The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Literature => Topic started by: SilentRoamer on January 16, 2015, 11:26:11 pm
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I have tried listening to a few Audiobooks.
Ugh....
The dialogue sections are awful, the native accents of the speakers all seem to be this type fo affected american accent that I can't place. Maybe it's just me but I don't think I would ever be able to listen to a serious book on audio, it's like half the story is interpreted for you.
Thoughts?
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I have come to embrace audiobooks completely -- to a large extent because it's the only reliable way for me to get my fiction fix. There are good audiobooks and bad, true. In my own case, though, I find that, with good audiobooks, I go with it, because they're good; and with bad audiobooks, I kind of listen 'through' the narrator, bypassing him/her.
In most cases, though, I find that I end up liking even narrators I didn't originally take to. Last summer I started the epic project of listening to the entire Wheel of Time series, and at first I didn't like the narrators -- American, when I always prefer English narrators for fantasy, and just not voices I got into at first. But after umpteen thousand hours of listening, I've come to like them. The fact that they have a man narrating the male pov sections and a woman narrating the woman pov sections is actually pretty great, even though it introduces all sorts of problem (voices sound different, names are pronounced differently, etc). All those problems, though, have smoothed out for me, so I hardly notice them and they don't bother me.
Anyway... Maybe the best narrator I've heard (that I can remember, anyway) is the guy who does Martin's books. (Well, all except Feast for Crows.) I forget his name, but he's amazing. Especially by the second and third books, when he's really hit his stride in terms of voices and characterizations. For instance, he gave Tyrion a very distinct accent, and at least in later books, he has Jaime speak in a way that is very similar only much less pronounced. It's quite subtle, if I remember right, yet it was clearly a conscious decision. Really impressive.
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I just started ttt audio book yesterday kinda hate the 70 minutes of the what has come before, just start chapter one and love the voice he does for mek but since dialog scenes are so rare in Bakker I'm reserving judgment until I hear more voices. Pronunciation of wacky names and places is sort of aggravating how wrong I've been, for example it is kelus not kellhoose. That's a huge adjustment, dropping the h sound in kellhus
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Pronunciation of wacky names and places is sort of aggravating how wrong I've been, for example it is kelus not kellhoose. That's a huge adjustment, dropping the h sound in kellhus
I had the same reaction -- but from the horse's mouth. I remember a hungover breakfast with Scott in London when we started talking about the books. He pronounced Kellhus "Kellus" and I was like, "WTF?!" Though of course I didn't say anything.
Now I've learned that it's a totally normal way to pronounce that sort of name, but at the time it seemed weird.
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Lol - too funny, delavagus. There was one member of the writing class in '11 who burned through every Bakker title up to Disciple during that semester and he used to get so upset when Bakker pronounced his Pronouns - which, to be fair, Bakker did maintain were simply his perspective and by no means canonical.
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Well, Bakker isn’t the best pronouncer himself. Did you see his youtube reading where he pronounces meme as mayem and some ass laughs at him?
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We might be talking about the same guy, funny enough. The only reason I'm not on the audio there is because I had to come back to school for fall semester :(.
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It really depends on the reader. Some readers are extraordinary and can actually end up making a superior product than the book on its own. The fellow that reads The First Law books, Steven Pacey, is one such man.
Accents for different character/races/genders are huge, but so is pacing, pauses for character POV changes, inner monologue vs conversation tones, etc, are all also important. Its difficult for a reader to get all of these things done perfectly, and if you are picky, you'll be hard pressed to find one worth listening too.
Some books, like the Dune Sage, are done by a cast of readers, which can be helpful, but also come off of even more ridiculous if/when voice actors change between books.
Unless the reader is masterful, audiobooks are better for shorter books, or books with few POVs. Large, complex books with lots of POVs make for a tough audiobook that isn't likely good enough for you to want to listen too.
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I have tried listening to a few Audiobooks.
Ugh....
The dialogue sections are awful, the native accents of the speakers all seem to be this type fo affected american accent that I can't place. Maybe it's just me but I don't think I would ever be able to listen to a serious book on audio, it's like half the story is interpreted for you.
Thoughts?
SR, I don't like production cast thingies--just give me one reader and the dialogue works for me.
New audiobook recommendations:
Ready Player One - it's the dystopic future where the only good thing is a Matrix like gaming reality. the uber-wealthy creator of it dies and leaves all his fortune to whoever can find 3 keys buried in the game. this dude was obsessed with the 80s so even though it's like 2040, everything 80's comes back into style as the world mulls over how to find the wealth--one kid starts to figure it out...
Blood Meridian - Richard Poe reads the fuck out of this book. listened to it, finished it, had to listen to it again immediately
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hey y'all! just figured out a cool trick to get books from audible.com free/super cheap
1. go to amazon and get some old classic book on kindle, i just downloaded Treasure Island for $0
2. go to audible and search for the same book
3. Treasure Island's audiobook dropped to $0
4. PROFIT
may require you to have an audible account, but that's no problem. sign up for free, get a credit worth 1 book, then cancel your account before 30 days are up. they will probably offer you free stuff to stay on, but if you cancel your account, you will still have a library with them you can use whenever you want, and you can renew whenever
plus they have crazy good sales like every month or so and a daily deal that is probably worth getting like once a month
AND you can return any book at any point (with 12 months of purchase) no questions asked. i don't know what they do to keep from getting scammed, but it's a pretty sweet deal. :)
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Awesome new audiobook recommendation!!!
Welcome to Night Vale
You must LISTEN to this book to really enjoy it. Take X-Files and make it have a threesome with Douglas Adams and HPLovecraft. This book would be the love child of that threesome. It's fundamentally comedy but so unique WOW
Can't remember if I recommended this--The Dimension of Miracles. Read or listen to this and you'll wonder if Douglas Adams plagiarized it. He says he didn't read it, i love Adams, i trust him, but...WOAH can't believe this book came out BEFORE the Hitchhiker's Guide.
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Awesome new audiobook recommendation!!!
Welcome to Night Vale
You must LISTEN to this book to really enjoy it. Take X-Files and make it have a threesome with Douglas Adams and HPLovecraft. This book would be the love child of that threesome. It's fundamentally comedy but so unique WOW
Can't remember if I recommended this--The Dimension of Miracles. Read or listen to this and you'll wonder if Douglas Adams plagiarized it. He says he didn't read it, i love Adams, i trust him, but...WOAH can't believe this book came out BEFORE the Hitchhiker's Guide.
A book that survived The Unholy Consult hangover! must be very good.
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Awesome new audiobook recommendation!!!
Welcome to Night Vale
You must LISTEN to this book to really enjoy it. Take X-Files and make it have a threesome with Douglas Adams and HPLovecraft. This book would be the love child of that threesome. It's fundamentally comedy but so unique WOW
Can't remember if I recommended this--The Dimension of Miracles. Read or listen to this and you'll wonder if Douglas Adams plagiarized it. He says he didn't read it, i love Adams, i trust him, but...WOAH can't believe this book came out BEFORE the Hitchhiker's Guide.
A book that survived The Unholy Consult hangover! must be very good.
:) it was good for a change of pace - can't stop thinking about TUC though. ESPECIALLY WHEN I'M PLAYING POKEMON GO
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Awesome new audiobook recommendation!!!
Welcome to Night Vale
You must LISTEN to this book to really enjoy it. Take X-Files and make it have a threesome with Douglas Adams and HPLovecraft. This book would be the love child of that threesome. It's fundamentally comedy but so unique WOW
Can't remember if I recommended this--The Dimension of Miracles. Read or listen to this and you'll wonder if Douglas Adams plagiarized it. He says he didn't read it, i love Adams, i trust him, but...WOAH can't believe this book came out BEFORE the Hitchhiker's Guide.
A book that survived The Unholy Consult hangover! must be very good.
:) it was good for a change of pace - can't stop thinking about TUC though. ESPECIALLY WHEN I'M PLAYING POKEMON GO
Pikachu is the No-God and have been deceiving the Consult all this time....