Audiobook Review – The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft, Narrated by Peter Coates (3.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 4 hr 16 min
Publisher:‎ Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
Release Date: Dec 2020
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Bought Audiobook
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

“After saving her nation of Nikan from foreign invaders and battling the evil Empress Su Daji in a brutal civil war, Fang Runin was betrayed by allies and left for dead.

Despite her losses, Rin hasn’t given up on those for whom she has sacrificed so much—the people of the southern provinces and especially Tikany, the village that is her home. Returning to her roots, Rin meets difficult challenges—and unexpected opportunities. While her new allies in the Southern Coalition leadership are sly and untrustworthy, Rin quickly realizes that the real power in Nikan lies with the millions of common people who thirst for vengeance and revere her as a goddess of salvation.

Backed by the masses and her Southern Army, Rin will use every weapon to defeat the Dragon Republic, the colonizing Hesperians, and all who threaten the shamanic arts and their practitioners. As her power and influence grows, though, will she be strong enough to resist the Phoenix’s intoxicating voice urging her to burn the world and everything in it?”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I bought this on audiobook from Google Play.

Thoughts: I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator on the version I listened to (by Peter Coates) wasn’t great. His narration voice is fine but he read this very fast with very little inflection in his voice and it was a bit had to follow. I normally speed audiobooks up a bit when I listen to them and I had to slow this one down.

Part of my difficulty in following this could have been the writing style. Lovecraft is very dense with a lot of adjectives and descriptions and you do have to really concentrate on what you are reading. Since I mainly listened to this on audiobook while driving, I wasn’t able to concentrate the whole time and felt like I missed some of the subtly and messages in this strange little novella.

I do think this is probably one of Lovecraft’s more accessible stories. I have listened to some other ones and this one was a fairly straightforward adventure tale. You just have a lot of odd god and place names thrown at you throughout and this was hard to follow on audiobook. Lovecraft is weird and intriguing but also a bit slow and dense. I did enjoy some of the insights and irony of the end of the story.

My Summary (3.5/5): Overall I am glad I read this but might re-read it at some point because I kept feeling like I was missing stuff. The narrator read this quickly and with very little inflection in his voice, and that paired with the dense descriptions and complex god and place names, made this hard to follow on audiobook.