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Audiobooks in the Honorverse

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Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by Ensign Re-read   » Sun May 11, 2014 2:07 am

Ensign Re-read
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Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:24 pm

For some reason, I've become used to reading "Dead Tree" versions of Honorverse stories (with the occasional eBook thrown in).

BUT... When it comes to the Safehold series, I've been listening to them via the CD Audiobook version.

I recently came across a copy of OBS on CD, and just had to pick it up. I may be listening to it later in the week.

Over in the Safehold series, one of the issues is the constantly changing readers from one book to another.

* Can anyone state what the situation is like for the Honorverse Audiobooks?
* Have they kept the same reader(s)?
* Is one better or worst (in your opinion) than the others?

Tanks, ERR


.
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The Celestia "addon" for the Planet Safehold as well as the Kau-zhi and Manticore A-B star systems, are at URL:
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/weber/.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/68506297@N ... 740128635/
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by thinkstoomuch   » Sun May 11, 2014 8:21 am

thinkstoomuch
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For the Honorverse the mostly have the same reader. Allison Johnson. The Shadows books and Crown books use a different reader I think.

For a write ups follow the link:

All Weber
http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_it ... rchsize=50

It shows each narrator and if you click one read the authors note.

I love them.

Have fun,
T2M
-----------------------
Q: “How can something be worth more than it costs? Isn’t everything ‘worth’ what it costs?”
A: “No. That’s just the price. ...
Christopher Anvil from Top Line in "War Games"
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by Ensign Re-read   » Sun May 11, 2014 6:34 pm

Ensign Re-read
Commodore

Posts: 763
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:24 pm

I inserted the first disk into iTunes, to "Rip" it for playing on my smartphone, and was very disappointed by the results.

The Gracenote Database had ZERO information already input. What gives? I REFUSE to believe that I am the first person to rip the OBS book into iTunes, and customize the data.

Doesn't ANYONE else have the wherewithal to click "Options">>"Submit CD Track Names..." ???

I understand how people can type in inaccurate information, or how a newbie can type in "On Basilisk Station01" instead of "On Basilisk Station", and leave the track information to its own data field. But come on people... (and I likely don't include this forum's readers among "people"), why oh why can't individuals take the extra step of submitting the data to Gracenotes???

ARRRRR!!!

(insert above growl by "Worf")



.
=====
The Celestia "addon" for the Planet Safehold as well as the Kau-zhi and Manticore A-B star systems, are at URL:
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/weber/.
=====
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68506297@N ... 740128635/
=====
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by marcus   » Sun May 11, 2014 8:21 pm

marcus
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the books are originally produced by audible then sold by brilliance months latter on cd. so most of the ripped version are by those who know how to convert audible files

for tagging use

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/david-weber/ and cut and paste as needed
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by strapakai   » Mon May 12, 2014 8:59 pm

strapakai
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Posts: 24
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:31 pm

Madeline Bazard read the first HH books I listened too. I liked her. Then, she was replaced by Barbara Rosenblat. She's okay. It just that I had to get use to her style of reading.
I've listed to the later books read by Allyson Johnson. She has a wider range of accents than Madeline and Barbara. Her 'Honor voice' is close to what I imagined it to be. She also pronounces the majority of the words the way I think they should be.

I've also listened to Shadow of Saganami read by Kevin Pariseau. He took a lot of getting use to. The way he pronounces Manticore is unique. His female voices are a bit annoying. However, once I got use to him, I enjoyed his reading, and especially his Grayson accent.
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by yannosh   » Tue May 13, 2014 3:20 pm

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I'm pretty sure all the ABs I've got are by Allyson Johnson. And as far as I'm concerned she is superb. And that comes from the guy who can't stand 90+% of AB narrators.

Also, I have fond dreams of flaying Kevin Pariseau alive. The dolt managed to mispronounce EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. AND. NAME in Croatian.
(well, excepting Split, and I'm darkly sure he would've managed that as well if it wasn't pronounced the same in english)
=-.--.--.*.--.--.-=

Ceterum censeo Foedam solariam delendam esse.

Even the best in the world cannot measure up to a dozen highly motivated good-enoughs.
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by infocynic   » Tue May 20, 2014 3:43 pm

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I've listened to all the mainline Honor books and Worlds of Honor books on audio, and Allyson Johnson is a very good narrator. I do a lot of audiobook listening, and it did take me a while to get used to her for some reason, so much so that I switched to reading the ebooks after listening to On Basilisk Station. (I went back and listened for a re-read, after convincing my local library that they wanted to buy the CDs. :))

She has some trouble now and then with words that she probably didn't think she needed to ask David and/or an editor about. Most notably, I recall one of the WoH books where she consistently mispronounced "Terran" as Tuhr-ahn (ryhmes with "on"). And once in a mainline Honor (a later one too, I think 12 or 13) she read "Delta V" as "Delta Five," which is understandable, but a little shameful for someone who's read as much science fiction as she has.

Overall though, she does a fantastic job with the series, keeping character voices consistent from book to book, and even adding little touches like reading the parts where certain characters rely on a slower means of communication at a pace that really feels like it's correct, instead of just reading along at full speed. (I can't remember how these are written in print, maybe the passages are written with ellipses?)
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by Commodore Oakius   » Fri May 23, 2014 10:45 am

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I have to say my first exposure to HH was listening to War of Honor, on audio tape, abridged, by MB. I adored it, and I think she did better reading and pronouncing then others, but I am biased because I started with her.
That being said, I have listened to all the HH books on audio, and only actually read 2 of them. I find it easier to do so then to find time to read, and it allows me to use my reading time for other things.
Now for a short "Rant":
I dislike all the a foreign accents that have crept into the readings. The way I understood the Honorverse is that each star system, while usally settled by a group predominated by a certain ethinic group, all spoke standard, and that, except on backwater, or extremely isolated places, standard was the primary language. So when people from Neuvo Paris started speaking with a french accent I was kinda irked. I was thinking that the mixing of people would have created new accents, not maintained accents from 2000 years previous. I have always thought that these polities were amalgams of people from many people immigrateing to them for the past 2000, or less, depending on the age of the colony, years.
I know that Haven was loosly based on the French, espcially the rein of terror, for many years, thus Neuvo Paris, and Manticore on Britain, but I thought that was just because of the historical political correlations. I never believed that it was meant to have maintained the accents from 2000 years ago.
Am I alone on this feeling? Or do others share it?
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by kenl511   » Fri May 23, 2014 2:57 pm

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My mother, a fan, is legally blind. Thank god for audio books. Otherwise I would be reading them aloud. Shudder.

I like Allyson Johnson, Christine Kvamme and Pete Larkin. The only problem pronunciation I spotted was in MOH. Secretary of War was pronounced several times as Securitary. Usually following a sentence mentioning some security apparatus.
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Re: Audiobooks in the Honorverse
Post by JohnRoth   » Fri May 23, 2014 3:18 pm

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Commodore Oakius wrote:I have to say my first exposure to HH was listening to War of Honor, on audio tape, abridged, by MB. I adored it, and I think she did better reading and pronouncing then others, but I am biased because I started with her.
That being said, I have listened to all the HH books on audio, and only actually read 2 of them. I find it easier to do so then to find time to read, and it allows me to use my reading time for other things.
Now for a short "Rant":
I dislike all the a foreign accents that have crept into the readings. The way I understood the Honorverse is that each star system, while usally settled by a group predominated by a certain ethinic group, all spoke standard, and that, except on backwater, or extremely isolated places, standard was the primary language. So when people from Neuvo Paris started speaking with a french accent I was kinda irked. I was thinking that the mixing of people would have created new accents, not maintained accents from 2000 years previous. I have always thought that these polities were amalgams of people from many people immigrateing to them for the past 2000, or less, depending on the age of the colony, years.
I know that Haven was loosly based on the French, espcially the rein of terror, for many years, thus Neuvo Paris, and Manticore on Britain, but I thought that was just because of the historical political correlations. I never believed that it was meant to have maintained the accents from 2000 years ago.
Am I alone on this feeling? Or do others share it?


As far as I'm concerned, the notion that everyone speaks "Standard English" is a bit of authorial fiat using the awesome Power of Plot. Since various people are called out as having definite accents, Victor Cachet being a prime example, I see nothing wrong with giving them an accent in the audio books. I presume that the eventual movies will also have characters that have definite accents.

There are definite rules about how pronunciation evolves, but they're not concrete enough to predict how a language would evolve over a period of two thousand years. If there were any such rules, someone would be making a mint by predicting what next year's teen slang would be.
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