Three reviewers on this page count the same book three different ways. One says a thousand pages. One says fourteen hundred. One says nearly fifteen hundred. The page field on this audiobook listing is blank, which is the correct answer, because the only measurement that governs a listener here is forty-four hours and fifty-four minutes. Nobody is lying. They are each describing an edition, and none of those editions is the one on offer.
The Verdict, Briefly
Where that leaves a prospective buyer is in front of the largest single commitment most shelves will ever hold. Forty-four hours and fifty-four minutes is close to two solid days of continuous audio, and Carina_inkdrinker, writing in March 2026, reports that getting through it took about five months. Derek Perkins carries all of it. That credit deserves stating plainly, because it is the one piece of information on this page about which nothing is ambiguous.
One reason for the length is visible in the jacket copy, which reads less like a summary than a war dispatch. Kingspass burns and Calen Bryer pushes forward with Valerys beside him. Ella wrestles with an ancient power running through her veins in Loria. Assassins move in the dark beneath the mountains of Lodhar while the Dwarven Freehold readies for war and Dahlen Virandr and Belina Louna try to work out why. Rist Havel learns what becoming an Imperial Battlemage actually costs. Alina and Dayne Ateres prepare Valtara. Kallinvar and the Knights of Achyron brace for the Shadow. Six fronts, one paragraph.
Everything in the column agrees the book is enormous, and precisely one review treats that as a fault. mgk2020 grants the writing, the characterization, the action, the pacing for the most part, and the plot, then says the thing nobody else will say: it turns repetitive at points, it is way too long, not every storyline is equally interesting, and too much time goes to the weakest of them. Four stars, and the sharpest paragraph anywhere on the listing.
What the other four say is the identical fact with its sign reversed. Nick calls the book a mountain of a story to climb and reckons that, despite running to nearly double the length of its predecessor, it stands out as the best paced and best written entry to date. Carina_inkdrinker asks whether it was too much sometimes, answers yes and no, and settles on awestruck. Kindle-Kunde, posting from Germany, needs a single line: the world just keeps expanding and expanding.
A reader hunting for the detailed case will be let down by how this page treats it. Nick's entry sets out a quick list of highlights, the characters and dialogue, the battle scenes, the pacing, the depth of the lore and the magic system, then announces that a more in-depth review is about to follow. The text stops at that announcement. Whatever came next is not on this page, and guessing at it would be inventing it.
By the categories attached here, this is historical fiction. The genre field files the title under literature and fiction, and the lone tag reads Historical Fiction. The description meanwhile supplies the wyvern of a noble house, an Imperial Battlemage in training, a Dwarven Freehold arming itself, the Knights of Achyron, and a Blood Moon rising over a continent named Epheria, while one reviewer adds dragons to the inventory. Whatever this is, it did not happen. A listener filtering for epic fantasy will never see it, which for a commitment this size is a real problem of discovery.
Before You Commit to Of War and Ruin
Anyone considering starting here should not. This is the third book of The Bound and The Broken, and the blurb assumes you already know who Valerys is, why Kingspass matters, and what Kallinvar has just lost. Nicole Sergov, writing in July 2023, mentions in passing a belief that five books are planned altogether, which is the only guidance anywhere on this page about how much further the series has to run. The listing itself declines to say.
This jacket copy opens in a language no reader knows: Solian ata'yar. Dauv ata'yar. Nur temen vie'ryn valana. The English arrives on the next line, live as one, die as one, for those we have lost, which tells you a great deal about the register the book is working in. Nick liked the invented tongue enough to borrow it for a review headline. A constructed language in the opening line of jacket copy is a promise about how much worldbuilding is coming, and this one keeps it.
Forty-four hours in a single voice is the practical question nobody here addresses. Derek Perkins has to hold six storylines, an invented language, a dwarven kingdom, an imperial magic academy, and a cast of nine named before the plot has even begun, all without letting a listener lose the thread across what may turn out to be several months of listening. The credit is everything the page offers. At this length the performance is not a detail, it is most of the purchase.
Who Will Get the Most From It
Something the enthusiastic reviews keep circling is that the length is the product. Carina_inkdrinker praises the way side character viewpoints get blended between the main ones, which is a structural compliment and simultaneously an explanation for the size: every additional viewpoint costs hours. mgk2020's complaint is the same observation inverted, that too much of that time lands on the least rewarding threads. Two readers, one design decision, opposite verdicts.
Five stars from four separate readers spread across nearly three years is a powerful signal for a book of this scale. If you are already two volumes into an epic fantasy series and waiting for the installment where the map opens out and the armies finally move, this is being sold to you as exactly that. If you like a long haul, a very large cast, and a middle section that takes its time, forty-five hours is the offer on the table.
Listeners who want a self-contained story, or who have never finished a forty-hour recording, should look elsewhere, and so should anyone who reads epic fantasy for economy. mgk2020's verdict is worth carrying into the decision: unmistakable talent, a book genuinely enjoyed, and a nagging sense that it could have been much better. Budget the time before you start, because at forty-four hours and fifty-four minutes this is not something you abandon halfway without losing the series along with it.
Common Questions
At forty-four hours, is this audiobook worth starting?
Only with the previous two volumes behind you. The Bound and The Broken is three entries deep by this point, and the description opens mid-catastrophe on a city that is already burning. Four reviewers call the length worth it, while the fifth says the book is simply too long. Both verdicts concern the same forty-four hours and fifty-four minutes.
Who reads the audiobook, and can one voice carry six storylines?
Derek Perkins holds the sole credit. The description runs six separate fronts at once, from a burning city to a dwarven kingdom beneath the mountains to an imperial magic academy, and names nine characters before the plot starts. Nothing here assesses how the performance handles any of it, which leaves that credit standing as your only evidence.
