Domes of Fire

The Tamuli, Book 1

By: David Eddings

Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau

Six years had passed since the redoubtable knight Sparhawk had triumphed over the evil God Azash and returned to Elenia with Queen Ehlana, his bride. And now a new danger had arisen to threaten the peace of Ehlana's realm. The trouble had started quietly. At home, bandits began to plague the hill country. In neighboring Lamorkand, the customary political unrest turned ominous with whispers that the bloody heroes of old soon would rise again. And travelers reported that the Trolls had all disappeared from the icy northern haunts of Thalesia. Simple problems, apparently unrelated - until an ambassador arrived from the far-off Tamul empire, begging Sparhawk's aid. These same dangers that stalked Ehlana's kingdom had already struck his realm full-force.

The fabled ancient warriors of Tamuli had indeed returned - intent on carnage. Monsters and fell magics had followed, and the havoc and terror they spawned were tearing the empire apart. The empire had sent for the Pandion Knight who had killed the God Azash. If Sparhawk wanted to stop this danger before it could savage his own land, he now must lend his aid. Sparhawk, Ehlana, and their daughter, Princess Danae, agreed to make the grueling trek to the far-distant empire of the east. They traveled in company with a handful of trusted companions: the stalwart champions of the four Militant Orders, the knight Berit, Mirtai the giantess, and the young thief Talen. With the child-goddess Aphrael to speed their journey, they began the treacherous traverse of the utmost reaches of the Daresian continent, to Tamul's distant capital. There, in the emperor's glittering court, they would encounter corruption, treachery - and a greater danger than any man had faced before!

©1993 David Eddings (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Definitely not a waste of time.

This has been a favorite series of mine for some time, even though it and its predecessor ok a little longer to grow on me than did the Belgariad and Maloreon. Six years have passed since Sparhawk, the Pandion Knight, destroyed the evil god Azash with the power of Bhelliom and subsequently consigned it to the depths of the ocean to prevent its ever falling into evil hands. Now however, he and his wife, the restored Queen Ehlana, find themselves traveling with their daughter Danae, known to Sparhawk to actually be the childlike Styric goddess Aphrael, to the Tamul empire on the continent of Daresia, where figures from that land's mythic past seem to have been raised from the dead for some sinister purpose. It soon becomes clear that some old enemies of Sparhawk's are behind these events and tat his only hope of success may be to play right into their hands by raising Bhelliom from the oceanic depths. Can he persuade Aphrael to allow this? More importantly, will Bhelliom be enough?
This was a very well-written story and the narrator was not painful to listen to. Some of his pronunciations of character names seemed off but his caracterizationswere generally good. You could usually tell who was speaking without much trouble. All in all a good listen.

Mixed Feelings

I enjoy all of Edding's books, and this series is one I have enjoyed for years. When I decided to get the audio versions, I didn't read the reviews or even look at who was narrating because I know the books well enough to get past any issues I had with the narration. There are ALWAYS going to be differences in the way names are pronounced in Fantasy books, as so many of the names are made up and unique. In other reviews, several people have commented that the narrator of the last three books was pronouncing all the names 'wrong' based on the first three books narrator's pronunciations. If you have never read the books, and only have the narration of them to go on, I can see how this would be confusing, and really, the best thing is to keep the same narrator through an entire series, but for whatever reason, that did not happen this time. However, based on the way the names are spelled, the second narrator was much better IMHO.

Come on... "Platime" should be 'plahTEEM' - (Rhymes with "the team")... not 'PLAtm' (Rhymes with "splat 'em)

The problem I had with the narration of these last three books is the voices. He makes the princess sound like a moron who is always on the edge of a giggle. Most of the voices don't really fit the characters, and even more so if you are used to the first narrator. I don't feel it is bad enough to keep many people from enjoying the books though. If you like Eddings books, these last three in the series are great, and a nice way to wrap things up. Even with the bad voices, I still enjoyed them overall, and the pronunciations were so much close to what I thought they should be, I enjoyed the last three MORE than the first three. Definitely worth a listen if you are an Eddings fan.

Great story, not a fan of the narrator.

While I greatly enjoyed the book, I was not a fan of the narrator's interpretation of the character names and voices. Talon's name was huge problem for me.

Otherwise, the story is great.

Great Start to the Series!

What did you love best about Domes of Fire?

The relationship between the characters.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Sir Sparhawk. Due to the way his character develops.

What about Kevin Pariseau’s performance did you like?

Does a great job on capturing the different characters.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

I would want to make a film because it would have to leave out to much.

Continuing to Love this series and these character

Again, I wait for every opportunity to listen to the next piece of the story, waiting between each time with wonder and frustrated when I have the chance and am interrupted...I miss all of the characters when I'm not reading. So good to join them in each adventure!