Thanks, gmw. I took the link and checked out TextAloud and, other than it being Windows only shareware with a short evaluation period and a premium-based price ratchet, it looks pretty good.-) I might look around for some Free Software in this area, to give me an idea of where the technology is these days.
It would be nice if you could specify the voice you want. Say, a gravelly-voiced middle-aged male from Melbourne for your male protagonist, etc. Or maybe sample your own voice and use that. Or ...
Maybe with the technology being used by
VocalID we might be able to soon. They don't offer speech-to-text as such, except in that they offer the chance for speech-impaired people to have their own unique voice.