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  • The Ember Blade

  • The Darkwater Legacy, Book 1
  • By: Chris Wooding
  • Narrated by: Simon Bubb
  • Length: 30 hrs and 40 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (352 ratings)
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The Ember Blade cover art

The Ember Blade

By: Chris Wooding
Narrated by: Simon Bubb
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Summary

A land under occupation. A legendary sword. A young man's journey to find his destiny.

Aren has lived by the rules all his life. He's never questioned it; that's just the way things are. But then his father is executed for treason, and he and his best friend, Cade, are thrown into a prison mine, doomed to work until they drop. Unless they can somehow break free....

But what lies beyond the prison walls is more terrifying still. Rescued by a man who hates him yet is oath-bound to protect him, pursued by inhuman forces, Aren slowly accepts that everything he knew about his world was a lie. The rules are not there to protect him or his people but to enslave them. A revolution is brewing, and Aren is being drawn into it, whether he likes it or not.

The key to the revolution is the Ember Blade. The sword of kings, the Excalibur of his people. Only with the Ember Blade in hand can their people be inspired to rise up...but it's locked in an impenetrable vault in the most heavily guarded fortress in the land.

All they have to do now is steal it....

©2018 Chris Wooding (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group

Critic reviews

"The Ember Blade is hands down the best fantasy novel I've ever read." (Grimdark Magazine)

What listeners say about The Ember Blade

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not great..

I don't know what rating to give this. I think I'm going to cry. I'm 20 hours in and STILL nothing worthwhile has happened. Sure there was a little action interspersed with stupidity and drama, but nothing meaningful or unique. And until they escaped you know where, I felt like the victim of a prank. What's the point of fantasy if you're not going to explore new ideas?

I have a sinking feeling that this book is just some exposition to a "grander story". It's taking me longer to finish it than it normally would because it's all pretty boring. Doing nothing and staring into empty space is more interesting, so I found myself pausing the audiobook without a reason and without thinking.

I'm wasting time writing a review I'm going to replace because useless work feels more rewarding than listening to this.

I'll give it credit where it's due. The world building is pretty extensive from a historical and mythological perspective. Everything else is just normal with a tiny bit of the occasional magic.

Three of the main characters are interesting enough, so there are people to care about. The two MAIN protagonists are the means that complicates the plot because they do stupid things one after another.

In a way, the story was well thought out, I think, but it's light in substance and heavy on sentimental detail.

It boggles my mind that the other reviews are so positive. It's nowhere near as entertaining as almost anything else I've read and there's no message because there isn't an ounce of originality. It's just a detailed story about heroism and rebellion and a vague end-of-the-world prophecy that nobody seems to care about.

The story is like a constant tease. It has so much potential that at any point a better writer could turn it into something great. The setting is ready for something meaningful to happen, but it just stretches and stretches and stretches. And there are so many POVs about mundane internal struggles that it's slowing everything down even more. Entire character arcs could have happened in the background. How much did I really need to know about that wife and her sick child? A few chapters? Am I going to start caring about that supporting character just because I know his struggles? Everyone has their struggles, I get it.

Audiobooks I liked less: The Stone Man, 1984, Dune, Mythos, The Iliad. Out of about 80.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic

Can’t wait for the next Book. Love the story and the voice. I think Grubb is wonderful.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Loved this book!

I have to be honest the first 4 hours of this book were a little bit of a struggle for me but my goodness the remainder of this book did not disappoint, I couldn’t stop listening. Everything I look for in epic fantasy. Adventure, twists, revenge and even heart ache. I cannot wait for book 2!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

My favourite audio book of the year so far

This was a fantastic listen, I loved the characters Grub being my favourite. Great world building and looking forward to the next instalment. The narrator was brilliant!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good fun

I enjoyed this fantasy. It is good-humoured and very visual (I can really see some of the adventures clearly in my mind's eye). Although the characters are a bit cliched they are rounded enough to care about and Simon Bubb's narrating certainly helped to make them seem more three dimensional. The story is exciting and well-paced with some good set pieces. The character of Aren did develop and mature through the book, although his friend Kale is a bit of a Sam Gamgee. I wonder if I've made this book sound dumb? It was certainly enjoyable for me and I will be listening to the next one.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

I love his books but this....

I don't know where to start.

I love the Ketty Jay series. It's in my top five favourite series.

If you were hoping for a similarly good series in this book I'm afraid to say you may be better spending time elsewhere.

it may have been the narrator with over characterised accents etc but I think it's deeper than that.

For a book this long it has no sense of detail or any real substance to the world Wooding is trying to build. It perks up towards the end, but one and two are horribly slow and leaves the characters you like least and moves away from the interesting ones.

If you like hearing people's inner monologues you'll love this book however. As the perspective changes haphazardly from character to character in uneven bouts we get to hear every uninteresting thought that passes through their head, every worry, contradiction etc etc. Most times I feel like paragraphs could have ended sentences ago and the story would have been much more involving for the reader. It's nice to have a little mystery in characters. All of these are splayed out like Christ on a cross.

Another note to make, and I'm not being over the top because I fully understand stories have overlapping themes, conventions and plot tools, but this book is like a Frankenstein of all the best major epics. LOTRs clearly is one of the main contributing factors amongst others too numarable to mention. Whether this is intentional homage or just inspiration working it's way in, you notice it a lot in what are the most climatic parts of the book.

I will read the next one, maybe Wooding needs more time to get into it. But this is no where near as creative, fun or engaging as Retribution Falls.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Quick 30 Hours!

I really enjoyed this book. Some long stories can drag, but this was a real page turner. The characters were believable and narration superb. Surely there must be another to follow - the scene is set. It was sad to reach the end.
Highly recommended.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Really Disappointing!

I listened and read Chris Wooding's Tales of the ketty Jay series and loved them. Found this book and thought "YES."
How wrong I was. The story is so boring, the characters have no charisma and some of the humour is cringe. I had a real problem with the Narrator as well - It really annoyes me when a narrator keeps their own voice for the main character. It makes it difficult to distinguish a difference from narration to dialogue. Although the dialogue is 'Captain obvious!' I got to Chapter 77 and gave up. I thought "just see it through, I need to find out the ending at least." Then I realised that I don't care about this book nor the ending. I can't believe that this is the same author who wrote the Ketty Jay series. Will definitely be returning this one Audible! I want my Credit back.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Gave up 10.5hrs in

The narrator has a distracting stilted rhythm but improves a few hours in. However 10.5hrs (a mere half way) in to this long winded tale where not much had happened, I felt uninvested and unexcited by the characters or plot and decided to call it a day.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Amazing in places

A really good tale with a great variety of characters, but most of the characters lack depth, and up all being very similar, and there are places where they are used for narrative rather than true to themselves.

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