot pursuit of Dr. Henry Jekyll. While he continues his experiments on the aristocracy of Europe, he leaves a trail of chaos and despair in his wake. However, when Eliza and Wellington run him to ground in India, they are forced to come face to face with ghosts from the past, and the realities of empire.

Meanwhile, Ministry agents Brandon Hill and Bruce Campbell travel deep into Russia hunting down a rare ingredient to save Queen Victoria's life. Amid the cold they uncover a threat from the revitalized House of Usher that comes directly from their new Chairman.

All in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences will find their allegiances in question, and their mettle tested as a new dastardly era of international intrigue dawns.

©2016 Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris (P)2016 Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris

A Great Story, But - Narrator Changed!

I downloaded this book as I absolutely love this series. However, to my surprise, no James Langton as the narrator! Instead, we have Tee and Pip and yeah, I get it, if I wrote something I know I would want to take a crack and being a voice actor / narrator... But, I would do it in the start of a series, not at book 5...etc.

Can I pay more or help fund getting James Langton back?

What happened to the narrator?

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Probably not

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The interludes were distracting and I would rather that it had focused on the main characters.

What didn’t you like about Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine ’s performance?

It was nothing like the previous books. I thought that Books sounded more American than British and Eliza wasn't much better. That steampunk feel was simply gone. Overall it was just really bad narrating like they were brand new at it (maybe they were) and were working hard to stay in character.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. The narrator(s) were so distracting because they didn't sound the way the characters should that I simply stopped listening because I wasn't paying attention to the story. I thought this was a shame because I've loved all the Ministry of Peculiar Instances books.

Story OK, Terrible Narration

In every series there are books that are not as good as others and that's ok. This book seems to be setting us up for the next part of the story and as long as that happens I am fine with it.

What I am not fine with is the horrible narration. Authors should not narrate their own books. This was a perfect example as to why. The voices were all wrong, the accents atrocious, the switching between the authors from chapter to chapter made the book hard to follow, and they just simply were not good at it. There are professional readers for a reason. I certainly hope this duo goes back to hiring one for their future books because I really like this series and want to continue to listen to it. I just don't think I can if the authors continue to narrate.... Hope they read their reviews!

Great story, narration less so

I wish the authors had been consistent: one of them does Eliza's voice, one Welly's, etc.

Author shouldn’t narrate

Pip Ballantine co-authors beautifully.... however he should have stopped there. His narration / performance detracted from what was a good story.
I was very disappointed that what should have been a continuation of a great story line was damaged by such a amateurish performance.

Not up to expectations.

The storyline not as good as previous books, the narrating was not good at all.

Love the books, but...

I love this book series. Love the characters. I really enjoyed the narrator in the first four books. While I like the authors as writers, I did not enjoy them as narrators.

Series seems in danger of devolving

Any additional comments?

While I have greatly enjoyed this series to date (including this volume), there do seem to be some troubling changes in the fifth installment. The change in narrators was unfortunate and the speakers now seem to be hurried, rushing, and the accents are not as good as previously. While the adventure and steampunk science fiction elements are well done, motivated character development seems to be lacking and expected psychological reactions to events are elided. Moreover, the tendency towards devoting space to trite romantic encounters and teetering on the brink of falling from one of the better "hard science fiction" steampunk series into juvenile fantasy seem more pronounced than before.

That being said, this is still a first rate genre novel and well worth the listen.

New narrator :(

Actually two new narrators. The characters didn't feel like the same ones from the previous books. It made it harder to follow the story. I don't care for either of these readers. At least not for this series.

Changing readers in the middle of a series = BAD!

I've experienced reader changes in the middle of a series before and it is never a good thing. The characters have their own voices and idiosyncrasies, all of which are lost with a new reader. It's rather astonishing, however, that one of the authors bungles it so very badly!! Tee Morris doesn't even know how to pronounce some of the words in the book (epitome, for instance). He tries, most unsuccessfully, to imitate a British accent and it comes out sounding ridiculous and inconsistent. I am now at the part where part of the story takes place in Russia and the pronunciation gets even worse, if that could be possible. He tries to use a Russian word for a toast (with vodka) and, instead of the actual word nazdarovya (to your health), he says something like "nastrovia" and the Australian guy's version is even worse! This remains a good story but it is extremely hard to listen to this reader. At least Pip Ballantine does a passable job at conveying the characters but the voices are lost that we knew in the first 4 books. I'm also glad to see that only she will be the narrator for the next book. Please bring back James Langton and re-record these books!!