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Eight Lamentations: War Claw


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Just finished listening to Josh Reynolds latest chapter in his Eight Lamentations series. Really enjoyed how he formatted the tale as a radio drama. What's interesting is that it is a sequel to Spear of Shadows, but Josh admitted in the epilogue that he's hoping to make more of these short to medium length stories because they stretch the plot of the series in ways he can't do in full-length novels. While I  like the full-length novels and the grand tale they weave, I am a fan of the shorter-but-more-focused stories that Black Library has been publishing. 

Despite only being 120 minutes, there is a ton of action and horror crammed into the War Claw and the plot itself is engaging, especially the character moments between Voelker, Zana, and the duardin characters. 

I would recommend this for anyone interested in the next chapter of Eight Lamentations, or those who enjoy a nice horror story

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4 hours ago, Gorks Pokin' Finger said:

No narrator. The characters detail what's going on. Usually I prefer a narrator setting the tone to help flesh out the story in my mind, but Josh's writing for the audio drama does a good enough job of it

Interestingly, BL has started asking us to cut down on narrators (or leave them out entirely), when it comes to the audio dramas.  I don't know why, but I suspect that they want to make them more like radio plays.  Makes for an interesting challenge to write, though.  You never realise how much you relied on a narrator to deliver exposition until you can't lean on that particular crutch anymore.

Also, glad you enjoyed it!

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Man the black librsry website is so bad (at least on my Phone) . I really enjoyed Eight Lamentations and thought after reading this I'd see how expensive it was. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the layout of the store! I downloaded the black library audio app and can't even find this on there! 

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30 minutes ago, Carnelian said:

Man the black librsry website is so bad (at least on my Phone) . I really enjoyed Eight Lamentations and thought after reading this I'd see how expensive it was. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the layout of the store! I downloaded the black library audio app and can't even find this on there! 

Glad its not just me.  If you didn't know this audio book existed you'd struggle to find it, they don't even link it from the Spear of Shadows book page.

Despite the majority of their books being series, there are never any clear ways to find what other books are in the series, what order to read them or if there are any related series or non-series books.  

 

EDIT: Spear of Shadows was awesome and cant wait to find time to give Eight Lamentations a proper listen (this is why i came to this page, got distracted by the need for a rant 😁)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/21/2018 at 6:11 AM, Carnelian said:

Man the black librsry website is so bad (at least on my Phone) . I really enjoyed Eight Lamentations and thought after reading this I'd see how expensive it was. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the layout of the store! I downloaded the black library audio app and can't even find this on there! 

 

On 12/21/2018 at 6:41 AM, stato said:

Glad its not just me.  If you didn't know this audio book existed you'd struggle to find it, they don't even link it from the Spear of Shadows book page.

Despite the majority of their books being series, there are never any clear ways to find what other books are in the series, what order to read them or if there are any related series or non-series books.  

 

EDIT: Spear of Shadows was awesome and cant wait to find time to give Eight Lamentations a proper listen (this is why i came to this page, got distracted by the need for a rant 😁)

I had the same issue as well with the Black Library app. I eventually decided to get it on Apple iBooks, but the CD/MP3 is only available on the BL website

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I brought War Claw shortly after It released and I really enjoyed it. My favorite bits were the moments between Volkner and Zana.

I also liked the little extra Interviews. Thats something you normally dont get with a book. 

The only criticism I have is that the beast men were hard to understand. Im not a nativ speaker and the sound effects made it hard to understand what they wanted. 

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I'm looking forward to listening to it, as I loved the the first book, but I just hope all these little ebooks and audio dramas are not moving away from the books planned trilogy or even taking away from the plot of the main books. I love audio drams but hate ebooks and don't want to feel I'm forced to buy either to enjoy the main book. I just wish they would do the main trilogy, then move in to smaller sub stories, more like bonus stories for those that want them.

 

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Finally got round to listening to this.

Im not a huge fan of radio plays (characters verbalising what they are doing rather than a narrator) so had some trepidation going into it.  Its started a little awkwardly i thought, Volkners verbalizing throughout was a little jarring where he was not interacting with other characters, but got going once there were character interactions.

I struggled at times to 'believe' in situations, mainly where the characters were being attacked, it felt like there was no peril, the way it came across sounded like they were batting away a mosquito not being charged by monsters and the result was always them just suddenly out of trouble with no believable or understandable justification.  Perhaps this is because of the format, maybe a fade/gap between scenes of fighting to safety would have helped.

Summary; Enjoyed it, points where scenes seemed under described and hence lost the immersion a little, good character development story while waiting for the next book, worth a listen.

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On 12/21/2018 at 11:11 AM, Carnelian said:

Man the black librsry website is so bad (at least on my Phone) . I really enjoyed Eight Lamentations and thought after reading this I'd see how expensive it was. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the layout of the store! I downloaded the black library audio app and can't even find this on there! 

I’ve had trouble finding this as well on their website. I am only 90 pages insto Spear of Shadows (loving it so far) so I guess I have time to find it. 

Hopefully it will be on audiable as well by then, I have lots of spare credits 

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9 hours ago, Charles said:

I’ve had trouble finding this as well on their website. I am only 90 pages insto Spear of Shadows (loving it so far) so I guess I have time to find it. 

Hopefully it will be on audiable as well by then, I have lots of spare credits 

It is on Audible already.

This was the first audio drama I have listened to and thought it was great. I didn’t have high hopes at all, looking forward to more now.

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8 hours ago, Painbringer said:

I am currently reading the "Spear of Shadows" (and I like it so far), but I have one question - is this audio drama the continuation of the story, or some "additional" story? How is it related to the second book in the trilogy?

It is a continuation, but it's bridging the gap between the first book and the second book, much like the short story, "The Tainted Axe". 

The audio dramas and short stories are there to flesh out the world/characters and/or prod the meta-plot along while I wait for the go-ahead to pitch the second book. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/14/2019 at 8:05 AM, JReynolds said:

It is a continuation, but it's bridging the gap between the first book and the second book, much like the short story, "The Tainted Axe". 

The audio dramas and short stories are there to flesh out the world/characters and/or prod the meta-plot along while I wait for the go-ahead to pitch the second book. 

Wait, WHAT!   There is a short story????   Honestly, Black Library doesnt want my money, as part of my previous response I went on Black Library and neither 'Tainted Axe' or 'Auction of Blood' (yes fans, there are TWO short stories most of us probably didnt know about) were given as recommendations from Spear of Shadows.

 

Black Library, your website is rubbish!

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20 minutes ago, stato said:

Wait, WHAT!   There is a short story????   Honestly, Black Library doesnt want my money, as part of my previous response I went on Black Library and neither 'Tainted Axe' or 'Auction of Blood' (yes fans, there are TWO short stories most of us probably didnt know about) were given as recommendations from Spear of Shadows.

 

Black Library, your website is rubbish!

If people are interested in those stories (plus "Road of Blades", which is a prequel) they're all in the new anthology out this weekend. 

https://www.blacklibrary.com/coming-soon/january/gods-and-mortals-ebook.html

And, if you're wondering about reading order, I've done a chronological list here, that I'll be adding to as stories come out (and there are more coming this year, including a second audio drama):

https://joshuamreynolds.co.uk/works/eight-lamentations/

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On 1/22/2019 at 3:41 PM, stato said:

Wait, WHAT!   There is a short story????   Honestly, Black Library doesnt want my money, as part of my previous response I went on Black Library and neither 'Tainted Axe' or 'Auction of Blood' (yes fans, there are TWO short stories most of us probably didnt know about) were given as recommendations from Spear of Shadows.

 

Black Library, your website is rubbish!

I read Auction of Blood two days ago. Actually hadn't thought, that it is a Story of Eight Lamentations because it wasn't in the titel. (but haven't read spear of shadows yet).

But I have the feeling it would be sad if the story War Claw would be Audiodrama only. I actually like to read printed books and I have the feeling that in case of an Audiodrama it will stay english only (while in case of a book there is a chance to get a german version).

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  • 3 months later...
On 1/22/2019 at 3:04 PM, JReynolds said:

If people are interested in those stories (plus "Road of Blades", which is a prequel) they're all in the new anthology out this weekend. 

https://www.blacklibrary.com/coming-soon/january/gods-and-mortals-ebook.html

And, if you're wondering about reading order, I've done a chronological list here, that I'll be adding to as stories come out (and there are more coming this year, including a second audio drama):

https://joshuamreynolds.co.uk/works/eight-lamentations/

Is the url you linked still up to date? I'm finally getting around to reading spear of shadows and enjoying it. Is there a book 2, or still on the short stories for now?

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On 5/13/2019 at 11:00 PM, Bosmer Nightblade said:

Is the url you linked still up to date? I'm finally getting around to reading spear of shadows and enjoying it. Is there a book 2, or still on the short stories for now?

It's still up to date.  There's no book 2 for the foreseeable future. 

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12 minutes ago, michu said:

@JReynoldsDoes it mean "no Eight lamentations in any way" or just "no main books" so short stories could be still published?

I'm leaning towards the former. There were plans for me to write the second book this year,  as well as several short stories, but those plans got changed.  At this point, both the series and the short stories are on hiatus.  That might change, or it could prove indefinite. It's all up in the air at the moment, unfortunately. 

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