-Ender's Game -Ender's Shadow -Shadow of the Giant -Shadow of the Hegemon -Shadow Puppets -Speaker for the Dead -Children of the Mind -Xenocide -Hart's Hope -Sarah -First Meetings -Magic Street -The Worthing Saga -Lost Boys -Angles and Other Stories
There are also a few of the Alvin Maker series and An Open Book, plus Maps in a Mirror out there, but I haven't yet found them in unabridged format, and I won't listen to books in abridged format. Actually, The Crystal City is in unabridged format, but I won't listen to it until the rest of the series is available in unabridged. You lose too much of the good stuff!
I've listened to all the unabridged titles I could find, except for the newest releases,(which I haven't got to yet), and YES, they are definitely excellent. In particular, anything narrated by Gabrielle DeCuir and Stephan Rudniki will rock your socks off. They're great readers. I'm pretty pleased with most of the readers in OSC's books, actually, although sometimes Scott Brick sounds a little too smarmy as Bean for my liking. Otherwise, they're some of the finest audiobooks I've ever "read," and I am quite an audio nut!
I get almost all of my audiobooks from www.audible.com . You can get a monthly membership there for $15, which gets you one free book per month and steep discounts on additional purchases. I've had nothing but great experiences with Audible - I highly recommend them! You can download books either to an iPod or similar device, or burn them to CD.
If you decide to sign up an account there, please put my name in as the person who referred you (if they have such an option). My username there is compuhund.
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I'm not a huge fan of Amanda Car. She stretches out the ends of most sentences to make them sound kinda... wiiiinneeyyyyy. Stefan Rudnicki though, is the best in the business for my money. He did a new one this year, "March Upcountry" which is a three part sci-fi series, and his narration makes it worth listening to even where the narrative is a little repetitive. He is just so... HUMAN!
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Yeah, I agree about Stefan. He's amazing, and what a voice! He could be one of those guys who does movie trailers.
Gabrielle DeCuir is still my favorite. She gets so theatrical, but not in an overblown kind of way. The scene in Ender's Game where Valentine goes to visit Ender on the lake makes me cry every time I hear it, mostly because of her reading style (but also because it's brilliantly written, of course).
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I've listen to a few of his books on CD and I've loved them. I'm a huge audiobook fan now. Getting a poor reader is enough to ruin a book for me, but most any professional reader does a great job.
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There is a marvelous audio collection of his shorts The Elephants of Posnan And Other Stories by Orson Scott Card
The man himself reads the eponymous story and Feed the Baby of Love. My favorite is Roddie McDowell reading FatFarm, however.
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Mr. Card does have a lovely reading voice, and lots of "interest" in his voice, too. Nothing is worse than a droning, monotonous reader a' la Michael Kramer. (Kraemer?)
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I would say it "changes" the experience some, but not in a bad way. I had read Speaker for the Dead, for example, before I listened to it on audio. I loved reading it, but I think I liked the audio version even better. I would definitely try it with a few books. Sometimes they can be pretty spendy, but most libraries have audiobook sections where you can check some out.
quote:Originally posted by Mneighthyn: I have never used audio books before but I always thought I would lose a lot by hearing the story rather then reading it myself.
My question is, does one lose or gain the experience of the book by hearing it versus reading it?
I enjoy the dramatic impact of skilled readers. But, I'm one of those people who occasionally goes back a paragraph to re-read a sentence, and that is more difficult to do in an audio-book.
Posts: 1099 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Mneighthyn: I have never used audio books before but I always thought I would lose a lot by hearing the story rather then reading it myself.
My question is, does one lose or gain the experience of the book by hearing it versus reading it?
I agree with Dead Pendragon. It's just different - neither better, nor worse. It IS thoroughly enjoyable, in my opinion, when you have good readers performing the books.
I work alone for a good 90% of my job, and so I get to listen to anything I want while I work. Because of this, I listen to more audio books now than I read. Audio has actually allowed me to remember more of the story. I guess my head's just wired that way.
It's a fun experience. If you want to try it, I definitely recommend OSC's books. They have some of the best production values I've encountered in audio so far.
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