AudioFile Reviews
Romeo and Juliet meet the MAYFLOWER in the final book of the Chaos Walking series. A scout ship has come from afar to find two teens separated by opposing forces on a new world in space. Now there's war, and three compelling narrators offer three points of view in this dark tale of revenge and redemption. The voices draw listeners in, obviating the need for the strange typefaces and misspellings in the printed version. The narrators allow us to feel we really KNOW Todd, Viola, and the native with a vendetta against them. This installment is not a good place to enter this dense dystopian saga. But those who start at the beginning won't be able to stop listening to all of this slam-bang trilogy. M.M.C. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
Horn Book Magazine Reviews
Set on the recently colonized New World, where "Noise" -- thoughts made audible -- is inescapable, this dark, dynamic trilogy translates brilliantly to audio. Todd (native of a suspiciously all-male settlement) and Viola (survivor of a crashed scout ship) uncover the violent results of human women's lack of Noise. Hostilities between two rival human leaders build inexorably toward war, while a third army composed of the indigenous Spackle rises. Separated and pressed into battle, the teens both make choices that compromise their ethics and their relationship. Nick Podehl as conscience-stricken Todd and Angela Dawe as gutsy Viola eloquently capture each desperate situation, embodying the suspense and intense emotion of Ness's powerful, rhythmic prose. As slave-cum-Spackle leader 1017, MacLeod Andrews masterfully keeps 1017's barely-held-in-check rage at the treatment of his kind simmering under the surface of his narration. Subtle sound effects emphasize how Noise (represented visually in the novels) is heard not with the ears but with the mind. Some inconsistencies in audio quality distract only briefly from this effective adaptation. katie bircher [review covers these titles: The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men] Copyright 2011 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.