May-13-2010, 09:41 AM (UTC)
(May-11-2010, 12:32 AM (UTC))Mervi Wrote: Anyway, haven't heard any commentary about them yet, but personally, based on the samples on Tantor's site I didn't like them too much. There was something about the reader's voice that irritated me, like he was bored or something. From the samples I've heard of the UK versions (Dragon Keeper mainly I think) the reader was much better.
I have to agree, Mervi. I didn't particularly enjoy the Tantor site samples either.
I did end up purchasing Dragon Keeper (narrator - Saskia Butler) and Dragon Haven (narrator - Jacqui Crago) from iTunes though and found that, while they were both quite good, Jacqui had a very stilted way of reading, at times, and this tended to inhibit the flow of the story somewhat. At the beginning of DH, in particular, it was almost as though she was battling the flu and so needed to pause after every few words to catch her breath or have a snuffle!
It also took me a while to get my head around her English accent, as well as some of the overall pronunciations from both ladies eg Trehaugh pronounced 'Tre-horg' whereas I think of it as 'Tree-harg' , but these sorts of differences are to be expected during any story-telling. As some of you would already know, Robin didn't worry too much about consulting with the narrators on these as she felt that pronunciations should be left up to the individual, particularly for novels in the fantasy genre.
Still, I did enjoy being able to listen to both audio versions while driving and, as the above are all quite minor issues in the whole of the story-telling (Robin’s story definitely just takes over and you will find you can easily overlook anything else!), I would still recommend them with...umm...maybe 3½ - 4 stars out of 5?
"I am the Catalyst, and I came to change all things. Prophets become warriors, dragons hunt as wolves."