Tag Archives: audio

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Posted by melydia on December 20, 2013 None comments

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (unabridged audiobook read by Kirby Heyborne; 12 hrs on 10 discs): I’ve been meaning to read this for some time now, but when I saw on the cover that it had been blurbed by both Neil Gaiman and Scott Westerfeld, well, I decided I simply could not wait any longer. When San Francisco is attacked by terrorists, Marcus and his friends find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and immediately detained by the Department of Homeland Security, where they are interrogated and tortured. This terrible and unjust treatment motivates Marcus to try to beat the system, creating a separate and untraceable internet using a fictional XBox network. There’s a lot of discussion of how much privacy and freedom one can sacrifice in the name of security, and a lot of questions are raised about how many of these intrusive security measures actually make us any safer. I can see some folks dismissing the whole tale as far too paranoid, but I think it’s still an important book to read, if only as a starting point to a conversation about the larger issues of liberty and security and terrorism. I do not have any answers, but I appreciate any book that makes me want to learn more about the world around me.

A note on the audio: Heyborne is fantastic. That is all.

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Posted by melydia on December 17, 2013 1 comments

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix (unabridged audiobook read by Alyssa Bresnahan; 5.25 hrs on 5 discs): What happens after the glass slipper fits and Cinderella is whisked away to Prince Charming’s palace? In this story, “happily ever after” doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Ella, having spent so much time as a servant, is having trouble adjusting to the tight-laced bureaucracy of palace life. Worse, her regular meetings with Prince Charming are stilted and awkward, with no one showing any interest in her beyond her beauty. I liked this one. I liked Ella’s determination and practicality. I liked the lack of a fairy godmother or any other magical elements. Definitely one to pick up if you like fairy tale retellings.

A note on the audio: Besnahan was very talented, but sounded a bit too old to be 16. Admittedly, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed had the book been told in third person instead of first.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Feed by M.T. Anderson

Posted by melydia on December 13, 2013 None comments

Feed by M.T. Anderson (unabridged audiobook read by David Aaron Baker; 5 hrs on 5 discs): In a future America where the internet is inside everyone’s head, Titus and his friends are regular teenagers just looking for a good time. At a club on the moon during spring break, they meet Violet, a homeschooled outsider hoping to experience regular teenage life. After their feeds are hacked by dissidents, Violet’s feed begins to malfunction, and Titus must choose between this interesting girl he’s just met and his longtime but shallow friends. I’m not going to lie to you: Titus is not a good or admirable person, but he’s actually pretty realistic. He’s self-absorbed and wishes bad things would just go away and not bother him. I’m sure many of us have wished an inconveniently ill person could just “get over it” but unlike Titus, we readers have a moral compass reminding us that their trauma is not about us. This is a dystopia clearly inspired by the inanity of the internet; most of the characters talk like they’re on Tumblr. I found it an interesting and worthwhile read, but if you need to have some level of fondness for the main character in a book, this story will likely be pretty hard to take. If nothing else, it reminded me of the importance of empathy and kindness.

A note on the audio: I am so glad I listened to this one. The entire thing is written in dialect that would surely have driven me mad in print, but isn’t so bad to hear. (It helps that Baker is an excellent reader.) Also, the feed ads are done just like radio ads, which brings some extra realism to the story. I was kind of confused when they first cut in, because I thought maybe my CD player had switched over to radio accidentally or something, but a lot of the content is actually quite absurd and funny.

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

Posted by melydia on December 6, 2013 None comments

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas (unabridged audiobook read by Geoffrey Sherman; 16 hrs on 14 discs): Well, that was a real downer. People die, noble plots are thwarted, good men are sent to prison. The title is a little misleading, because surprisingly little of the book is about said man – the brother of the king, whom Aramis tries to install in his place from the very first chapter. I still love all four Musketeers, but this story seemed less about them and more about French politics. I think. To be honest, I had a lot of trouble following it. I kept confusing people, especially since most of the noblemen had two or three names each. It was nice to rejoin Athos, Aramis, Porthos, and d’Artagnan, but I would have rather spent the time with them off on adventures, and not as old men who barely see each other anymore. I suppose it’s not a bad way to round off your Musketeer collection, but definitely don’t start here.

This translation was not so great. I’m not convinced, even in Dumas’s time, that people would say “What does that signify?” instead of “What does that mean?” or “Do you comprehend?” instead of “Do you understand?” It made everything sound stilted and weird.

Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen

Posted by melydia on November 29, 2013 None comments

Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen (unabridged audiobook read by George Wilson; 15.75 hrs on 13 discs): When a couple of endangered voles are stolen, a disgruntled PR guy at a cut-rate Disneyland-wannabe discovers a sinister secret. Meanwhile, you have an ex-politician hobo, a gun-toting octogenarian ecoterrorist, a couple of bumbling thieves, a phone sex worker turned serious poet, and the mafia, all getting in each other’s ways. This book tries to be light-hearted and silly, and indeed most of the characters are pretty ridiculous, but it rubbed me the wrong way all the same. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of humor, but it didn’t hide the sometimes obnoxious preaching. This is only my second Hiaasen book, but the story is very similar: well-meaning environmentalists versus corrupt developers. The thing is, most developers are completely legit. It’s like, we’re against all this development and destruction of native lands, and oh hey, they just happen to be doing something illegal. How convenient. How contrived.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach

Posted by melydia on November 15, 2013 None comments

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach (unabridged audiobook read by Sandra Burr; 10.5 hrs on 9 discs): I have never wanted to be an astronaut. The notion of having nothing between you and the vacuum of space but a thin wall is absolutely terrifying. I don’t want to worry about using the toilet while weightless or eat food from a tube or go weeks without bathing. I am also prone to motion sickness. That said, it’s still interesting to read about the challenges involved in propelling man out past the atmosphere. I liked a lot of the history, but unfortunately the majority of the facets of space life covered here have to do with vomit and feces. I understand how important those two things are in these sorts of conditions, but it got really old. Not something I’d recommend to the casual reader, but if you’re hoping to become an astronaut, it could serve as a much-needed warning for what you’re getting yourself into.

A note on the audio: I dislike Burr’s fiction narration intensely, but she reads nonfiction like this very well.

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

Posted by melydia on November 8, 2013 None comments

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (unabridged audiobook read by Elizabeth Sastre; 12 hrs on 10 discs): Every time I read another Thursday Next book I figure that’s the last one I’m going to bother with. Not because they’re bad – they’re actually rather charming – but because there are so many literary references that I feel I’m not really appreciating them as much as I could be. And I don’t want to bother with the prerequisite reading to catch up. Anyway, this is the third book in the series, and Thursday has settled in an unpublished novel for the duration of her pregnancy. At the same time, she is training to become a Jurisfiction agent, dealing with the memories of her eradicated husband being erased, and raising two young generics trying to figure out what kind of characters they will become. She is visited by her grandmother (and it just occurred to me that it was never fully explained just how old Granny managed to travel into the book world), deals with footnote spam, and attempts to solve the murder of several of her fellow agents. The whole thing is actually quite a lot of fun, and there were points when I laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. I don’t know that I’ll necessarily continue the series, but I won’t rule it out either.

I would like to note that the unpublished novel in which Thursday stays is no longer unpublished – the story eventually became The Big Over Easy. I actually think my having read that book first made this one more enjoyable, since I knew the nursery rhyme characters would sooner or later be infiltrating the generic detective story. It was also fun to see the plainer origins of the often zany characters from that series.

A note on the audio: This may be better in paper form, since so many of the jokes are in the forms of footnotes and misspellings, but Sastre was up to the challenge and I never felt confused.

Gulp by Mary Roach

Posted by melydia on October 22, 2013 None comments

Gulp by Mary Roach (unabridged audiobook read by Emily Woo Zeller; 8.5 hrs on 7 discs): This is a tour of the entire digestive system, end to end, from cat food tasters to fecal transplants. It’s told mostly with a sense of wonder, with the occasional bit of juvenile humor (because come on, really). The breadth of information is vast and most of the anecdotes are fascinating, but all in all I just could not get over the Ick Factor. As interesting or funny as the text was, I found I could not eat during any portion of this book. The mere mention of gastric juices was enough to put me off my breakfast. Still, it remains – as with all of Roach’s books – an unexpectedly enthralling survey of a subject you likely never gave much though to before. I just didn’t come away with the same desire to read more about any of the case studies presented because, you know, ick.

A note on the audio: Zeller’s decision to do character voices for the real people in the book was a little strange, but it didn’t detract from the narration. I just wonder what the actual people thought of her “impressions”.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco

Posted by melydia on October 4, 2013 None comments

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco, translated by Geoffrey Brock (unabridged audiobook read by George Guidall; 15 hrs on 13 discs): 60-year-old Yambo, an antiquarian book dealer, wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. He remembers everything he’s ever read, everyday things like how to shave, and a certain amount of history, but all his personal life experiences are gone. He doesn’t know who anyone is, or how anything tastes or feels, or any other memory with an emotional component. The first portion is largely a string of literary references that build on each other through word association. Eventually he returns to his childhood home to read old schoolbooks and comics in order to rediscover his own identity. His memory returns very gradually, so you have to be in it for the journey, not anticipating some Big Change at any point. To be honest, I was bored for a lot of this book. I didn’t understand a lot of the references, especially later when most of them were to WWII-era Italian propaganda. The amnesia concept was fresh – rediscovering tastes and smells, for example – and the actual memories turned out to be quite interesting, but for the most part I felt like I was slogging through a bunch of navel-gazing for which I had no context. I also never figured out what caused him to get the amnesia to begin with, but that may have been revealed at a time when I’d glazed over. I am quite certain many people would quite enjoy this book, but I appear to not be one of them.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer

Posted by melydia on September 20, 2013 2 comments

And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer (unabridged audiobook read by Simon Jones; 10.5 hrs on 9 discs): As a longtime fan of the series, I approached this book with some trepidation. After all, I had pretty lukewarm feelings about Colfer’s Artemis Fowl books. I am pleased to report that I was not disappointed. This book is hilarious. And, in a lot of ways, it makes up for the rather disappointing end to Mostly Harmless. All your favorite characters are here: Trillian, Zaphod, Arthur, and assorted other characters. No Marvin, but I’m pretty sure something final happened to him in a previous book. The Guide notes are marvelous and I did quite a lot of laughing throughout the story. The ending wraps up more or less satisfactorily while still left wide open for any future installments. To be honest, I did not expect to recommend this book to fans of the series, but I definitely do. It’s a pile of fun.

A note on the audio: Simon Jones played Arthur Dent in the original incarnations of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, and indeed I read somewhere that he was Adams’s inspiration for the character, so it was pretty durn nifty to have him read this book. He also has joined Prebble and Vance on my list of beloved audiobook narrators named Simon.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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