So I read a Stanek book

[Spastic Plastic]

I just went on Stanek's forums...god, I could just feel the love from all the many fans. Such never-seen enthusiasm! Such outpouring of love and admiration!

Apparently, he's writing a non-fantasy book now that he intends to be similar to Philip K Dick's books.

[BookWyrm]

I just went on Stanek's forums...god, I could just feel the love from all the many fans. Such never-seen enthusiasm! Such outpouring of love and admiration!

Apparently, he's writing a non-fantasy book now that he intends to be similar to Philip K Dick's books.

The trick is being able to join Staneks' forums.

[Peadar]

The fact that someone like Stanek has actually made money from something like this is one of the greatest literary crimes of all time.

Not to mention it probably encourages deluded fantasy nerds everywhere that they can become successful writers.

Yes, it really, really does :smug:

[Spastic Plastic]

The trick is being able to join Staneks' forums.

Don't be like that. I heard forum members have to be passed by Stanek personally, and it sucks for you, but his 2000 alternate personalities take precedence over you.

[Roland_85]

Apparently, he's writing a non-fantasy book now that he intends to be similar to Philip K Dick's books.

The presumption! The infinite travesty!

[Old Nan]

I wouldn't want to have to read that for long, but honestly, it doesn't look too far below average. Several writers feted here are at least that clunky.

[Roland_85]

I wouldn't want to have to read that for long, but honestly, it doesn't look too far below average. Several writers feted here are at least that clunky.

...and then you wake up, all sweaty and disturbed...

[prone_to_say_stupid_things]

I guess it's not narrated by him, but this narration is really something. The narrator only knows how to say a phrase in one way. That way of saying the sentence is very unnatural. Also, it lacks any drama after you have heard it for three minutes.

It is narrated by him - Keeper's Martin Tale lists the narrator as Robert Stanek, and it is the same voice as the free introduction download.

Keeper's Martin Tale is the exact same book as The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches 1 and Two - just put together with a different title and cover. Stanek added Keeper Martin to audible in 2009, whereas Kingdoms/Elves has been available since 2005 (and has hundreds of fake raves and several dozen real negative reviews). It was once possible to write reviews on audible.com without actually ever buying anything. Now audible.com requires you to be a member and have bought the book before being able to review it. This accounts for the relative lack of reviews of Stanek's newer books.

As far as I know - Stanek is the only person to have release his self-published books as audible digital downloads for sale (through audible.com, iTunes and other sites). It certainly seems like it would take a lot of effort - although these can be found as downloads only - they are not on CDs - so there is less production cost involved, especially if the author is the narrator. Does anyone know of any other self published authors who have done this?

[Horselover Fat]

Well, he should definitely not narrate anything...ever...ever. Between his weird cadence and the awful music it is nearly unlistenable. It does not help that I have no idea what the f**k he is talking about. He appears to be explaining things about his book. Here's the funniest ones I noticed.

he introduces the characters in his book including; "Dragon King, King of the Dragons" (<---that is a quote by the way.) He also has a half troll half giant...a "Trollant."

The various languages in the book you ask? Well there is "Elf-speak" the language of the Forest Elves and the arcane dragon language known as...wait for it..."Dragonspeak." The language of the Northerners is "Ice"

I had never heard of Mr. Stanek before reading this post, I long for that innocence stolen from me.

[MinDonner]

:D It's like he's not even trying to disguise his sockpuppetry. The one 5-star review is from "Amy", who has written a mere 5 reviews, all of them... yes, 5-star reviews of Stanek books.

Not sure why the earlier reviews of this book are so low. I've seen some grumblings from fanboys of other authors which may explain. However, the narration is top-notch and the book itself is exceptional. I found it to be a cut above the average fantasy.

What is the book about? Keeper Martin's Tale is Robert Stanek's debut fantasy novel. It's a character and action driven story told mostly from three points of view:

Adrina - a prince of Great Kingdom

Vilmos - a village elder's son

Seth - a warrior elf

If you like heroic fantasy with adventure and action, I don't see how you can go wrong with this one. It's worth a listen and 1000% better than the earlier reviews would seem to suggest.

I am frUStrated to the point of tears! :rofl:

Edit: I take back my vicious and unfounded slurs. Amy's true identity is, in fact, cunningly smokescreened by the fact she hadn't even noticed that "Prince Adrina" is actually a chick...

[prone_to_say_stupid_things]

I'll PM him on Facebook so he can read your review. . . :)

We've become real buddies since he called me the kind of guy who gets shanked in prison! ;)

Patrick

Speaking of Facebook friends, I found the following exchange on Robert Stanek’s wall with his one real fan Darth Sparhawk (who is also the only person who posts on the Stanek message board, besides Stanek's sockpuppets):

Robert Stanek

Rise of the Fallen (Ruin Mist Dawn of Ages, Book 1) finally finished with editing and layout. Pub dates forthcoming.

April 20 at 6:34pm via Selective Tweets

Alexander Draganov likes this.

Alexander Draganov

Very, very good news. Any info about the plot? I want to see Sathar in power!

Robert Stanek

“Rise of the Fallen" goes back to Ruin Mist's earliest beginnings. Readers finally get to live in the era of titans and dragons and get to see the rise of the greatest heroes and villains of Ruin Mist's darkest ages.

"A Daughter of Kings" takes readers through Delinna Alder's story, stitching together many elements of the backstory in the original books. "Betrayal Comic #1" starts everything off by telling readers why Delinna was exiled, how her mother died, and how everything that happened fits together.

Alexander Draganov

Both sound very interesting, but "Rise of the Fallen" looks grand, the kind of fantasy that makes you open your mouth in wonder.

[Spastic Plastic]

I can't wait for Stanek's attempt to write like Philip K Dick. If he really writes like the excerpts posted here, that one will have me in hysterics.

[Trebla]

The forums are great fun. I like all the "Mr Stanek!" and "RS" from the sock-puppets. It makes me think of him as "Mr. S!" like "Mr. F!" from Arrested Development. :D

[Spastic Plastic]

The forums are great fun. I like all the "Mr Stanek!" and "RS" from the sock-puppets. It makes me think of him as "Mr. S!" like "Mr. F!" from Arrested Development. :D

Robert Stanek, if he was a character from Arrested Development, would be Buster Bluth.

I'm now imagining Stanek, patting himself on the back for his own cleverness and grinning a needle-toothed grin, making his sockpuppets furiously debate with each other.

[Kat]

Wait, wut?! Shouldn't the first age be the age of Titans, men, elves and dwarves?! Where's the logic in that? :shocked:

What he failed to mention is that a Titan is a dwarf standing on an elf standing on a man. In the second age, as magic weakens, they no longer have the fortitude to walk around like that. Also, elves and dwarves fight a lot, so it's an inherently unstable age, where, much like when physicists describe the first "ages" after the Big ang that only lasted for 1/1,000,000 second before, say, quarks were no longer free and bound together into leptons, the second age came along very fast.

Interestingly, when I just did a random Google search so I could remember about how long it was that there were free quarks, I found this page that describes how the Quran is a giant metaphor for science. The style in which it is written is eerily similar to Stanek's style.

1. The age of quarks and gluons: This period lasted after a part of a hundred thousand millions of a second after the big bang. In this period, the primary particles of matter were created with its anti-particles from the cosmic dust. This includes the quarks and anti-quarks, neutrinos and anti-neutrinos. The cosmic dust was dense and dark while gravity was a separate force binding the parts of this cosmic dust together. The strong nuclear force was then separated from the weaker electromagnetic force. It is believed that the number of particles in this dust was more than the number of anti-particles or else there would be no universe. Another possibility is that a higher power separated the particles from the anti-particles so that the heavens and the earth would be established by Allah's Command. This period was a period of astounding expansion of the universe.

2.

The lepton age: It continued for a part of a million parts of a second after the big bang. In this period, the leptons, the lightest elementary particles for matter such as electrons, neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, were clearly distinguished from the quarks. Similarly, bosons were distinguished and the weak force was separated from the force unity known by the weak electric force. 3. The nucleons and the anti-nucleons age: This period lasted up to 225 seconds after the Big Bang. Meanwhile, quarks united together to form the nucleons and their anti-nucleons like the protons and neutrons and their antiparticles. The energy was weak enough at this point so it did not permit the formation of the nucleons and their anti-nucleons on a wide range or else there would be no universe.

4. The formation of the nucleate of elements age: This period was between 225 seconds and one thousand seconds after the Big Bang. In this period, stable deuterons were formed each by the combination of a proton with a neutron. Through their formation, nuclear fusion started to form hydrogen atoms' nucleate. By their unity, the nucleate of helium atoms as well as some of the nucleate of other heavier atoms were formed until the percentage of hydrogen reached 74%, helium 24% and nucleate of other heavier elements reached 1%.

5.Ions formation age: This period started from one thousand seconds to ten trillion seconds after the Big Bang. Meantime, the hydrogen and helium ions were formed and the universe continued its expansion and continued to cool down.

6. The atom formation age: It extends through the period starting from ten trillion seconds to one thousand trillion seconds after the Big Bang. At that time, the atoms of various elements were formed and bonded by the gravitational force. Then the universe became transparent.

7. The age of the formation of stars and galaxies: It extends from one thousand trillion of a second after the Big Bang (about 32 million years of our current years) up to this day i.e. about 10 milliards of years. In this period, most elements known to us were formed (which are more than 105 elements) by the process known as nuclear fusion, happened inside stars until the element known as iron was formed in the nebula and the great nebula. Elements of higher atomic weight than the iron atoms nucleate were formed by catching the elementary particles that were spread all over the heavens.

I mean, you could basically just substitute really dry descriptions of elf kings in there instead of particle types, and you'd totally have the Ruin Mist Chronicles.

It is narrated by him - Keeper's Martin Tale lists the narrator as Robert Stanek, and it is the same voice as the free introduction download.

Keeper's Martin Tale is the exact same book as The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches 1 and Two - just put together with a different title and cover. Stanek added Keeper Martin to audible in 2009, whereas Kingdoms/Elves has been available since 2005 (and has hundreds of fake raves and several dozen real negative reviews). It was once possible to write reviews on audible.com without actually ever buying anything. Now audible.com requires you to be a member and have bought the book before being able to review it. This accounts for the relative lack of reviews of Stanek's newer books.

As far as I know - Stanek is the only person to have release his self-published books as audible digital downloads for sale (through audible.com, iTunes and other sites). It certainly seems like it would take a lot of effort - although these can be found as downloads only - they are not on CDs - so there is less production cost involved, especially if the author is the narrator. Does anyone know of any other self published authors who have done this?

I don't know of other self-published audiobooks on Audible, although I've seen them on other sites, mostly for free, or published as chapters in podcasts.

But anyway, I was talking about the free "In the Service of Dragons" intro, where the book is read by someone named "Karl Fehr" who has a vaguely Scottish accent. He is listed as the narrator for those books. I guess the narrator for the other books is Stanek himself. If this is an improvement, I'm scared.

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

R. Stanek: "So, what do you think about my mindblowing manuscript, in which you can read about such things as kings, dragons, dragonkings, draconic kings, kings on dragons, dragons on kings, and-"

Publisher: "Yes, yes, Mr. ... uhm, Roger Stanek, was it?"

R. Stanek. "Well, no it's actually Rob-"

Publisher: "Anyway, what I think about this? I think it's excellent. It is, as you say, mindblowing. It blew my mind several times yesterday, actually. It's epic. I'm gasping. I gasped at breakfast, I gasped during lunch, heck, I'm still gasping."

R. Stanek. "So, you're interesting in publishing it?"

Publisher: "Ah, well. There's really only one thing I'd like to change first, Mr. Stanek."

R. Stanek: "What?"

Publisher: "The words."

Robert Stanek, gasping with fury, heads for the door. "I'm humiliated."

Publisher: "Can I still keep the manuscript?"

Robert Stanek slams the door shut, his echoing footsteps fading away.

The publisher gets on his feet, picks up the manuscript and opens another door, the one to the toilet ...

[jamesM]

a half troll half giant...a "Trollant."

*opens mouth in wonder*

[jamesM]

What he failed to mention is that a Titan is a dwarf standing on an elf standing on a man. In the second age, as magic weakens, they no longer have the fortitude to walk around like that.

Excellent.

[theMountainGoat]

What he failed to mention is that a Titan is a dwarf standing on an elf standing on a man.

Don't be silly Kat.

Everyone knows it's an elf standing on a man standing on a dwarf.

[Old Nan]

Well, sure. But if you're going to go that far--well, it's dwarves all the way down.