recommend me an audiobook?

[boxofdelights]

I just signed up for Audible. Is there anything from there that you would recommend? I read everything, but don't have a lot of experience listening to books. I do listen to podcasts. I care a lot about the enjoyability of the voice.

Comments

[loligo]

Seconding the Murderbot audio rec. I just posted a couple days ago that I love Kevin Free's narration so much that I would pass up a print copy of the book to listen to the audio instead -- which is pretty much unheard of for me!

Did you notice much difference between the first Radch book and the others? The first one has a different narrator (Celeste Ciulla) and I quite liked her performance. Given the first-person narration, she became the voice of Breq for me, and I was reluctant to try to get used to someone new, so I switched to reading for the rest of the series.

[boxofdelights]

Did you read Murderbot before listening to the audio? I am interested that you and Rachel both recommended it, but I don't like the idea of Murderbot sounding like a man.

[loligo]

No, I started with audio. I had assumed, ever since Murderbot explained the purpose of Sec Units in the first book, that its human parts appear male, because its makers would want to make their product look maximally intimidating to humans. But I don't know how much of that assumption was shaped by the voice of the narrator.

(I basically picture it looking like a Ken doll turned into a weapon-loaded cyborg -- bland and generic, yet ticking all the cultural boxes for masculinity.)

[telophase]

I read the novellas first, and then listened to the first one with Toby in the car, which was his first time with the story. Afterward, I asked Toby whether he imagined Murderbot as male- or female-bodied afterward and he said male-bodied, because of the narrator. I envision Murderbot as female-bodied, and I think that's because the author is, but I'm not entirely sure.

[luzula]

I tend to see Murderbot as more female than male too, but I think that's because they are fannish and fandom is more a female than a male space.

[malnpudl]

Poking my nose in here: I was also very resistant to a male narrator for Murderbot (and very disappointed at the choice), but I gave it a shot anyway and LOVED what Kevin Free did with it. Instantly forgot all my reservations and it just flowed. Probably helps that he doesn't sound... excessively masculine? For lack of a better way to put it.

[rmc28]

All three are read by Adjoa Andoh in my copies, which might be a UK/US difference. Andoh is a British actress with a whole string of TV appearances here (including as Martha's mother in Dr Who!) and I was particularly impressed by her use of accents to play up the colonial/class themes: https://flower-of-justice.dreamwidth.org/5101.html