Sword of the Legion + Prisoner of Darkness

Once again, I smashed through the latest additions to this series so quickly that I didn’t really stop to make notes. Annoying for when it comes time to write the review, but it speaks volumes to the novels’ pacing. At no point was I bored or really interested in doing anything more than squeezing in a few more minutes of listening. And that’s saying something about the series’s quality, seeing as this one has actually scored the lowest of the three main parts so far. However, that does mean that this review will be brief, seeing as within a day of finishing Part 3, I am already 50% through Part 4. That’s how much I love this series.

I knocked through these two books so quickly that the stories have actually merged within my mind, them taking place immediately following one another unlike the books of the previous two parts. The first book of this pair follows a reunited Victory Square and Wraith as they carry out the mission that was illuded to previously to destroy the Tarrago shipyards. We get a good balance of action and progression of the overarching narrative, with the true threat to the galaxy finally making itself known (at least to us listeners). Book 5 is good, don’t get me wrong, but it seems more filler than the jaw-droppingly great narratives that we have been graced with previously.

When I started Book 6, part of me gave a slight eye-role, thinking that it was just going to end up being a prison-break novel and not the usual action-packed galaxy jumping blaster-fest that I have come to know and love. However, while it does involve a jail break, there is also a lot more here, with what I think may be the best character development I’ve yet seen in the series. The constant struggle within Wraith for the life he left conflicting with the (initially) fabricated life he had to don in order to go deep cover is written brilliantly. It’s different, not like the constant internal dichotomies that I’ve seen similar narratives do. It’s less of a ‘which of these two people am I’ and more of ‘I am both of these people but not sure that I really want to or even care enough to truly be both’. It’s a brilliant take on something that I thought would end up being fairly procedural. One thing that this book did do was make me almost physically shake with the level of unfairness that certain characters are forced to endure at times. I know this is my weak-spot with regards to narrative devices, but it still always hits me hard, and this one I found particularly excruciating to my personal sensibilities.

As I said, short review because I didn’t stop listening long enough to make any real notes. I enjoyed Prisoners of Darkness more so than I did Sword of the Legion, but they were both still fantastic stories within an expanding and engrossing universe that is swiftly climbing my all-time favourites list. And one thing that I do have to say is that Wraith is one of the best written characters I’ve come across for my own personal preferences. Whenever you listen to a book and think to yourself ‘god, I wish that character would just do a thing this way as it would just be so satisfying, to hell with the consequences’, that is exactly what Wraith does, without fail. He is a deadly, witty, dark humoured rouge with a deep-down heart of gold. A scoundrel extraordinaire. And I love him for it.

As for narration, once again R.C. Bray knocks it completely out of the park. I’ve actually been listening to another sci-fi audiobook on and off at the same time as this one (which I haven’t written a review for), and the comparison of that other series’s ‘ok’ narration really drove home how talented Bray is. He has now fully solidified himself as my favourite sci-fi narrator. A hundred different voices, each with their own personalities. Truly a master of the craft.   

Personal Score: 4.25 stars

Professional Score: 4.0 stars

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