Friday, July 5, 2019

078 Audiobooks

Memory Lane
  • Grandmother and Great Grandmother reading from fairy tales and folklore
  • Story records listened to while drifting off to sleep
  • Sterling Holloway reads Aesop's Fables and Peter and the Wolf. (Downloads!)
  • The Hobbit!
  • The mp3 revolution

What makes a good book for audio?
  • Short, focused chapters (partly for when you lose your place, and you will)
  • Not too many characters/viewpoints ("big" fantasy problematic, too many proper nouns)
  • Relatively straight forward chronology (not a lot of time shifts)
  • Series are great!

What makes a great reader? 
  • Voice that's authentic to period, region, etc. (e.g. Nick Offerman/Twain)
  • Displays an understanding of the material – feels connected to it (e.g. Marsters/Dresden, Dale/Potter)
  • Clear enunciation, correct pronunciations
  • Pitch, partly a matter of taste but too low/high may prove challenging
  • Good pacing (though somewhat mitigated by player speed controls)
  • NOT necessarily voices, except for consistency of

Audiobooks for my "Top" lists:
Note, most of these are just "fine." If they are better or worse, I made note of it.
  • Starship Troopers - Lloyd James 
  • Forever War - George Wilson 
  • Hammer's Slammers - Stefan Rudnicki (low voice, hard to parse?)
  • Princess of Mars - (lots of choices!) Macleod Andrews, Scott Brick, Jack Sondericker, Brian Holsopple, Mark Nelson (Librivox)
  • Zothique - Reg Green (Ziggurat productions, sound fx make it a little challenging)
  • Coming of Conan the Cimmerean - Todd McClaren 
  • The Hobbit and A Wizard of Earthsea - Robert Ingles (really good; when he sings, he sings like an Englishman in a pub, not a performer)
  • Once and Future King - Neville Jason (good!)
  • Dying Earth - Arthur Morey 
  • Two Sought Adventure (Swords Against Death) - Jonathan Davis 
  • The Broken Sword - Bronson Pinchot (good!)
  • We - Grover Gardner (good)
  • Brave New World - Michael York 
  • 1984 - Simon Prebble (good!)
  • Fahrenheit 451 - Tim Robbins (ok), William Roberts (better)
  • Logan’s Run - Oliver Wyman (eh), William F. Nolan (ok)

Some One-Offs I Enjoyed (title, reader)

  • A Dimension of Miracles, John Hodgman 
  • The Martian, R.C. Bray
  • I Claudius, Nelson Ranger
  • High-Rise, Tom Hiddleston
  • A Clockwork Orange, Phil Daniels
  • The Stars My Destination, Gerard Doyle
  • Who Goes There (The Thing), Steve Cooper
  • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Nick Offerman
  • The War of the Worlds, Simon Vance - also 
    • Dune
    • Sherlock Holmes
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Eaters of the Dead
    • Kim
  • At the Mountains of Madness, Edward Herrmann
  • The Lies of Locke Lamora, Michael Page
  • Sirius, Nigel Carrington
  • Shogun, Ralph Lister
  • A Christmas Story, Dick Cavett
  • Pavane, Steven Crossley
  • The Jungle Book, Peter Batchelor
  • Tales from the Perilous Realm, Derek Jacobi
  • Roadside Picnic, Robert Forster
  • Carmilla, Elizabeth Klett (Librivox)
  • 2001, Dick Hill
  • hereg, Bernard Setaro Clark
  • The Bloody Chamber, Richard Armitage & Emilia Fox
  • The Hot Rock, Jeff Woodman
  • The Day of the Triffids, Sam West or Roger May
  • Endurance, Simon Prebble
  • The Cyberiad, Scott Aiello
  • Necroscope, James Langton
  • As You Wish, Carey Elwes (and other cast members!)
  • The Lost World, Glen McCready
  • Dark Matter, Jeremy Northam
  • The Scarlet Pimpernel, Ralph Cosham
  • A Christmas Carol, Jim Dale
  • Alien (novelization), Peter Guiness
  • The Big Sleep, Ray Porter
  • Homeland & Exile, Victor Bevine
  • Beowulf (Kennedy translation), Charlton Griffin

Some Aubiobook Series I Enjoyed (title, reader)
  • The Lord of the Rings, Robert Ingles (also Earthsea)
  • The Dresden Files, James Marsters (rough start)
  • The Expanse, Jefferson Mays
  • We Are Legion (Bobiverse) - also Prism Pentad, Ray Porter
  • Jeeves & Wooster, Cecil, Lambert, Davidson, et al
  • All Creatures Great and Small, Christopher Timothy
  • Harry Potter, Jim Dale
  • Bosch 1-5, Dick Hill (also Dragonriders of Pern trilogy)
  • Nero Wolfe, Michael Pritchard

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