SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Best and Worst Audiobooks and Narrators
Books that are better as Audiobooks
Interpreting books - print, audio, and translation

We have lots of threads about audiobooks, but sometimes you might have a general comment that doesn't fit in any of them. Enter the audiobook chat! You can still start new threads about specific audiobook related topics, and if your comment fits one of the existing threads, do post in those instead.

I really wish that authors, producers and narrators communicated more during the process! Pronunciation of names and any potential fictional language is a huge thing, especially if the narrator changes. And of course the pronunciation of regular English words :)

Examples:

Soulless by Gail Carriger is narrated by the lovely Emily Gray. In the first book, she says the name Akeldama wrong. Carriger let her know the correct pronunciation for book two, but why on earth didn't they do that before she started recording book one?! Other names in the extended Parasolverse are pronounced differently by different narrators, which also drives me crazy. Just lately the novella series related to the Finishing School series, featuring the girls after they leave the school, has my favorite narrator (and author) Emma Newman pronouncing one of the characters "wrong" in one of the books. Carriger and Newman had a discussion about it when she was ready to start narrating the next book, and they decided to keep the "wrong" pronunciation, so that the sub-series would stay consistent. I understand why, but I don't understand why they didn't do this earlier! I know that they talked about this very thing when Newman narrated her very first Carriger book in another Parasolverse sub-series.

https://gailcarriger.com/2017/01/27/r...

"Romancing the Inventor is read by the incomparable Emma Newman. Emma is a killer narrator with a beautiful soft-and-proper British accent, a fantastic author, and a wonderful human being. Her voice is lovely and she was particularly good about both the lower class and the french accents in Romancing the Inventor which were important to me. We had a consult about pronunciation, so all names & Parasolverse words in the book are pronounced how I would pronounce them. If you don’t like it, blame me, not Emma."

They did all this work the first time, why not when they moved onto another series?! (I can't find the bit about the latest audiobook on her blog, I think it was in a newsletter.)

I enjoyed this discussion by Asian audiobook narrators awhile back. At one point they talk about not wanting authors to direct them. :/

https://youtu.be/UVKaR5ttKjg

Interesting! I must watch that when I have an hour to concentrate.

Well I watched a good chunk of it already, and it's so weird seeing a bunch of super familiar narrators narrating on video! I never imagine the people in the booth, but from now on maybe I will? I've listened to several books by all of the narrators in this panel, and of course they're reading from The Bone Shard Daughter, which I listened to, so it was all kinds of cool :)

The part where they talk about not taking artistic direction, I get it! If they were paid for it, then sure, but we'd have fewer audiobooks by these narrators, because they'd spend ages on one book.

How cool to hear about how some of them also produce their own work.

Also, EWZ's speaking voice is so different from her narrating voice! If it hadn't had her name/face, I don't know if I would've recognized her speaking, but I can always recognize her narrating, as she has a very specific style. (Which I really like and some really don't.)

edit: I'm listening to the part about pronunciations now :)

I found the 'Trust us to know how to do our job' element of the argument interesting considering that they also ask authors to let them know if a character will play a larger role in future books so they don't give them a silly voice. Like, why do they need to know the character arc for them not to give them a silly voice? I don't like silly voices even if it's only used for one line. Maybe they really do need some direction...

I get the point about being paid for the job even if the author isn't happy with the final product though.

I think the silly voice thing was about how sometimes, if there's a large cast, the narrator tries to make the characters sound different, and someone who only has a tiny part can be read in a voice that isn't natural for the narrator, but they wouldn't use that voice if they had to read a longer text. But they also want to keep it consistent across the series, so it'll help to know these things. It makes all the sense to me! It's not necessarily a silly voice, but maybe a bit higher or lower than they're comfortable doing for longer periods of time.

I also don't like silly voices, but the best narrators can make characters stand out from each other by some kind of acting magic :)

I enjoyed this panel, thanks! :)

I need more threads to post panel links into!

Yes, I need all the links! Start a thread!

I don't know about artistic direction, but some publishers encourage / require interaction between authors and narrators. I've recently had opportunities to participate in the process, and it went something like this: Narrator produced a fifteen-minute "test run" for author and publisher to listen to. This produced a comment (from publisher) that narration could be a "little less dramatic" -- to which narrator responded with a re-do of the test that all agreed was better.
Narrator then produced a list of names, words, acronyms, etc. where he had questions about pronunciation. Author and publisher responded with answers. Narrator also asked questions about how certain characters should be voiced. Example: "this character is supposed to be from the southern U.S. -- do you want a mild southern accent or should I go full Foghorn Leghorn?"
Narrator then proceeded to the complete narration and delivered the entire novel to publisher and author -- both of whom listened to the entire thing and came back with a few minor corrections, which the narrator fixed. Then, and only then, was the complete work sent to Audible for publication.
Not saying all narrators, authors, and publishers work this way (nor would I guarantee the process is foolproof), but I doubt that any publisher just turns the manuscript over to a narrator and accepts the result without review or question.

I finished an Audible book last night, and today I got an email from Audible with the title "Anna, [book name] was rated by [number] people" and it's asking me to review the book. I've never seen an email like this before, is this something they happened to send out today and that book's listed because it's the last one I finished, or are they going to start asking me to review every book like GR does with Kindle books? (I hate it.)

edit: typo

You should look at your notification settings. The "Rate and review" looks like the one to uncheck.

I finished 3 Audible books in the last 3 weeks, and I didn't get anything like that, Anna. One of them was yesterday, and I'm listening to a 4th now. I'll check back in if I get anything like that.

Maybe there's a setting that was updated and needs to be revisited?

Anna, I also don't get those emails for Kindle books. Not sure if that's because I don't BUY Kindle books, (mostly library) but I do have KU and actually occasionally use it, and I have no review request emails at all for anything I've read. TONS AND TONS of "loan expiration" emails though. *DELETE ALL*

It could just be that I happened to fit a certain profile they were sending this out to?

Is this different from when you finish the audio on audible or the book on kindle and immediately asks for how many stars?

Yes, an email about 24h later 🤷🏻‍♀️

hm ... I never got any emails like this for neither audible nor kindle.

I have never received any emails either, and I always rate my audibles and never rate my kindle reads so it must not correlate to that.

If that's an attempt at gleaning login details then they've picked the wrong fox to try.

Haha it’s a real Audible email. I get them on occasion, but I’ve never seen one before that asks me to rate a specific book. It’s usually more along the lines of ”hey you have credits, wanna buy one of these?”

I don’t get GR emails, I have those settings turned off, what I meant was the notification (on GR) after you mark a Kindle book read. I just checked and it’s actually not a review request, it’s a ”wanna share your highlights?” notif. Shows that I’ve never actually read those notifs 😅

OMG, Audible wish list dates are in European format! :o When did they change? I can of course "read" US style dates, but I hate sites where I can't change the format, because I shouldn't have to interpret basic stuff like this. Did they change it automatically based on my location?

And I can *finally* sort my wish list based on release date! Excellent!

Audible, I forgive the email if this is what I get in return!

edit: Now if only I could remember why I wanted to look at my Audible wish list?

edit2: How sad is it that the ability to sort something by date is such a great improvement that it's the highlight of my week?

My Audible date format is still the US one, so it looks like it is based on your location.

Otherwise, I feel your pain. I'm so used to it now because my company uses the international format, and a lot of our clients use 24h clock time, so I constantly have to convert those mentally.

Oooh The Hobbit and LOTR read by Andy Serkis are on sale for $6 each right now! :D

I'm also used to it, but I prefer not to have to do it :D I'm fine with DD.MM.YYYY (this is what we use) or YYYY-MM-DD (sorts beautifully), but the US format is so illogical that I really don't like seeing it :P

But wow, how nice of Audible/Amazon to make a positive change for once! ^_^

Anna wrote: "I'm also used to it, but I prefer not to have to do it :D I'm fine with DD.MM.YYYY (this is what we use) or YYYY-MM-DD (sorts beautifully), but the US format is so illogical that I really don't lik..."

But how does knowing the day matter unless you know the month first??? 😬

That makes no sense! :D In logical order please, from smallest to largest or vice versa, no scrambling allowed!

Logical order, agreed. So day, moon phase, month, season, astrological location, year, and Law & Order SVU season and episode number.

It's the only way that makes sense.

lol, that sounds like it covers all the bases! XD Obviously time should also be in the middle. October, 3pm, the 15th, in 2022, the next Tuesday.

Yes. You are correct.

LOL

Anna wrote: "YYYY-MM-DD (sorts beautifully)"

This is my favorite format. We should all use this format world-wide. :) When typing, I've gotten in the habit over the past several years of just using the short month name. Like Aug 26. That way it’s clear no matter which format people are used to. (Assuming they speak English of course, but since that's the only language I can communicate in, the rest of my message wouldn't make any sense either.) If the day is between 1-12, too much chaos can happen if somebody misreads your date as the flipped version of what you intended.

Oops, we’re supposed to be talking about audiobooks, right? Umm…. The Gospel of Loki. I’ve been listening to it for 3.5 months! I like the narrator. The story is so-so. I just haven’t had a lot of audio listening time, or at least I haven’t made the time. I have 3.5 hours left out of 10, so I figure at my current rate of progress I should finish within a couple months!

YKK, I very much agree! International communication is much easier when you use the name of the month, short or long form.

(Good luck with Loki, I hope you get rid of him soon!)

I’ve recently joined some virtual challenges in an effort to be more active and get in a shape that isn’t “nebulous blob”, and I’ve been listening to audiobooks while I walk. It’s been great! I’m on my 19th audiobook since June. 😁

Wow! That’s great, Becky! I enjoy audiobooks while I’m walking too.

Thanks Diane! 😄 I usually walk at night when it’s cooler and that definitely makes it interesting sometimes! The other night I did 4 miles while listening to Cibola Burn.

I was walking along, one earbud in as normal, fully absorbed by the story, when I hear this scratching sound and see a dark shape running toward me in the darkness. I stop walking immediately and rip my earbud out, heart pounding because I thought it was a stray dog charging me… and THEN I can hear the woman profusely apologizing for her dog trying to get at me, and her putting all her weight into holding his leash so he can’t get to me.

Turns out, I startled her dog first and didn’t notice, and HE was like “STRANGER DANGER!! I’LL SAVE YOU MOM!!” And then I only heard him coming when he dug into the street with his nails to reach me.

Then *I* started apologizing for startling her dog and explaining that I was in audiobook land, and didn’t even notice them, and I felt really bad. (In my defense, they were on the other side of a cross street and were walking perpendicular to me, so if her dog hadn’t noticed me, we’d have likely passed as ships in the night, completely unaware of each other.)

I’ve encountered this lady and her dog before a couple times on my walks and her dog (a beautiful brindle pittbull mix) is the SWEETEST boy normally… but I didn’t stop to pet him. I figured he probably wouldn’t assume I was safe if I approached at that moment. 🫣 I’m still 99% stranger, and he’s a good boy protective of his mama. Best not test our very limited friendship when he’s on edge. I’ll still pet him next time I see him though. Assuming we don’t scare each other again. 😅

Cibola Burn was great though! I really need to finish the series!

Anna I also got an email when I just finished an audiobook yesterday!

Maybe it’s a very new program they are trying?

It took me a long time to get through Eyes of the void on audio - harder to find time until the kids are back in school (ehich just happened!)

I have several new Audible books waiting for me, thanks to the many recent sales, so I'll have to start (and finish) one of them to see if it happens again.

I too received an.audible email. Never had before after 5 years of using it. Now the question is how to get off the list.

I haven't had a second one, although I did finish another Audible book. I hope it's a one time thing.

edit: And there should be an unsubscribe link at the bottom :)

https://www.libbylife.com/2024-06-03-...

Article on Libby about best narrators.