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Originally Posted by Luffy
Well I have tried an audiobook. Only not for the entire length. I know what I like. That will never change.
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By and large, I'm with you; as I said before, audiobooks generally aren't my thing. That said, I do enjoy the occasional "read by the author" short story (especially Stephen King), and there are some things that you might call audiobooks and I might not. The
Doctor Who audios by Big Finish, for example - that's the only way the content is available, and they're full-cast "radio plays" with sound effects, music, and everything else. I enjoy those, but are they audiobooks? Similarly, Leonard Nimoy and John DeLancie have done at least two "Spock vs. Q" recordings that are similar to that in concept, but they're more stripped-down; it's pretty much them and two microphones. (IIRC, they were recorded at conventions as live performances. Not positive about that, though.) Fun stuff, and it wouldn't work the same on paper.
See, I'm a firm believer that while many (even most) stories work well in multiple formats, some stories only
really "click" in specific media. Some plot twists work best when the creator can control a camera or shade some descriptions; remember the
Twilight Zone episode about the "ugly" woman who spent the whole episode in bandages before being revealed as a conventionally beautiful woman? Then there's "Once More, With Feeling," that delightful episode of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer that's not only a musical, but one where everyone realizes it and reacts to the strange situation. It works on a variety of levels, but it only works
as a musical. Take away the music, make it a collection of words on a page, and it would lose a critical component of itself.
On the other hand, Stephen King's
It needs to be a printed book; the time-shifts in the climactic part of the story (where the 1958 and 1985 stories are woven together) only work correctly if you're reading written words. I suppose it
might work as an audiobook, but only if you use either a single reader or a cast where the same voice actors handle the same parts in both times. I watched the miniseries, and while it faithfully rendered the scenes it depicted, it left out
so much stuff...
But I digress. My point is, now that I've heard King read a couple of his stories, I hear his voice in my head when I read his nonfiction, including his prefaces and afterwords...even his tweets! I feel his inflections in the text, and that adds a dimension that I didn't have before. Yes, I still prefer to
read his stuff...but I'm glad I listened to him enough to gain that benefit. I'm also glad I got to hear the "Spock vs. Q" material; reading a transcript just wouldn't have been the same. If I'd closed myself off to audio material, I would've missed out on some things I enjoyed very much.
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Originally Posted by Luffy
I think I'll lose something and gain nothing if I try eating beef/pork/insects/ or enroll for a reiki course or give a chance to The Expendables 3 or use emoticons for all of my posts, or learn a new language via Pimsleur (shudder) or spend my weekends speed dating instead of reading at home, or watch the oscars or lift weights instead of going for a jog etc...
I have only one life, and I want to spend it being me.
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I'm strongly tempted to refer to sewer rats and pumpkin pie here, but I get the feeling you wouldn't know the reference. Let's just say I had some meats-and-pineapple pizza for dinner, I look forward to eating the leftovers over the next couple of days, and I'll leave it at that.
Oh, and of course I'm sure someone will point out that you could listen to an audiobook while going for that jog...so obviously I don't need to say it, right?
