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Recently, I've been listening to the Merry Gentry series on audio. Most of the books are read by Laural Merlington, who apparently does a fair amount of voiceover work and acts. Regardless of your opinion of Laurell K Hamilton's recent writing (though I have recently enjoyed the Merry Gentry series much more than the recent Anita Blake, I haven't been able to muster even the desire to read the most recent two Anita novels) the first books were fine, they weren't spectacular, but not awful either. However, as the series went on the readings got progressively worse. Merlington apparently decided that all men growled and her pronunciations of certain names was questionable which was annoying. Then I bought Swallowing Darkness, the most recent of the books. It was read by Claudia Black. It was also about 1000 times better than any of the other books in the series. I can only hope that upcoming books continue to be narrated by Claudia Black, or at least someone who can give an equally good performance.
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No, I'm just pointing out that I've seen this exact topic at least, what, 4 times in the past year? I've participated every time- now including this one I guess.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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The narrator for the Percy Jackson books is TERRIBLE. It's the only audio book set that I've considered discontinuing because of a bad narrator.
On the other hand, His Dark Materials is fantastic. And Neil Gaiman does a fairly good job of reading his own books (Graveyard Book).
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: This exact topic has been discussed multiple times. I mean, I'd love to tell you my favorites as well, but I've already posted them.
The search button is your friend.
I actually did use the search function, but it brought up a ton of different threads and after looking at several, none appeared to be what I was looking for, so I gave up. I find that the search function on this board is not always very useful. The kindle thread that I added to was found using the search function though, so I can sometimes find what I'm looking for.
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andi, with regard to that particular issue, do you think it helps when the recording includes an entire cast of actors, rather than a single person?
I've been wondering about that for some time. I think I prefer a single reader: Whoever read Columbine had the exact tone and cadence I wanted.
I found the Redwall audiobook on the local library website, and it had an entire cast of British voice actors. Their accents affected my ability to understand the text more than I thought it would, and sometimes the transitions between different actors were awkward, but I assume the voices would have remained consistent between the books.
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I actually think that's a whole other ball of wax. In fact the only audiobook series that I enjoy that uses multiple actors is the Ender series, and that's because they change in sections.
Now, dramatic audio, like a radio show with all the sound effects, that I can enjoy if the actors do it well, but it's not the same as a cast of actors just reading the book. Not so much a fan of that.
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