Bard Tidings

A Humorous Fantasy Novel

By: Paul Regnier

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The spirit of a warrior lies deep inside a bard. Deep down. Way, way down.

Jonas wakes up each day regretting his position as the king’s bard. He dreams of escaping the kingdom and returning to life as a traveling musician with his best friend Elrick. But when his love Bree is taken prisoner in the castle, he and Elrick must act. Their attempts at rescue go horribly wrong, and the king marks them for death. Now they must flee the kingdom with a hefty reward on their heads.

Meanwhile, the king’s soldiers march to war, placing Bree’s hometown in their path of destruction. Jonas must go from lute player to monster slayer as they travel through dangerous lands on a desperate quest to stop an army.

Their adventures throw them in league with fearsome lycans, stabby assassins, and a cursed warrior. With their help they must survive a pursuing dragon, slay a sorcerer, defeat an army, and of course, compose the perfect song along the way.

Can Jonas and his friends survive the journey and save an innocent town before it’s too late?

Fun story

This was a fun story. It’s unfortunate that the AI narration did it a disservice.

Hugely Entertaining

While I can't say much for the artificial voice narration, I appreciated the opportunity to listen to this story, because even if the performance is wanting, the story itself is wonderfully, hugely entertaining. If there ever was a book that had a hook at the end of every chapter, it would be this one.

With a crew of plebians rising to infamy through mishap, rumor, and noble deed, this story of Jonas and friends has the atmosphere of a classic fantasy adventure complete with unlikely heroes, magical artifacts, irate dragons, vengeful kings, evil sorcerers, monster infested mountains, assassin guilds, and talking chainmail.

Plus, pairing a peace-loving bard with a healthy sense of self-preservation and a stalwart warrior with a penchant for epic quests is riotously grand and provided deep moments of character development on both sides.

Shot through with themes of courage, overcoming adversity, and the power of sacrificial kindness (and music!), this book has both heart and humor in due measure with good, clean fun, bittersweet romance, and one of the best kinds of endings.

Funny

This is a lighthearted tale about a bard, a bar maid, and a jester who become warriors of sort. Three friends take what they are given and make the best of it. Along the way they make some astonishing new friends, fight evil, and defend each other and the innocent.

The book is funny and entertaining. I only wish there were a sequel because the story did not quite tell all. The battle and the girl are won, but enchantments still abound.

Bard Tidings is good at what it was supposed to do. It is written on a middle school to high school level. I think the book is aimed at people that age, boys mostly, but I liked it as a middle aged woman. I recommend it for people who enjoy lighthearted fantasy as a break from heavier topics for a while. Virtual Voice got me through the book, but a good voice actor would have made better work of the jokes. Maybe give this one a read instead of listening to VV.

Virtual Voice can’t do SARCASM

This read like a basic role playing game campaign. Simple story line, basic characters get gear and go on a quest. The virtual voice was not able to ring the story to life at all. Missing every opportunity for interpretation of phrases. Not worth reading. I had to play it at 1.2 speed.