What are we listening to? (audiobooks)

[sgoldin]

I just finished listening to Jack McDevitt's Seeker, the third of his Alex Benedict books. As with the first two, this is a mystery involving sifting through tons of data to solve a problem that goes back a long, long time (9,000 years, in this case). I found it engrossing.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Currently reading Bad Blood by Dana Stabenow, read by Marguerite Gavin. As always, Ms. Gavin is very much the voice of Kate Shugak, and I'm enjoying the book a lot. In spite of the snerkers I've read.

Finished. Very well done, as always. But quite a shocker at the end.

[covingtoncat73]

I'm listening to The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill and really enjoying it. Dr. Siri is such wonderfully sarcastic, funny, and wise character and the details of the specific time and place (1976 Laos) are involving and there is political satire and historical fiction as well as the mystery.

The Last Werewolf was good with another world-weary, sarcastic main character. I love those. I'll look up the sequel to TLW when I get my next Audible credit.

[Marrella]

Originally Posted by sgoldin

I just finished listening to Jack McDevitt's Seeker, the third of his Alex Benedict books. As with the first two, this is a mystery involving sifting through tons of data to solve a problem that goes back a long, long time (9,000 years, in this case). I found it engrossing.

I love the Alex Benedict series. I also have this in audio, a very good narration too. My favorite so far was Polaris. Haven't listened to Echo and Firebird, but I own those two in paper.

I have recently finished the Blackstone version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which I can recommend. Also finished Stephen King's 11/22/63. Competent narration and the story kept me interested, though I think it could have been a little shorter in the middle part.

I am now listening to Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men, the first book in the Tiffany Aching series (set on Discworld, but not a "classic" Discworld novel). I have read the book ages ago and finally wanted to pick up the series again, so I got myself the audiobook at Downpour.

I am also listening to The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan. I am enjoying it, but since somebody here returned it to Audible because he hated it, I'd say it's not everyone's cup of tea. I tend to like Kiernan's stuff, this is not the first book of hers that I enjoy (I have already listened to Threshold and The Red Tree which made me come back for more).

[pwalker8]

Finished up the Compleat Enchanter by L Sprague De Camp, Murder and Magic, the first Lord Darcy book by Randall Garrett and Blood of Amber, the 7th Amber book.

The Compleat Enchanter was one of my favorite books. The audio book version is actually the complete Compleat Enchanter - i.e. it's the omnibook version with all four of the Harold Shea stories (The Roaring Trumpet, The Mathematics of Magic, The Castle of Iron and the Wall of Serpents). The reader was more of a reader rather than a voice actor. It is perhaps not as engaging as a good voice actor, but still quite listenable. I enjoyed it.

Murder and Magic was very well done. The voice actor did well and the stories have aged well. The book is a series of short stores set in an alternate universe where magic works and King Richard is not killed by the crossbow man, but rather returns to England and establishes a successful line of kings that continues to this day, controlling an empire stretching from France, the UK and the New World. There are two more books in the Lord Darcy work, one a novel the other another set of short stores. I have already purchased the next book. Well worth getting.

The Blood of Amber was also quite good. Will Wheaton is well suited to these books and is an excellent voice actor. Since I hadn't read the book ahead of time, it's a bit of a different twist for me. Most audiobooks that I listen to, I've read the book first. Definitely recommended.

I keep a play list of audiobooks that I haven't listened to yet. That allows me to listen in the car without having to mess with my iTouch looking for the next book when one book (or even worse one part of a book) ends. It also lets me set up what I'm going to listen to, alternating between different types of books, so I don't get burned out on a given author or style. For example the last two books that I've listened to in the car have been The Compleat Enchanter and The Blood of Amber. I just started Fair Game by Patricia Briggs. I also sometimes listen to audiobooks at work, but that's only when I'm doing what I call grunt work, i.e. repetitive tasks that don't really require much thought.

[SeaBookGuy]

I'm going through the Nero Wolfe canon on audio, recently finishing Champagne for One, which I didn't like and could've easily skipped; now I've moved on to The Red Box, which seems like a rather long setup for the actual mystery, but I'm loving Michael Pritchard's voice as Nero!

[Marrella]

I still haven't finished The Drowning Girl which is heavier stuff than the other two books by Kiernan I have listened to (even though I like it). So here are the most memorable story podcasts I have listened to recently:

The Country Doctor by Steven Utley. I love Utley's Silurian Tales, so I thought I'd give this story a try, and it turned out to be very good too.

http://www.drabblecast.org/2013/04/1...ountry-doctor/

Also listened to Starshipsofa #125, featuring Lady Witherspoon's Solution, which turned out to be a rather delightful steampunk story. I also liked the the narration of this one quite a bit.

http://www.starshipsofa.com/2010/03/...-james-morrow/

Today, I listened to a more recent episode of Starshipsofa, The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Theodora Goss, which told us that monsters have feelings, too.

http://www.starshipsofa.com/2013/02/...theodora-goss/

[CRussel]

Reading On Basilisk Station by David Weber, read by Allyson Johnson. This is the first book in the Honor Harrington Series, and it's an excellent book. Sadly, however, it's a horrible reader. The pronunciation of key words is totally wrong, and the accents given various characters are inappropriate and quite jarring. I'm going to finish this book,but I doubt I'll be able to read the rest of the series.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Reading On Basilisk Station by David Weber, read by Allyson Johnson. This is the first book in the Honor Harrington Series, and it's an excellent book. Sadly, however, it's a horrible reader. The pronunciation of key words is totally wrong, and the accents given various characters are inappropriate and quite jarring. I'm going to finish this book,but I doubt I'll be able to read the rest of the series.

Don't give up, she improves a lot as she goes along. I was a bit annoyed with her reading on the first book as well, but either I got use to her or she got a lot better.

[ApK]

I gave up on the HH series, not because of Johnson, whom I liked, but because of the style and content. It reads too much like a War College text book too much of the time. In military space adventure novels, I want my politics and statistics in much smaller doses. I saw some thread here where the HH series was recommended as series to attract the interest of young readers...my eyes are still rolling.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by ApK

I gave up on the HH series, not because of Johnson, whom I liked, but because of the style and content. It reads too much like a War College text book too much of the time. In military space adventure novels, I want my politics and statistics in much smaller doses. I saw some thread here where the HH series was recommended as series to attract the interest of young readers...my eyes are still rolling.

Yeah, I know what you mean! This is especially true in later books in the series, where he needs an editor with a much heavier hand. But I can mostly just glide over that when I'm listening to a book, though I will have to see if I can with this series.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Reading On Basilisk Station The pronunciation of key words is totally wrong,

If you are referring to her pronunciation of "Manticoran" there is this note in Audible's book description:

"A Note from Author David Weber
There's been some confusion—not to say, um, energetic debate, readers and fans being readers and fans—about the correct pronunciation of "Manticoran." The truth, alas, is that a stitch was dropped. An error occurred. A mistake was made… and it wasn't Audible's fault. It was mine. Before Audible recorded the very first Honor Harrington book, narrator Allyson Johnson and I not only corresponded by e-mail but actually spoke to one another by phone. She wanted to make absolutely certain she had the correct pronunciations for names, places, star nations, etc., and I tried to make certain all of her questions were answered. And so they were. Unfortunately, at some point in the process, I replied to one of her e-mails by telling her that "Man-ti-core-ahn" was pronounced "Man-tik-er-ahn." Exactly how this happened is more than I can say at this point, except to blushingly disclose that the original e-mail remains intact, confirming to all the world that it was, indeed, my fault. I can ascribe it only to a temporary mental hiccup on my part and crave your forgiveness. If, however, you must blame someone for the mix-up, that someone should be me and not Audible, who have done everything they could to get it right."

[CRussel]

Well, that at least explains HOW it happened. It's so glaringly wrong and jarring that it does detract from the book. But really, that's only a small portion of my complaints. I mean, really, do we think that people in this future society speak with Savannah accents? Or some of the other inappropriate voices. However, I'll probably try at least one more. We'll see. I've got a lot of books on my list already, so I don't feel a compelling need to waste a credit on this, especially given that I have all of them in eBook format.

[Stephjk]

Just downloaded my first audiobook, some Marian Keyes chicklit. For some reason my library will only lend ebooks on a streaming basis but is happy to allow downloads of audiobooks!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Stephjk

lend ebooks on a streaming basis

What does that mean?