the world has moved on

For the past several weeks (maybe months), I've been using my commute time to listen to audiobooks. Rob has an audible.com subscription that he wasn't really using, and I have about 90 minutes of car time every day, so it seemed like a good way to catch up on my "reading". After finishing with a David Sed@ris and quitting in the middle of a collection of classic short stories that was ruined by one of the worst narrators ever, I decided that I would give S+ephen King's Guns1inger series a go. I had tried to read the first book of the series about 2 years ago, but couldn't get into it. I thought maybe if someone was reading it to me, it could hold my attention more.

The first hour or so was a little rough--long on description, short on action--but after that, the story started to take me. Over the next weeks, I ran through the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th books driving to and from work, and by the 4th book I was going on long walks just to have more time with the story. I was hooked, in large part due to the narrator--he was fantastic. His regional accents sounded true, his characters had distinct voices that stayed the same every time they spoke...he even did women well. Over the 72 hours I spent listening to these books, these voices were as familiar as people I talk to every day.

In the fifth book, they changed narrators, back to the guy who did the first book. I didn't think much of it when I bought the audiobook, but now that I'm about an hour in, it's a jarring experience to hear the characters speak in different voices. His voices for Roland and Jake are passable, but he can't seem to get Eddie or Susannah (or even Oy) worth a damn. A lot of times, I can't make a distinction between the voice of the narrator and Eddie...if he's doing a New York accent, I can't hear it. And Susannah doesn't really sound like a woman. I was so disappointed in the car this morning that I almost cried.

Once I got to work, I looked at the reviews on audible.com and noted the general agreement with me, and one that acknowledged that listeners would miss the voice of Frank Muller for the first hour or so...due to his "sad absence"? This got my curiosity up, and a quick Google came through with this. Disabled by a motorcycle accident in 2001. What a tragedy...he had such talent.

I'm going to go ahead with W0lves of Calla, give George Guid@ll a chance to warm up a little. After all, I've already bought the audiobook, and he had a tough act to follow. Maybe he'll get better as the book goes on. If he still doesn't grab me by the end, though, I'll finish the series in real-book form.