9 posts tagged “audio book”

After watching the movie adaptation, I obviously went back to the source and listened to the audio version of Stardust written by Neil Gaiman. At the same time I also looked at the illustrated book.
 
This is a really good fantasy/fairy tale for adults. There are many scary scenes in this book, but it also contained many light hearted scenes. The style in which this is written is very poetic. I usually don't care much about that style, I am not a literary guy, but in this book it really works.
 
I think listening to it read by Neil Gaiman made it even better, it jus

t sounds really nice. There are so many characters in this story, all of them memorable. However many of them have a very small role, sometimes they are introduced and never seen again. I do wish that they would either have a bigger role, or just not introduced at all. Their presence wasn't really needed for the plot.
 
Another little problem at the end, I though it was weird the way Tristran dealt with his real mother, Gaiman didn't go into that at all, not even a brief mention.
 
Other than that, I thought this was a very good story, and the illustrations by Charles Vess were also excellent. His style is the quintessential fantasy art in my mind.

 

7th Son was the longest podiobook I've listened to. This is a trilogy series, but I started listening only when the 3rd book was already started. So I worked my way through the first two books quickly, then caught up with book 3 and listened every episode as soon as it was released.
 
The different listening frequency really affected my enjoyment of the books. I really liked the first two books, it started very mysteriously, with a great concept of 7 clones. I was hooked immediately, wanting to know more about their past.
 
During the first two books we learn most of where they came from and the people that were involved, with many interesting and shocking twists. In the meantime we also got a few "action scenes" that ramped up the tension even higher.
 
However once the 3rd book started, the only mystery left was John Alpha's plan, so the majority of this last book was more about fast paced action and people being killed. At this time I basically lost the passion for this story. I was still interested in it, but the weekly (sometimes 2-3 weeks) frequency really dampened my interest, and I just wanted to know how it finished. I just wasn't invested in it anymore.
 
To make things worse, there a lot protracted final action "scene" which I almost didn't pay attention to, except to remember who died and who didn't. Once that was done, I thought we'd either get more surprises (maybe a final twist) or the book would be over. Instead we get a few more chapters of... nothing much. I didn't really care about the details of the cover story, and although the funerals were nice they could have been shorter.
 
In hindsight I wish I only started 7th Son after it was all done. I probably would have enjoyed the last book better.
 
Still, this is a good thriller/mystery novel. JC Hutchins did a very nice job with the production quality of the audio files, and his voices are very well done. I'd recommend this to anyone, now that the story is finished.

 

Ever since the end of book 4 I've been waiting for things to change dramatically. Instead nothing much happened in books 5 and 6, simply giving us information about the character's past.
 
However book 7 definitely delivered on my expectations, making this my favorite book of the series by far. First of all this has the best beginning of a novel, no more of that slow build up or slow catching up with the characters. It starts pretty much with a bang, and continues like that throughout the book.
 
The search for the horcruxes really brought us some great action scenes, it almost felt like a Mission Impossible story. The ministry, the bank, the capture, etc... Finally lots happening with the 3 main characters at the heart of it.
 
But it's not all just action and tension, we also get the usual information about the past, this time about Dumbledore's past. It was clear that the truth was different from what was published in the Rita Skeeter novel, so the resolution to that thread was expected.
 
But the main focus of the book is obviously Harry's journey. I really liked the final revelation about his destiny, though I am not clear on why he didn't die. But the final duel with Voldemort was very gripping, I couldn't stop listening to the audio book until I was done.
 
I thought the explanation of what master of death means was pretty clever (not afraid of death). Severus' real intentions are finally revealed, and they are pretty much what I suspected. Only I thought that Dumbledore would not be dead.
 
This is not a perfect book though, I had a few minor problems. Hagrid is a little bit too dumb, which is something that bothered me throughout the books. Dumbledore should not have entrusted him with so many responsibilities. Also it didn't feel that there were many members of the Order of the Phoenix, which is absurd since they were against an army of Death Eaters. Speaking of which, I thought their infiltration and take over of the Ministry was way too quick. For 2 years they did nothing, and in just a few weeks they're controlling the whole country. But these are minor problems.
 
Some bigger problems I found: I still don't see why Harry couldn't tell the Order about the Horcruxes, not why Dumbledore didn't tell Harry everything about his plans. I know this is very typical of fantasy novels, but usually there is a satisfying explanation as to why the hero can't be told everything. In this case I didn't find the explanations satisfying.
 
Also the connection between Harry and Voldemort is too convenient. V should have done something to severe the connection, or suspect that Harry would know about his plans. At the end it was almost as if Harry could go in and out of Voldemort's mind as he pleased.
 
Another big problem for me are the Deathly Hallows. In the end they weren't that important after all, even though they made a big deal about them. Adding the hallows to the horcruxes was a little bit confusing to me.
 
Such a big battle was obviously goind to require many sacrifices, so I am glad that Rowling didn't back out of that. As much as I was sad about losing some favorite characters, it wouldn't have been logical not to.
 
I don't think the epilogue was necessary, it didn't add anything to what we knew about the characters and it didn't answer any dangling questions (I don't think there were any dangling questions, to Rowling's credit). It was just a "and they lived happily ever after".
 
This final book tied up all loose ends and threads of the series in an excellent way, I really liked it. However the series did not deserve to be that long, and all previous books were not very good. Some parts were excellent, but each book had many problems for me. I still believe Rowling could have written 4-5 excellent books instead of 6 mediocre to ok books, and one great book.

 

This is the book that contains the biggest surprise of them all. But I'll get to that later. First let's talk about the main threads running throughout this book.
 
SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!
 
The most interesting to me is Voldemort's past. Harry and Dumbledore finally spend some time together and work on Voldemort's past. A lot is revealed about him, culminating in the 7 Horcrux. I am obsessed about these books so I would have no clue what these could be. I will simply enjoy discovering them in the last book.
 
Another thread is what Malfoy and Snape are up to. I thought he wanted to kill Harry, but that was cleverly scrapped by Rowling when Malfoy didn't kill Harry on the train to Hogwarts. This mystery was an interesting one, but Dumbledore obviously knew about it, but he didn't tell Harry. I honestly don't see any reason why he wouldn't. He already admitted in book 5 that keeping things from Harry was a mistake.
 
There is also the titular thread about the half-blood prince. One thing I don't understand is why nobody thought that Voldemort could be him. Snape was an obvious guess but I never made it.
 
On a more light-hearted tone, we also get romantic relationships and love potions. I must admit I was convinced that Harry drank a love potion for him to love Ginny. In the end I felt a little uncomfortable about this relationship. But I am glad to see that Ron and Hermione are getting closer.
 
My biggest problem with this book is the same as the previous one. Voldemort spent an entire year doing... nothing. Again. His only plan was to kill Dumbledore, executed by a kid...
 
Which brings me to the big finale. As much as I like Dumbledore, I always had a problem with his seemingly infallibility (is that a word?). He seemed to know everything that was going on and to be impossible to stop him. The only thing keeping him from going up to Voldemort and killing him seemed his kindness. So the fact that he died at the end of this book was a total shock and surprise. Could he have been so totally wrong in trusting Snape? It seemed impossible to believe. But I did believe it and kudos to Rowling for that.
 
However, the more I think about it the more I change my mind. I know that the last book has been out for some time, so people already know. But I think that he is not dead, and that this was all a plan made with Snape. We'll see how wrong I am.
 
This is again not totally satisfying, but that ending was very good. Can't wait to finally read the ending.

 

After a very dark and promising turn in book 4, I had high expectations for book 5. I think they were somewhat met.
 
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
 
This was certainly an even darker book, which in turns meant much less "kiddie". I was obviously happy about that.
 
Unlike previous books, not all the story takes place in Hogwarts, which is again a plus for me. Not that I don't like Hogwarts, but we've seen that plenty before, so it was good to have a different scenery.
 
However, even the school was different this time around. For one thing we see Harry struggle with homework and exams, something that was obviously missing from previous years. I obviously related to that fear of catching up with homework and preparing for exams.
 
The other very important difference is that the Ministry of Magic was controlling the school with very strict rules. I really hated Umbridge, which means that she was a well developed character. Part of the success of the character is also due to Jim Dale's excellent rendition, especially her very annoying "uhm, uhm" sound. I liked that story thread, culminating in Dumbledore's leave. Though if I think about it too much I can't help but wonder how can anyone so stupid be the Minister of Magic.
 
But not all is good. I did find Harry very annoying, but not in the good tormented way. Yes, everything happens to him, but he can't lash out at innocent friends. His temper was out of control for no apparent reason. At one time I even thought that was the influence of Voldemort.
 
The fact that Voldemort was using Harry was obvious from the beginning. So that wasn't a big surprise. I also did not find the prophecy interesting at all. Voldemort spent an entire year just to be able to hear that prophecy, which wouldn't have been much help to him anyway!!
 
The death of Sirius was a way for Rowling to up the stakes even further, and I will be missing him. I liked that Dumbledore and Voldemort finally fight each other.
 
The penultimate chapter reveals all there is to know about Harry, his past, the prophecy (he is the chosen one!! How original). Now it seems that there isn't much else to reveal about his past, or is there?
 
This is the longest book so far, but I finished it much faster than book 4, which is indicative of how much I enjoyed this.

 

Starting from this forth book the number of pages is doubled. I am not sure this was really needed for this story, but this book is definitely a small departure from the previous one.
 
SPOILERS FOLLOW!!
 
The beginning of the book is already different, it shows us what Voldermort is doing, but it will be followed up only once before the big reveal at the end. What happens at the end is not really such a big reveal, we knew sooner or later V would return, ever since the end of book 1. The big mystery of this story is the reveal of the spy at Hogwarts.
 
Another big difference is that there is no quidditch cup, instead the Tri-Wizard Tournament takes place. This is obviously a different dynamic, although everything felt a little bit too obvious: Harry does participate, even though they tried to throw us off with the age limit. Also Harry does win in the end, even though he was helped unknowingly.
 
This story felt even darker than the previous books, especially the ending. The introduction of many new "foreign" characters was welcome, bringing a certain feel of freshness to it. There was the reveal of Hagrid's origins, as well as more background history on V and his previous attacks.
 
The return of V is very interesting and could potentially totally subvert the format of the first 4 novels. I hope Rowling had the guts to change everything in the next novel.
 
The increased length of the novel did not help my enjoyment of it. It took me a long time to listen to this book, partly because it was longer, but partly because I was even less interested, at least for the first 2/3 of it.
 
Now more than ever I am eager to read the next novel, I just hope it will not disappoint my high expectations.

 

I read the first Harry Potter book just before the film came out and though I didn't hate it, I must say it just didn't catch my interest. I thought it was a little simplistic, but not dumb. More suited to a younger reader, since I usually enjoy more mature stories. So after watching the first movie I stopped consuming anything Potter-related.
 
Now that the novels are done, I decided to read the books and watch the movies before I read some spoilers that will forever ruin my enjoyment of this franchise.
 
The format I chose to read these books is audio book, read by Jim Dale. Dale is a very good reader, his voices are absolutely brilliant, giving each character a distinctive accent or tone. I really enjoy his reading, he is a great choice for these books.
 
The second novel starts very slow and doesn't get to the main focus of the story until half way through. Before that there are many episodes that are basically self-contained, but that serve to develop the characters and introduce new ones.
 
So far I don't care much about these short episodes, it could be because I am not too familiar or interested in the characters, or maybe I just want to get to the story at hand. I don't want to read about the Nth quiddich match. It might be cool in the movies, but read on paper I really don't care about it that much anymore.
 
The main mystery was well developed and I always like it when a mystery goes back to the past, and gives us new information about certain characters. With this story we are starting to see the big picture.
 
I am still not blown away by it, but I am confident that sooner or later I will be. On to Prisoner of Azkaban now.

 

The Masha Chronicles is a dramatized audio book, with a complete cast of "actors". The story is very short, so the total running time is about 2-3 hours.
 
This is a mystery story, a somewhat lighter but also serious crime story. It starts with a murder, and it brings Masha from Kiev to Florida, with some strange people in between. There is also a love story, police work, spying and more. The ending was very satisfying, everything is revealed and it makes sense. No big twist endings, but a good mystery.
 
The voice acting is great, Masha has a great fake accent and her voice helps giving her character, something that might not have transpired through the pages alone. All other voices are also convincing and not forced.
 
The narrator is good as well, though it probably didn't require as much acting. However there is a big problem. This didn't seem to be well edited. There are many times when the narrator stumbles her reading, and re-reads that word. It is not her fault, everybody stumbles, but it should have been edited out. This recording is not professional, but with just a little more time it could have sounded totally professional. Also, sometimes the voices are out of the microphone range, so we don't hear the words clearly.
 
This is a great way to spend 2-3 hours of your time, each chapter is only 10 mins long on average, so it's easy to squeeze it in small breaks during the day.

 

Brave Men Run is a podiobook (an audio book distributed as a podcast), read by the author Matthew Wayne Selznick.  
“Brave Men Run” is the story of Nate Charters. Born different, unsure of his origins, he’s an outcast at Abbeque Valley High School, a self-proclaimed “boy freak” with few friends and low self-esteem. When the Sovereign Era dramatically dawns, Nate finds himself in a quest to discover the truth: is he more than he seems, a misfit in a miraculous and powerful new minority… or something else entirely?
 
This is not exactly a superhero story, but it is something very similar to the  superhero universes of Marvel and DC. In particular, this story reminded me of X-Men, when a teenage mutant discovers that there are more people like him, and some of them want to recruit him/her.
 
The same happens here, there are two opposite factions that want to take Nate and others like him. But mainly this story is about how Nate feels about himself, about his first love, his friends, and his past.
 
This is a coming of age story, as well as the beginning of a larger story about the Sovereign. Because of that the ending didn't feel completely satisfactory. The story of Nate's coming of age has a conclusion, but it is clear that we still haven't seen the larger picture of the Sovereign Era.
 
The author is intent on writing more books about the Sovereign, and I will surely be there when he does. 

http://www.bravemenrun.com