What are we listening to? (audiobooks)

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I don't know whether to post this here, or in the V&R thread! Just finished reading (and TRYING to listen to) the 4th "Palladin's Legacy" book from Elizabeth Moon, Limits of Power. Narrated, HORRIBLY, by Angela Dawe. Who apparently never met a name she couldn't mispronounce. And the pacing was horrible and choppy. Really, why do publishers DO THIS?! They had tried two previous narrators, both of whom were reasonably similar and had obviously agreed about how to pronounce place names and characters names. But now they introduce an new narrator, who would have been awful even if she hadn't changed the pronunciation of every single name. Sigh.

On to the fifth (and final) book in the story arc -- Crown of Renewal. Which fortunately uses one of the narrators from the first 3 books in the series. Not, perhaps, the one I would have preferred, but at least she's better than Dawe.

I suspect that the narrator depends on availability, the publisher and to an extent the author's preference. I've noticed that most of the series that I listen to have the same narrator through out, while others seem to be whomever is available. The voice talent for the first 5 books (the 3 Deeds of Pak and the first two of your series) is an actress. A lot of character actors do voice work on the side.

I personally prefer the same voice talent for a series. You would think that whomever makes the decisions on that sort of thing would make every effort to keep the same narrator if they are satisfied with the narrator.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Who apparently never met a name she couldn't mispronounce.

My pet peeve. Nothing ruins an audiobook for me faster and permanently, unless it's just the odd one-off. And then I get over it. Eventually.

Originally Posted by CRussel

And the pacing was horrible and choppy. Really, why do publishers DO THIS?!

The production values for audiobook can seem to be nonexistent; it especially irritates me that there's frequently no apparent oversight and also an unwillingness to go back and fix errors even though they're corrected in subsequent uses. But I also agree that some of the so-called talent is dreadful, objectively speaking.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I personally prefer the same voice talent for a series. You would think that whomever makes the decisions on that sort of thing would make every effort to keep the same narrator if they are satisfied with the narrator.

I tend to prefer the first narrator I hear in a series; it's so jarring to have to readjust the voices in your head when there's a change. I try to reserve judgment and I also realize that there are a lot of factors especially with a prolific author; sometimes other narrators are easily good enough and I come around on them. And then you hit one that spoils it. Sigh.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by issybird

My pet peeve. Nothing ruins an audiobook for me faster and permanently, unless it's just the odd one-off. And then I get over it. Eventually.



The production values for audiobook can seem to be nonexistent; it especially irritates me that there's frequently no apparent oversight and also an unwillingness to go back and fix errors even though they're corrected in subsequent uses. But I also agree that some of the so-called talent is dreadful, objectively speaking.



I tend to prefer the first narrator I hear in a series; it's so jarring to have to readjust the voices in your head when there's a change. I try to reserve judgment and I also realize that there are a lot of factors especially with a prolific author; sometimes other narrators are easily good enough and I come around on them. And then you hit one that spoils it. Sigh.

I was somewhat surprised by how fast they can churn out audio books. According to this article, someone really good can generate an hour's worth of audio in an hour and 15 minutes. Someone with less experience who has to do multiple takes, an hour can take two or three hours to generate.

https://mentalfloss.com/article/5403...book-narrators

There was also an interesting video/documentary that got posted here a while back on how they do audiobooks at the audible studios.

I'm actually a bit impressed about how few audio books I run across where I have an issue with the narrator. I've got almost 750 audiobooks. While there are a few books that I think might have been better with a real top notch narrator, very few fall into the "this guy is so bad I don't want to listen to it" level. I tend to buy books based on the author, but I will buy books that I might not normally buy based on the narrator.

[SeaBookGuy]

I have a pal who loathes anything read by the late Frederick Davidson (aka David Case); there are others who dislike Scott Brick.

I did once contact a narrator about a word she consistently mispronounced, getting a reply that (the producer) signed off on the final product (blame them).

Currently listening to my oldest "virgin" Audible purchase Canoeing the Congo, which has turned out well.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

I have a pal who loathes anything read by the late Frederick Davidson (aka David Case);

...my second favorite narrator of all time.

Which is very lucky, as he narrates the Flashman books, Robertson Davies, the Sharpe books, P.G. Wodehouse and so on. I'd be sunk if I weren't a huge fan.

[CRussel]

My second as well. And favourite male narrator.

Charlie.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

My second as well. And favourite male narrator.

Charlie.

One and two are thisclose for me; pick 'em, in other words. Third is definitely third and is my favorite woman narrator.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I've just started listening to Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcom Gladwell. It is told in a unique format like a podcast. In other words, quotes from legal trials and news stories are narrated by the actual media sources or a re-enactment. I'm ambivalent about it so far. Don't love it but don't hate it.

From Goodreads:

How do we make sense of the unfamiliar? Why are we so bad at judging someone, reading a face, or detecting a lie? Why do we so often fail to 'get' other people?

Through a series of puzzles, encounters and misunderstandings, from little-known stories to infamous legal cases, Gladwell takes us on a journey through the unexpected. You will read about the spy who spent years undetected at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the man who saw through the fraudster Bernie Madoff, the suicide of the poet Sylvia Plath and the false conviction of Amanda Knox. You will discover that strangers are never simple.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by issybird

One and two are thisclose for me; pick 'em, in other words. Third is definitely third and is my favorite woman narrator.

Wanda McCaddon/Donada Peters/Nadia May is my favourite of all time. David Case/Frederick Davidson was second with Patrick Tull thisclose in third. And then Simon Vance. But lots of others for specific authors/series. But I think I could listen to Donada Peters read the London Directory and enjoy it.

[taosaur]

I'm on the last book of Gladstone's Craft Sequence. I was looking forward to the anticipated cast and setting hinted at in the previous books, but I'm struggling with the narrator, Adenrele Ojo. Her character voices are inconsistent, and she's constantly misplacing cadence or emphasis so that you have to reconstruct the sentence after she's read it to get sense out of it. It's sufferable, but disappointing, especially for the last book in the series.

[CRussel]

Currently listening to the first book in Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series, A Great Deliverance. The narrator is Donada Peters, my all-time favourite. This edition is no longer available from Audible, but was still available on OverDrive.

Charlie.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Currently listening to the first book in Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series, A Great Deliverance. The narrator is Donada Peters, my all-time favourite. This edition is no longer available from Audible, but was still available on OverDrive.

Charlie.

Oh, I'm quite enjoying this! I had read it 30 years ago, and I remember thinking that it would be better as an audio book. And sure enough, it's excellent as an audio book, and Donada Peters' understated narration brings it to life.

[SeaBookGuy]

The Observations by Jane Harris proved one of the best uses of an Audible credit I've run across in a long time; one of the few times where the author narrating her own book was a good idea.

[issybird]

I finally finished Trollope's fourth Barsetshire novel, Framley Parsonage, which I'm glad to say was much better than its predecessor, Dr. Thorne. While I prefer Timothy West for Trollope, this was narrated by Simon Vance; I suspect I had this because of WhisperSync pricing. Nothing wrong with Vance.

One reason I was slow with this was that I got in a listen to Madeline Miller's Circe, narrated by Perdita Weeks, in the middle of this. Most entertaining, although a few mispronunciations by Weeks irritated.

In my long-term quest to read (or listen to) all of P.G. Wodehouse in more-or-less order, I've started the first Jeeves novel, Thank You, Jeeves, read by Jonathan Cecil. I've got a lot of different voices in my head, what with narrations by Davidson, Vance and Cecil in addition to Fry and Laurie, but they're all good. The only Wodehouse narrator I abandoned was B.J. Harrison.

By the way, if you think a mention of the first Jeeves novel means I haven't got very far along, I'll note that it's number 51 on my Wodehouse checklist!

[pwalker8]

Finished up Gemmel's The Legend of the Deathwalker. The narrator did his usual good job. Just started Take a Thief by Mercedes Lackey. I haven't heard this narrator before, but so far, so good. I was debating between this one and Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher. I really need to sit down and re-organize my audiobooks again.