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Tress of the Emerald Sea

Brandon Sanderson · Hoid's Travails, book 1 · read by Michael Kramer

It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it lighthearted, funny and adventurous. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.

Listen to it

Every book we have judged on how far the recording outruns the page: 201 of them, the page's answer at the left-hand end and the recording's at the right. Marked for scale: All the Light We Cannot See, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This one sits in the top 3% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. −0.40, where we start backing the page; 0.40, where we start backing the recording.Tress of the Emerald Sea (Hoid's Travails, #1)
emphatic · 1.99 clear of the line where this would stop being a listen

Audio has the easy job on this one: only 3% of the reviews we read called it demanding, so nothing in it needs a page you can flick back through. Michael Kramer’s reading is well liked too (in the top 11% of our shelf of books, on 5,450 ratings of the narration).

Length does not decide this

12h 27m to listen, at 1×9h 58m to listen, at 1.25×8h 18m to listen, at 1.5×7h 07m to listen, at 1.75×6h 14m to listen, at 2×about 15 hours to readabout 11 hours to readabout 9 hours to readabout 7 hours to readabout 6 hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 443 pages at 30 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 443 pages at 40 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 443 pages at 50 pages an hour, which is about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 443 pages at 65 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 443 pages at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.

Slot → chore-safe

About as demanding in audio as The Little Prince.

All the books we hold · 222

Easier to hear than 93% of the books we hold.

Fiction · 176

Easier to hear than 91% of the fiction we hold.

Long books · 56

Easier to hear than 91% of the long books we hold.

Reading load against listening load

Every book we hold placed by how much work it asks on the page, left to right, against how much it asks in your ears, bottom to top: 222 of them. Easy both ways is the bottom left corner, hard both ways the top right; above the dashed line the ears work harder, below it the page does. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one is in the bottom 3% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 2% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears.
The dashed line is where a book would be same effort either way. This one sits below that line (the page asks more of you here than audio does), in the bottom 7% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page−1.01
In your ears−1.68
Audio disadvantage−1.60

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the bottom 3% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 2% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears. The middle of the scale is not the middle of the shelf (most books sit below the average on both), so a book at 0.00 is already in the top 43% for effort on the page. Each of the three is measured against the whole shelf separately, so the bottom figure is not the top two subtracted. It is this book’s own distance from the middle.

What the audio disadvantage is made of. Two things and no others: how fast readers say this one moves, and how demanding the reviews we read found it. There is no third: the structural one has no data source, so it contributes nothing rather than being guessed at. Both directions are declared priors we have never fitted against a real verdict, which is the weakest-evidenced part of the whole model.

Every book we could measure both features on placed by pace, fast to slow, against how demanding the reviews we read found it, plain to demanding: 166 of them. The easiest listens are the bottom left corner and the hardest the top right, which is the shaded one. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one reads faster than most books we hold and easier going than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the recording.
This one reads faster than most books we hold and easier going than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the recording.

How the call was made

Where a bar carries ticks, the grey one is the middle of our shelf and a coloured one is a line we publish, cool where we start backing the page, warm where we start backing the recording. The evidence squares at the foot are a different thing: how far each of our four sources went, hatched where there was nothing to measure at all.

The audio case
2.39It sits in the top 3% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the recording.
Narration payoff
0.80Michael Kramer’s reading is better received than the book it came from: in the top 11% of our shelf of books, on 5,450 ratings of the narration. This is a difference, not a score: it sets the reading against its own book, so a much-loved book with a merely good reading sits low on this shelf even where nobody disliked either. Asked the other way (how the reading stands against what the book’s own readers made of it, which is a different crowd rating a different thing), it comes out 0.48. We report that one and never score it: two crowds that do not overlap are held together by nothing but the standardising, which is a cost the figure above does not pay.
What is at stake
0.70It sits in the top 25% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: well enough regarded that a wasted first encounter costs more, so we lean towards protecting the page. Blended across 333,519 Goodreads ratings and 1,908 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.

For the page

  • The print crowds think highly of it

For the recording

  • The voice beats the book
  • An easy listen anyway
  • 5,450 listeners behind it

So the case for the recording won it clearly.

A bigger dot counted for more: the voice and the ear are sized by their share of the sum above, the other two by how much stands behind them. A hatched square is a reason that did not apply here, which is not the same as one that counted for little.

Evidence
1.00How much of the picture we actually have, out of 1.00: four questions, each answered as far as the source could answer it, less anything taken off for reading fewer reviews than we aim to.The reading5,450 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 1,908 readers there: as good as it getsThe matchHow sure we are that the recording we scored is this book: as good as it getsThe reviewsWe read 300 reviews to judge how demanding it is: as good as it gets

What each crowd complains about

In the reviews we read, how often readers brought it up and how often listeners did, each against what is usual for that same crowd across our whole shelf, which is the grey tick. The track stops at 4×. Listeners are only ever compared with listeners.

Neither crowd brings any of the three up more often than its own crowd usually does. Whatever this book asks of you, its listeners are not saying the format is what makes it hard.

What the two crowds said

Showing the stars as each shop prints them. The two crowds are not measured from the same place: on our shelf Audible’s listeners average 0.35 of a star above Goodreads’ readers, so a recording that is ordinary for Audible can still out-star a book that is genuinely well liked for Goodreads. Switch the toggle to take that difference off.Showing each figure as its distance from its own crowd’s middle on our shelf, in standard deviations, so 0 is a typical book for that crowd. Listeners start 0.35 of a star up, partly because anyone who finishes a twenty-five-hour recording chose it deliberately, and this takes that off. It is not a claim that audio is better, the story figure is still Audible’s own (people rating a story they heard), and none of it moves the verdict above.

4.72·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
80%5 stars: 80 per cent, 5,038 ratings
14%4 stars: 14 per cent, 881 ratings
4%3 stars: 4 per cent, 262 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 68 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 30 ratings

6,279 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.86+1.01 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
90%5 stars: 90 per cent, 4,906 ratings
7%4 stars: 7 per cent, 388 ratings
2%3 stars: 2 per cent, 100 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 37 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 19 ratings

How often this goes badly1.0% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. About typical for the shelf. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

56 of 5,450 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 90% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

5,450 ratings

4.72+0.74 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
80%5 stars: 80 per cent, 4,383 ratings
14%4 stars: 14 per cent, 751 ratings
4%3 stars: 4 per cent, 215 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 61 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 41 ratings

5,451 ratings

4.30+0.53 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
49%5 stars: 49 per cent, 162,125 ratings
36%4 stars: 36 per cent, 120,381 ratings
13%3 stars: 13 per cent, 41,807 ratings
2%2 stars: 2 per cent, 7,339 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 1,867 ratings

333,519 ratings

The series

Hoid's Travails

Still running

3 books numbered on Goodreads’ list. Book 3, The Fires of December, is due in 2026.

From Goodreads’ own series index, checked on 11 September 2026.

Every reading we hold

One complete reading of this book, and it is the reading every audio figure above is measured on. If there is another, we have not found it. The shelf grows in reviewed batches, never because somebody searched for a book.

  • Michael Kramerour pick12h 27m9h 58m8h 18m7h 07m6h 14m · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Performance 4.86 · Story 4.72 · 5,450 rated the reading · 1.0% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

1 other listing we set aside, listed with the reason for eacheach one is sold as this book and is not a complete reading of it
  • Full Cast, Chris Davenport, Crystal Lee, Torian Brackett, Wyn Delano, Eva Wilhelm, Natalie Van Sistine, Shanta Parasuraman, Bradley Foster Smith, Christopher Walker, David Cui Cui, Gabriel Michael10h 19m8h 15m6h 53m5h 54m5h 10m · 43 ratingsNot the whole book, only 91% of the full reading

The recording we mean

Runtime
12h 27m at 1×
Read by
Michael Kramer
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0D18D9L74 · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 692 + 4,758 ratings of the performance
Judged on
5,450 ratings of the narration
Published
Dragonsteel · 2024

Audible sorts a search by newest, so ours may not be the first one you are offered. The runtime is the check: if the one in front of you says 12h 27m, that is the reading these numbers describe. “Judged on” is the crowd behind every judgement we make about this reading: the smaller of the performance and story counts, which is why it is a little under the two shop counts added. We do not link out to a shop, and we take nothing if you buy there.