Narrators Make or Break an Audiobook

If you listen to audiobooks, you know what I’m talking about. The quality of the narrator can lift a good book to new heights – or bury it.

We all have our personal favourites, I’m sure, and our own preferences. My pet hates include male narrators who attempt female voices and don’t pull it off. In one book, the main character, who was supposed to be the holder of a PhD, sounded like a whiny bimbo because of the narrator’s ill-advised voices. It made it incredibly difficult to take her at all seriously. Women who attempt male voices seem to have more success, even when not brilliantly done. 

My other peeve is (and I apologise in advance to my American friends) American accents in high/epic fantasy books. I’m sorry, but it interferes with my suspension of disbelief when I hear an American accent in a setting I subconsciously associate with medieval Europe. I’m sure I’d have similar issues if the narrator was Aussie!

My favourite narrators are Simon Vance (he narrates Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer series) and Rupert Degas (who narrates Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles). If you are at all into epic fantasy, these are audiobooks worth checking out – the narrators do an incredible job of submersing you in the story.

Kate Reading has been an unexpected surprise. While I didn’t like her much in The Boneshaker (I found her reading clipped and containing an odd upward inflection) her accent is smoothed in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls, such that I became uncertain if she was American or British and which accent it was she was imitating (she’s American by the way). While not as good as Simon Vance or Rupert Degas, she does a good job on Paladin of Souls.

Sadly, I have developed a real dislike for her husband, and I apologise to him, for I am sure as a person he has much to recommend him. My dislike is based purely on his narration, which I think is ill-suited for epic fantasy, and perhaps personally on the fact I can’t abide what he’s done to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. While I have only listened to samples of those books, and some were better examples than others, I weep to think what beautiful audiobooks the series might have made in the hands of Degas or Vance.

Style of narrator will affect what you enjoy in an audiobook as much as the style of the author – but the fact a good marriage between two is required certainly complicates the matter.

Who are your favourite narrators and what books do they narrate?

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A is for Audiobooks: My New Love Affair

I recently saw two friends, Rob Zimmerman and Deena Schoenfeldt, talking about audiobooks. I was puzzled. When did they listen to them? How did they find the time? Audiobooks seemed to be more time-consuming than actually reading, since I can read a book in half the time it takes to listen to it, and I was already unsatisfied with the amount of time I had for books.

Rob said he listened while shovelling snow. Deena said in the car.

I live in Australia. No snow. I catch the train to work, and while I could certainly listen to audiobooks that’s my writing time. I do drive a bit, but mostly I have small, noisy kids in the car. No cigar.

Then, I suddenly found some snow I could shovel!

I walk from my car to the station, and from the station to my office, nearly half an hour each way, or an hour a day five days a week. I was listening to music, but since I prefer to sing while listening to music, and I couldn’t really do this walking in public, this wasn’t really ideal music listening time. Why not listen to an audiobook?

Once I found some time to use, I decided to give audiobooks a try. That was January 12. Since then I’ve listened to 7 audiobooks, in addition to another 3-4 books I’ve read in ebook format. It’s the most books I’ve read in a 10 week period in years, and I’m loving it. 

I started with listening while walking. Then it was while doing the chores, if the kids were in bed, and my husband was otherwise preoccupied. As books grabbed and held my attention, I scrounged for more time for the stories. While exercising at 5am in my house. Doing my exercises to repair my abdominal separation (a staggering 1500 of them a day). 

Then it was in the car, to and from the station or, even better, en route to pick up the kids from my mother in law’s, or home from my parents on a weekend evening, as both kids slept in the back seat – both trips of a good forty minutes. Finally, it was the gym. 

The gym was a good move. After nearly a year at the gym, and some 18kgs of weight loss (with ten still to go) my motivation was flagging. Audiobooks suddenly gave me a new incentive to go - if I go to the gym, I can listen to the book, I told myself. Now I celebrate the nights I go to the gym – I can find out what happens next! 

I am not addicted. Honest. Just a little in love. 

This is an A to Z Blogging Challenge post. For more information about the challenge, check it out at A to Z Blogging. If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to check out my previous posts if you haven't already. If you're finding yourself here often, you might like to join as a member, sign up to the blog through RSS or email, or sign-up to my newsletter. Check out my March Newsletter if you missed it.  

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