by Matthew
I’ve been listening to my BBC LOTR and have been enjoying the adaption. Its interesting to me how different people have made the story fit into their production’s available time. Listening to this has made me more tolerant of changes that need to be made to fit the story in. I still despise changes that are not for that purpose, though. And at present, about half way through, there have been no examples of this.
I have also been thinking of other stories adapted to an audio format and their quality.
Here’s a brief list of some I’ve heard and enjoyed.
Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. Probably the best production of any story I’ve heard. I’d love to have heard Orsen Wells’ original radio broadcasts. Apparently they were presented as convincing news reports and caused panic in the listening audience.
John Cleese’s reading of The Screwtape Letters. Just a fine thing to listen to.
Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth. My brother, Black Angus, would roll his eyes but I really enjoyed this. It was a recorded live performance and it shows. Still great to listen to in a 70’s way.
Stephen Fry’s readings of the Harry Potter stories. The other guy’s readings are, as I’ve said before, bilge.
Alan Parson’s Project’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. A musical adaption of Edgar Alan Poe’s stories with some spoken stuff from Orsen Wells. So atmospheric.
Jeff Wayne’s Sparticus was excellent too. Anthony Hopkins told the story like Richard Burton did in War of the Worlds. Ladysmith Black Mambaso provided some excellent vocals as the company of gladiators.
Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy BBC production. The original radio shows are excellent but the stories were also released on album and were a better production in my opinion.
Leonard Nimoy reading Vulcan’s Forge. An excellent voice actor and a good StarTrek story.
Sir Michael Horden’s readings of all the Narnia stories. When I read the stories now I always hear his voice and his characterisations in my mind. Puddleglum was a hoot! I also enjoyed the harp accompaniment.
Please suggest some more.
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Cleese’s reading of The Screwtape Letters is masterful.
Although in regards to abridged versus unabridged, well, I generally cannot stand abridged works. I want the whole story, not just bits & pieces, even if it’s done well. Unless it’s a movie adaptation. There I’ll accept cuts that are reasonable or serve the purpose of the story. But I can’t watch a 20 hour movie very well, whereas I can listen to a 20 hour audio book as I go about doing other things.
I’d really like to get the Stephen Fry versions of the audio books but good luck at finding them at a reasonable price in the United States. Between the shipping charges & the fact that the dollar has tanked against the pound means they are prohibitively expensive.
Shatner reading anything.
Phonebook, cookbook, toaster-oven-instruction-manual.
Brilliant!
Matthew, I also love listening to Stephen Fry reading any of the 6 Harry Potter audio books that I have. I’m going to have to wait to hear Deathly Hallows until Christmas, as that’s when I’ve gotten the other ones–except for COS which I bought because I couldn’t wait (and then hubby was sorely disappointed and annoyed that I’d jumped ahead on his planned Christmas present).
My other favorite to listen to is Thomas Hardy’s “Return of the Native” read by Alan Rickman. It’s great. Rickman does a fine job with all the voices for the characters and has just the right sound for a Hardy novel. And it’s unabridged. I also want the whole book and not an abridged version.
In general, I love audio books, but they are expensive and I wish there was some way to listen to the reader before buying–it can make a huge difference. (I decided not to buy an Austen one after I heard a snippet–the woman’s voice was way too irritating to even think of listening to hours and hours of it.) Maybe that’s why they don’t make samples so available, come to think of it.
Pat
I don’t know if you’re all familiar with this, but there are free audiobooks (books in the public domain) at librivox.org. They’re amateur readings, but some of them are really quite good.
Also, I’ve mentioned it before, but Christianaudio.com has great stuff, cheaper prices, and a free download every month.
Thanks Travis. I just found a recording of one of my all-time favourite stories- Raphael Sabatini’s Captain Blood, on librivox.org.
revgeorge,
Stephen Fry’s readings are expensive only because you’re an honest man. I dislike abridgements a lot too. I read an abridged Moby Dick without realising it and didn’t have a clue about some of the parts my brother said he really enjoyed. I’ll have to chase that up again.
Johnathan,
I love Shatner’s spoken word productions. His album- Has Been, is pure gold. I once read a humerous interview of him that was titled Shat-Himself.
Eeyore,
The reader is vital in my enjoyment of an audio production. Am I the only one who finds a British voice adds so much credibility to a reading? I think Alan Rickman would do an excellent job of nearly any reading.
Matthew
I’d love to hear a Mills & Boon romance read by Stephen Hawkins’ computer voice.
Matthew
Matthew,
Try this link for the War of the Worlds broadcast. I initially downloaded it through iTunes, but I don’t think their RSS feed is live anymore. But if you rightclick and saveas on the mp3 link, it will download as a playable file for Windows Media Player (or I guess any other mp3 capable player)…
http://tunecast.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=155786#
Matthew, the British voice is key! In fact, Andrew Peterson insisted on a British voice for the audiobook of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness.
Matthew wrote: “revgeorge, Stephen Fry’s readings are expensive only because you’re an honest man.”
Not that that honesty didn’t keep me from looking around on some peer sharing networks for Fry works. But even there they are infested with the Jim Dale versions.
I had really wanted the Fry version of Deathly Hallows but failing that I bought the Dale version. To give him credit, he does read the opening quotations well, from The Libation Bearers & Penn.
Jo hit the nail on the head when she chose those two quotes. Gives me shivers every time I read or hear them. I read a lot of Greek tragedies in my youth but I can’t have read The Libation Bearers more than once or twice. Shocking what one little quote can bring back to you.
Forgot to mention that peer to peer networks hold a lot less attraction nowadays & I have much more appreciation for copyright law since it got me out of an argument over allowing a certain song in a funeral service. It was a totally inappropriate song theologically but try telling that to family members who never go to church & who are Americans who think every belief is valid no matter what & are driven totally by their emotions.
Anyway, they might not have understood the theological reasons for not having the song but my trump card was that playing the song the way they wanted it played violated copyright.
Actually, not to tempt you to break copyright laws or anything, but merely as a matter of interest…the Fry versions are very easily accessible if you do bit torrent (which I’ve yet to learn how to do).
By the way, adding to the list of quality audiobooks: Hugh Laurie (House, MD and Stephen Fry’s buddy) does a good reading of The Scarlet Pimpernell.
Yeah, I’ve had yet to use Bit torrent although it comes preinstalled on my Linux OS. It’s not very user friendly. Hypothetically speaking, Limewire or Ares are much better programs.
Anyway, I’d much prefer to buy the versions. I don’t see why they can’t sell the Fry versions in America.
revgeorge, my husband has bought the Fry versions that I have. The first one was hard to come by, as Amazon in the UK kept kicking him back to the US. So he contacted a friend of mine in the Netherlands and asked her to help him find the right links. But the last two are pretty easy as you can get right to the site. Pricey, yes, but no more so than other audio books, especially when you consider how many CDs you are getting on each one–shorter books just end up being less expensive.
Here’s the link that I have and I think it’s what my husband used. You need to sift through the choices of cassettes or CDs and figure out whether it’s the adult or children’s cover art. Shipping wasn’t bad and the company is very nice to work with. My copy of POA ended up coming with one CD not properly done and they replaced it quickly and didn’t make me go through the hassle of shipping back the damaged one.
http://www.audiobookcollection.com/searchresults.asp
(The prices listed are in pounds, so you can mostly double it to see what you are paying. For me, it has been great to get them as Christmas gifts and well worth it. But I know not everyone would want to pay that much.)
Oh, and I thought that Limewire was one of the ones the copyright folks are going after. Or have they sort of stopped.
Pat
Pat,
Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out.
Limewire is one of the ones they’re going after but pretty much only on college campuses. But it’s probably not worth it to most people to use it, since finding files that are legal to download is pretty hard, i.e. you have to wade through a lot of choices to get to free or public domain ones.
I can’t see why everyone’s so excited about Fry reading anything. His sound effects would be funny in War of theWorlds I guess.
You are talking about Philip J. Fry, aren’t you?
But seriously,
It was a strain on two brothers sharing a bedroom when one of them would insist on listening to Journey to the centre of the Earth over and over. The caped crusader Rick Wakeman couldn’t rescue that one.
But that brother also had some taste… Tales of Mystery and Imagination was musically excellent and the dark humour came out well in the music.
The BBC’s production of Hitchhikers was perhaps even better than the TV show.
But my favourite of all time is War of theWorlds. Jeff Wayne nailed it. Spooky! And thanks Dave for the link to the Wells’ version. I’ve wanted to listen to that for a very long time.
In general I like talking books but get really irritated when there is no ‘ding-dong’ so I know when to turn the page.
Matthew wrote: “Stephen Fry’s readings of the Harry Potter stories. The other guy’s readings are, as I’ve said before, bilge.”
Well, I’m currently listening to the Stephen Fry reading of The Philosopher’s Stone, & it is absolutely great!! Cost me a pretty penny, even off of eBay, but I have it & it’s legal. Will take me a lot of time & money before I can buy another HP book done by Fry. Maybe for my birthday here in a week.
I won’t perhaps say, with Matthew, that the other guy’s reading is bilge, but it does certainly pale in comparison with Fry’s reading.
I know this is a blast from the past but my brother gave me something great for Christmas that I thought you might like to know about.
It is a cassette set of Edgar Allen Poe works:
Legeia
The Imp of the Perverse
Morella
Berenice
The Gold Bug
- all performed by Vincent Price
and:
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Black Cat
The Cask of Amontillado
The Masque of the Red Death
The Pit and the Pundulum
The Haunted Palace
The Bells
The Facts of the Case of M. Valdemar
The Raven
Annabel Lee
Eldorado
To-
Alone
The City in the Sea
- all read by Basil Rathbone
Awesome stuff and unabridged too!