CoBloWriMo #26-Media

That’s a vague one isn’t it?  Right, I’m plumping for the audiobooks that have become an essential part of my sewing routine.  I can’ settle down to an extended task without listening to a damn good story.  It has to be LOOOONG.  The narrator has to be good- some accents just drive me mad.  I’ve found that some voice actors have a wonderful range of character voices, but regularly mispronounce some words.  This drives me NUTS, and breaks my concentration.  Sometimes it’s a UK/US thing, sometimes more regional, but I do twitch every time an American reader says ‘shone’ to rhyme with ‘stone’ instead of rhyming with ‘gone’.  Aaargh!

Anyway, I sometimes even choose my next Audible purchase by the length of the recording.  More than twenty hours for preference.  The nice thing about Audible is that you get your money straight back, no questions asked, if you don’t like the recording.  Some get listened to many, many times, and some get abandoned partway through, and cashed in again.

I started watching Game of Thrones without reading the books, as I’m very picky about Fantasy as a genre, it’s so ruddy predictable!  Unfortunately, Roy Dotrice’s narration drove me mad.  Such a posh, Shakespearian voice, such awful reading, so many mispronounced words.  Dire.  [See what I did there?]  NB if you haven’t seen them before, these videos about GoT costumes are really interesting, despite irksome background music and occasional mispronunciation…

My absolute favourite narrator is Stephen Pacey, who I only ‘found’ by my purchase of Joe Abercrombie’s ‘First Law’ series.  Amazing stuff, I’ve listened to all of them several times over, AND bought them and read them all several times, AND converted my dad to them. 

I didn’t even realise that Stephen Pacey used to be in Blake’s Seven, which I loved as a kid [and had a heavy crush on Servalan, grrr-owl]

Stephen King writes good long yarns of course, and as long as he doesn’t narrate them, they’re great.  My favourite is probably 11/22/63, which I’ve played through half a dozen times, [and yes,  I weep every time lol]