Call of the Herald
Brian Rathbone adds to our Fantasy selection. He’s providing all of the episodes — yes, as in COMPLETE — of the serialized audiobook version of his novel, Call of the Herald:
Echoes of the ancients’ power are distant memories, tattered and faded by the passage of eons, but that is about to change. A new dawn has arrived. Latent abilities, harbored in mankind’s deepest fibers, wait to be unleashed. Ancient evils awaken, and old fears ignite the fires of war. In times such as these, ordinary people have the power to save the world . . . or destroy it.
Call of the Herald is Book One of The Dawning of Power trilogy. A World of Godsland Novel.
All 20 episodes are currently in the default feed. So mainline to your heart’s content. Or you prefer to spread your listening out and having episodes fit in with the other podcasts you are probably subscribed to, you’ll want a custom feed. Either way, this serialized audiobook is available to you for free.
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May 20th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
wow… all at once… I’ve already listened to the first couple. Nice delivery… looking forward to the rest of it.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Thanks Synaptic Jam! I appreciate the feedback, and I’m glad you are enjoying it. I didn’t want anyone to have to wait for new episodes, so I figured all-at-once would be the way to go. Now I need to get back to work on recording Inherited Danger, so I won’t keep you waiting for book two. Thanks again and have a great day.
May 24th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Great story, great narration – I really loved this podiobook and am very much looking forward to the next one. Thank you Brian!
May 25th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Hi Alex,
Thanks so much for the feedback. I really appreciate it.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:22 pm
My review of Call of the Herald can be found here:
http://freshly-ground.blogspot.com/2009/06/podcast-novel-review-call-of-herald-by.html
“Rathbone builds a haunting, immersive land of fog and mystery, meticulously building towards the unraveling of that world as the chapters unfold. He writes with care and attention to the finer details of Godsland, his fantasy world, and the characters that inhabit it. Listening to this audiobook, I was hungry for a bit more pace, but when Rathbone does bring on the action, he does so with the same refined skill and grace with which he has constructed his world. Without the methodical buildup, the climactic sequences would have seemed hollow. This is the fine art of world-building at its best.”
Follow the link to read the whole review.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Hi Brian, I enjoyed Call of the Herald and am looking forward to book 2. Thanks for dropping all the eps. at once. I may not have found the story as engaging, if it were released over a few months. Your story and your world is very well structured and delivered beautifully. I was easily emmersed in Godsland. My only constructive comment is that I thought that the personalities of Catrin and the boys did not come thru to me as strongly as the history and the location. Maybe because most of the story is conveyed in narration, with little actual dialog. In any case, I did enjoy the story very much and would easily recommend it. Thanks for presenting your work in this format.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Hi JaneInPA, thanks so much for the feedback. I look forward to releasing Inherited Danger, as I believe it delivers a greater level of character development. I’ll again be providing all episodes at once and will try to keep the wait between books as short as my schedule will allow. You points are well made, I appreciate the support. I’ve found that providing my work in this format has been very rewarding.
July 26th, 2009 at 2:36 am
Thank you for this story and for making all episodes available at once. The world created is made real. The characters are believable. The writing style is enjoyable and the narration is great. I look forward to listening to the next book. Cheers.
July 26th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Thanks Genevere.
I hope you enjoy Inherited Danger!
September 1st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Brain Rathbone’s trilogy, The Dawning of Power, starts with the engrossing Book One, Call of the Herald. Through Brian’s books we watch the maturing of a young girl and her involvement in a major war.
His descriptions of the children in the book are drawn from those we all know, starting with them as normal young ones, playing jokes on each other and those who they consider pests, or enemies. We soon move into a scene of revenge, one of Catrine’s friends is being beaten and when she steps in to help, a power is thrust from her that caused great damage to the boys who tried to kill her and her friend.
From there, we moved to an invasion of her country, the rush to escape of Catrine and her friends, all because her townspeople believed she was a witch and the invading troops believed her a woman with powers strong enough and the will to destroy their culture. Whew.
I was completely drawn into Brian’s story. The characters were real people with honest feelings. The scenes are set so that I felt as if I standing next to the action. I was watching friends work together to escape from first one danger and then another. Each escape brought knowledge that helped the boys learn what they needed to grow stronger and help Catrine then, and we know now, in the future. She will have need of them as she searches for the reason she was given the powers and the knowledge of how to use them.
Call of the Herald ends and we, as readers/listeners, are left wanting to rush into the next book to find out what happened to those we now consider our friends. Exactly what Brian Rathbone was looking for. Good job!
I rate this book a five star listen.
September 10th, 2009 at 6:27 am
I totally enjoyed this book and listened to it in two sessions while doing various yard work and house chores. It was so engaging that I sometimes forgot my surroundings while totally emersed in the book. It has that sort of effect on you. I couldn’t help but feel for the heroine as she goes through various trials and situations that no young girl should have to endure. Her relationships to her family and friends make her character that much more endearing and as a mother it makes you want to wrap your arms around her in comfort and encouragement.
Great writing, a great story and I look forward to the next book which I will download immediately as I have more yard work to do.
September 10th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Big thanks to Arlene for that review. I appreciate it.
Jodi, thanks so much for leaving me your comment. I’m so glad that I could whisk you into my world for a while. And if it can make yard work easier, I might have to put that on the back cover. But wait, there’s more! Thanks again.
September 19th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
I truly enjoyed Brain Rathbone’s, The Call of the Herald. Over past few years, I’ve become a huge Fantasy geek and this book was right up my alley. It is filled with plenty of action and the twists and turns kept me driving onward to discover what would happen next. I definitely became attached to many of the characters as they played their parts in the quest and I learned more about them.
Some of the quotes Rathbone used were thought provoking and I found then as inspirational as Tolkien’s!!!
Life is the greatest of all mysteries, and though I seek to solve its manyriddles, my deepest fear is that I will succeed.
—CiCi Bajur, philosopher
If peace cannot be made, then peace shall be seized.
—Von of the Elsics
Just to name a couple.
This podiobook is a great listen that gave me a mix of emotions and an intense ride into Brain’s world. I gave this a 4 star rating because of a few recording issues.
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Mark,
Thanks for the thoughtful review. I am working on rerecording much of this book now that I’ve learned so much while recording the rest of the trilogy. I really appreciate your feedback.
I’m glad you liked the quotes. Coming up with those was one of the really fun parts of writing these books. I have a list of new ones ready to go and I add more as they come to me. I’m particularly fond of: “Wisdom is the reward for surviving our own stupidity.”
October 25th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I really wanted to get into this, but I couldn’t stand the narration style. Every sentence was practically read the same way.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Hi Dave,
I appreciate your feedback. I learned a lot while recording the next two books, and I agree that the narration in the first book is definitely not my best work. I am hard at work at rerecording Call of the Herald and look forward to releasing the remastered version as soon as I can.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:07 am
Great book, one of the best I’ve listened to from Podiobooks.com. Thanks for your hard work Brian. Looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.