Dungeon Crawler Carl, Jeff Hays is fucking amazing.
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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World War Z is phenomenal as an audio book. Absolute all-star cast of readers with a great story, 1000x more entertaining than the movie.
Going to give a less well known book here, but figure some of Lemmy would appreciate it. Wrath Goddess Sing is a good book made amazing by a narrator who was actively working with the author.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry cause its read by NdgT
Gideon the Ninth. Hands down. The book is 100% strong female POV, which I usually like, but as dude, I was missing a lot of subtlety. My kid lent me their audio book and holy shit, Moira Quirk does an absolutely fantastic job. The characters jump right out of the speakers and into my brain, highlighting all the understated humor that I was missing. 10/10, wish I could hear it again for the first time.
I'm in love with Moira Quirk's voice, great suggestion.
Ooh I’ll have to try it. I loved the paper books
Tolkien’s work is wonderful as audio books just ‘cause they’re written like they should be presented as an oral history. Lots of editions exist out there.
I really liked Rob Inglis' read
Same!
No one has posted an example of one read by the author, so I will: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. Funny, insightful, and a truly incredible autobiography in his own voice and with full knowledge of all the languages he can speak.
Merlin Sheldrake reading his Entangled Life is one I've listened to numerous times. Delightful, educating. Always uplifting.
His pace is a little slow, so I listen to him at 1.10 or 1.15 speed.
That said, the content carries better with his voice as it is his experiences he's written about. And he's a decent musician
'Toast on Toast' read by Steven Toast.
Didn't know that existed but I'll download it right now
Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, read by James Marsters (Spike, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Marsters does a unique voice for most of the characters, and it's a treat. I repurchased Ghost Stories because the narrator had changed and the Marsters version was released afterwards.
Steven Pacey reading Joe Abercrombie's First Law series is outstanding. The books themselves are among my favourites, but Steven makes them even more special. He has different voices (and accents) for the characters and manages to stay consistent with them. His pacing is also excellent.
Came here looking for this. Was not disappointed 🙏
I listened to Dubliners by James Joyce narrated by irish actor Andrew Scott (Moriarty in Sherlock) and it was hands down the best narration I've ever heard.
I highly recommend Super Powereds by Drew Hayes, largely because of Kyle McCarley’s narration. They’ve been my “comfort books” for over 5 years, getting around 10 listens from me despite the series being ~179 hours. (I never listen at 1x speed, though.) He has a unique voice for every single character, which is frankly insane because there are ~65 recurring characters and over 150 total different speakers in the series. He makes it so easy to get into.
Also, there’s at least one mysterious moment where a character is not named. Thanks to the voice he does, audiobook listeners were able to conclusively determine which character that was.
Travis Baldree has also become a favorite narrator of mine. The Cradle series is great, and it just wouldn’t be the same without Travis’s performance.
Gilbert Gottfried reads 50 Shades of Gray
Fun story: my boyfriend and his sister used to live together and we'd all party at their place. After months of his sister crushing hard on this guy she worked with, she and him had gone to her room for some alone time. Her asshole brother decided that was the time to blast this audio directly through her bedroom door.
8 years later and they're still dating so I guess it worked.
Neil gaimon is always good with his narration. The audible books that include a full cast are absolutely superb.
Bonus points for nigel plainar as solo narrator for his discworld books. Does an amazing job.
Fun fact fyi, unlike Reddit, post titles are editable on Lemmy
Anything I've listened to with Ray Porter reading it. His intonation is great and just brings that something extra to the stories. In particular Project Hail Mary and the Bobiverse books. He also did Paradox Bound, which felt like a fine time travel story but his portrayal of the voice of the "faceless men" made the character 's menace come to life for me in a way I don't think would be captured in text.
Light spoilers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ54CpkUoaM
Dungeon Crawler Carl - Matt Dinniman
Audio - Jeff Hays
www.soundbooththeater.com makes some great works. Its fun to read the series and then hear Jeff do an excellent job afterward.
My copy of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, narrated by Stephen Fry. It is relentlessly british.
The version read by Douglas himself is also great
A stitch in time by Andrew Robinson. Written and narrated by the actor that played Garak on DS9.
I'm going to be controversial.
I think the best audiobook is text to speech.
I prefer to not filter any stories through an other person. I want the raw data from the book, without any other feelings and impressions added to the original.
Even when the author coached the narrator? I know of at least one audiobook where the author used the narrator’s voice to fill in what words on paper couldn’t
That sounds like a special scenario.
Tho I'm not sure if a book needs a narrator it can be still called a book instead of a theater piece or voice play.
It didn’t need a narrator, but care was taken to ensure a unified voice between author and narrator. Great audiobooks generally strive for something like that where the performance adds rather than detracts
Do you have preferences about which text to speech engine that you use?
I like Google tts. I tried Samsung's one and I just couldn't find a good pitch/tone that I liked from it.
AI readings are demonstrably terrible.
More butchery of the English language I've never heard.
This is why I said that I am going to be controversial.
Text to speech is only going to be better with time.
My most important preference is to have the text delivered without reader bias towards its contents. And that's only possible with computer speech.
Understood & I hear you. Some people's voices, candor and pace can put me right off listening, make me want the words without their voice. Unfortunately, with a well voiced & read book, I'll listen far longer than I can bring myself to focus on actual reading. Though reading the words makes them stick in memory differently, mostly better, than listening for me.
American Gods, full cast
And sandman. Kat dennings as death is perfection.
Luke Daniels and Andy Serkis both really bring that extra to the books they narrate.
That's the guy! Luke Daniels performs the Magic 2.0 books (i made another comment about this).
Dude could do (maybe does?) voice over work and make bank.
The Alan Partridge autobiography's voiced by Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge but I suppose you'd only like it if you'd seen enough Alan Partridge.
I'm a big fan of the legend of sleepy hollow on librivox read by Chip
Simon Vance is my personal favourite narrator. The Dune audiobooks have a cast of narrators/actors but I wish Simon voiced the whole books, he's amazing. The way he intonates adds so much to the text, but doesn't ever get annoying. His acting for the characters is great too.
He also narrated Scaramouche and I genuinely can't tell if I liked the book or his narration of the book.
Eduardo Ballerini reading Jess Walter’s The Cold Millions
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