Audio book quibbles

[jennythereader]

I'm listening to Eddings' book Pawn of Prophecy at work today, and as much as I like the story, I'm finding the audio version very irritating. The reader is using different accents for the various nationalities, which is fine, but he's not using them consistently. For example, the Sendars will at some times be given a vaguely German accent, at other times a kind of Irish one, and at still other times a sort of generic rural English accent. He's doing similar things to the other nationalities. It's distracting and annoying.

The reader is also doing the same thing to Garion that a lot of voice actors do to children's voices. In trying to make himself sound young he ends up sounding whiny, even in scenes when the character shouldn't sound that way.

Comments

[dustkitten.livejournal.com]

I'm no fan of audio books. I think the only one I enjoyed, in terms of voice acting, was Tim Curry doing one of Anne Rice's. Tim Curry could read me the phone book, though. :D

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I listen to them at work. It helps the day to go faster than nothing, and seems to keep me in a better mood than music all day everyday.

My favorites seem to be done with 2 or 3 readers, and be more like a radio play then just a straight reading. Some even have background music and sound effects added.

[dustkitten.livejournal.com]

I'm a music person, myself, as well as being a book person, so music all day works for me...either way, really. :D

I've been thinking about getting into the Doctor Who audio plays because Adam has like allll of them, but I'm really weird about reading anything non-canon lately.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

It's odd. I used to be able to listen to music for days at a stretch, and I'd always put a CD in when I was reading. The last year or two though, I've gotten irritable if I keep my music on for more than a couple of hours at a time.

[dustkitten.livejournal.com]

It's probably the way your brain is processing the information. I find I'm reading differently than I used to at this time in my life. It's less devouring, more paying attention. Instead of reading quickly as a fast-paced movie, not letting myself think, I'm analyzing or guessing what happens next. That comes from having to read a lot in school, probably, but it could also be in part just the growing up process and wanting to get more from what I'm reading.

So, say, if you were reading differently now, your brain may not want to process that background information, you know?

I'm TOTALLY making this up off the cuff, but it SOUNDS plausible, right? :D

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it sounds plausible. I should do some research on it, find out if things like that do happen.