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Glimm posted:I thoroughly enjoyed both but if I had to pick one I'd go with Forever War. I just got em both.
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# ? Feb 24, 2017 15:35 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 06:22 |
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I have to admit that I'm only about a third of the way through it so far, but so far Carol Dibbell's "The Only Ones" has been absolutely amazing, and wonderfully narrated.
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# ? Feb 26, 2017 05:59 |
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Anyone listened to the Her Royal Spyness series? I picked up the first book thinking it'd be a fairly lightweight book to listen to while doing other work but so far the meat of the book seems to basically exist just to give the author an excuse to prop up and perpetuate the tropey characters and theme which is interesting but way to overdone. I really like the idea of the theme if there ever is any actual spying or if the author tones down the excessive and pointless world/character building in favor of an actual story and it'd probably be passable in novel form where I could skip past the dry parts repeated three times over but if it doesn't get any better I'd rather just ditch it now than spending another few hours confirming that.
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# ? Feb 26, 2017 06:05 |
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nessin posted:Anyone listened to the Her Royal Spyness series? I picked up the first book thinking it'd be a fairly lightweight book to listen to while doing other work but so far the meat of the book seems to basically exist just to give the author an excuse to prop up and perpetuate the tropey characters and theme which is interesting but way to overdone. I really like the idea of the theme if there ever is any actual spying or if the author tones down the excessive and pointless world/character building in favor of an actual story and it'd probably be passable in novel form where I could skip past the dry parts repeated three times over but if it doesn't get any better I'd rather just ditch it now than spending another few hours confirming that. It's hard to believe that a series with a title like that would be subpar
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# ? Feb 26, 2017 08:41 |
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Peas and Rice posted:I'm the odd duck who's always disappointed by Gaiman's books. The concepts are always great, but the executions are never as good as the ideas. I'll take Terry Pratchett any day. You are not alone. Honestly, Sandman still stands as one of my favorite reads of all time, but... Gaiman kinda has Tim Burton syndrome. His protagonists tend to have goofy goth names, and the stories seem to want to be something more profound than they are. For whatever reason, that worked in the comics, but it falls flat in novel form. I think the only satisfying novel I've read that he was involved with was Good Omens, where his Spooky Trousers tendency toward pretense was mitigated by Pratchett's anarchic humor. Anyway. I'm currently enjoying Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, read by Arthur Morey , John Lee , and Susan Denaker. They all take turns reading in the auctorial voice, so that can get confusing, but John Lee does an especially great job. He's very well-suited to both Campbell's academic tone and to the snippets of myth and fairy tale included in the book.
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# ? Feb 26, 2017 08:59 |
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nessin posted:Anyone listened to the Her Royal Spyness series? I picked up the first book thinking it'd be a fairly lightweight book to listen to while doing other work but so far the meat of the book seems to basically exist just to give the author an excuse to prop up and perpetuate the tropey characters and theme which is interesting but way to overdone. I really like the idea of the theme if there ever is any actual spying or if the author tones down the excessive and pointless world/character building in favor of an actual story and it'd probably be passable in novel form where I could skip past the dry parts repeated three times over but if it doesn't get any better I'd rather just ditch it now than spending another few hours confirming that. Hello fellow cosy and GA mysteries reader here. I've read a few of these and they are ok for a light read, innofencive follow the formula kind of thing, I wouldn't waste a credit on a royal spyness when the books are cheap. A lot of these cozys are just copying the queen of the genre - Elizabeth Peters' Amelia peabody books narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, which are genuinely brilliant. James Anderson's trilogy starting with The affair of the bloodstained egg cozy are also fantastic. I would return that book and spend your credit on crocodile on the sandbank - Peabody books have to be read in order as we follow the same family through 30 years.
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# ? Feb 26, 2017 09:18 |
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coyo7e posted:iirc you need to get the anniversary edition for the full cast reading. Yeah, I just checked my Audible app, and it's the "Tenth Anniversary Edition" with "The author's preferred text." I honestly cannot recall any differences from the paperback I read years ago and the audiobook "re-read" I did in preparation for the the TV series that comes out soon.
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# ? Feb 27, 2017 20:30 |
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Eat This Glob posted:Yeah, I just checked my Audible app, and it's the "Tenth Anniversary Edition" with "The author's preferred text." I honestly cannot recall any differences from the paperback I read years ago and the audiobook "re-read" I did in preparation for the the TV series that comes out soon. Well, it also claims to be "Unabridged" so there's some confusion here. Aha, here we go: quote:The preferred edit of American Gods, meanwhile, restored large swaths of text that had been cut for brevity. So in this case "Author's Preferred Text" means "What I wanted to publish before my editor got their hands on it".
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# ? Feb 27, 2017 21:19 |
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precision posted:
"All the good naughty bits left in"
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# ? Feb 27, 2017 21:45 |
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precision posted:So in this case "Author's Preferred Text" means "What I wanted to publish before my editor got their hands on it". I can only think of one time where that's worked out in the reader's favor: The Stand. Otherwise, the editor has always been right. I'm the rare writer who wants an editor who says "no this is dumb."
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# ? Feb 27, 2017 22:12 |
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I have often asked my editor to specifically remove certain scenes that they thought were good and I didn't. e: Also, when I think American Gods, the first thing I definitely think is "I wish that book had been longer". To be fair, I haven't noticed any bad extra stuff yet, but I'm still only about 4 out of 19 hours into the audioplay thing
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# ? Feb 28, 2017 00:45 |
Are there any good Lovecraft audiobooks available? There's the Omnibus volumes in the Audible store, but I don't recognize the narrator (Finn J.D. John?), so I'm leary about picking them up. Devorum fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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# ? Mar 1, 2017 04:06 |
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Devorum posted:Are there any good Lovecraft audiobooks available? The Jeffrey Combs version of Herbert West: Reanimator is amazing, but uh, good luck finding it legally.
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# ? Mar 1, 2017 05:09 |
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Devorum posted:Are there any good Lovecraft audiobooks available? Most people consider Wayne June to be the definitive narrator for Lovecraft. The readings done for the H.P Lovecraft Literary Podcast are also very good (and free).
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# ? Mar 1, 2017 05:31 |
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The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is $4 on Audible today for the daily deal - is it worth the price of a latte?
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# ? Mar 5, 2017 16:13 |
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I read the book and I would say it's worth 50p in a charity shop. The story is interesting because it's true, but it drags and drags with lots of repetition, book only needs to be 200 pages maximum, but it's 400 pages. If I could have my time back I would have looked at the wiki instead. The maul and the pear tree by P.D James is also true and has much better writing. .
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# ? Mar 5, 2017 18:19 |
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I just finished 'the thousand autumns of jacob de zoet' by David Mitchell and enjoyed it a lot. If anybody knows something in a similar vein, I would be thankful for any recommendations. I'll give number9dream a try, but I don't know if it's Mitchell's writing I'm after, or just another story set in Japan. His other novels re supposed to be rather different. Some books I really liked were 'people who eat darkness' by Richard Lloyd Parry, based on a true story. And 'Out' by natsuo Kirino, a book that I only later found out to be pretty old already. having been to Japan a lot, I like stories about the real day to day people who get mixed up in an adventure/drama more than anything else I guess. No matter which period the story is set in.
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# ? Mar 23, 2017 10:19 |
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Nevermind. It's discounted because I bought the Kindle edition.
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# ? Mar 26, 2017 17:54 |
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mrfart posted:I just finished 'the thousand autumns of jacob de zoet' by David Mitchell and enjoyed it a lot. The Bone Clocks is excellently narrated and gives a whole new context to Jacob De Zoet. I quite enjoyed Bone Clocks but didn't really get on with Jacob De Zoet so ymmv
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# ? Mar 27, 2017 11:39 |
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Tea Bone posted:The Bone Clocks is excellently narrated and gives a whole new context to Jacob De Zoet. I quite enjoyed Bone Clocks but didn't really get on with Jacob De Zoet so ymmv Thanks, I might listen to it. But for now I had my David Mitchell fill since finishing number9dream. It's an OK book, but a bit too much Murakami fanfiction.
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# ? Apr 1, 2017 16:37 |
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I just finished The Shining narrated by Campbell Scott. I'm normally finally with anything Horror but wow that was actually terrifying.
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# ? Apr 9, 2017 17:28 |
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here's something to look forward to http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-X-Files-Cold-Cases-Audiobook/B06Y46VB4L
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 16:37 |
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Kraps posted:here's something to look forward to http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-X-Files-Cold-Cases-Audiobook/B06Y46VB4L Length not yet known. Probably going to be a mere 6-hour audiobook.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 21:11 |
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Audible UK has 72 hours of Steven Fry reading the complete Sherlock Holmes.
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 08:03 |
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learnincurve posted:Audible UK has 72 hours of Steven Fry reading the complete Sherlock Holmes.
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 13:27 |
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It was worth the 1 credit I spent on it too, a hundred times over.
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 14:48 |
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mystes posted:As does Audible in the US. Not quite, the US version removes The Casebook of SH since most of the stories in it aren't public domain here. It's also not labeled The Definitive Collection as in the UK version
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 16:49 |
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Just finished Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama. I'm not sure what to think of it. It feels like a harcore political bureaucratic version of the Wire at times. This is no chopstick Hercules Poirot. And it moves slow, the bloody thing takes 24 hours. The narrator was not my cup of tea, but in the end it was an intriguing story with deeply damaged characters that leaves you in a void. And probably with a better understanding of workings of the Japanese police internal affairs than the average Japanese cop.
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# ? Apr 13, 2017 20:31 |
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Peas and Rice posted:It was worth the 1 credit I spent on it too, a hundred times over. I came to the thread to see if there was anything I should drop my credit on. This one sounds like a winner.
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# ? Apr 13, 2017 21:32 |
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Just finished the Lies of Locke Lamorra after somebody recommended it a few pages back. Very fun book and one of the best narrators that I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. Every character has an immediately recognizable and distinct voice and the story takes place in a fantastic setting. If you like fantasy you owe it to yourself to listen to this book.
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# ? Apr 17, 2017 12:24 |
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I concur on Locke Lamora. Just finished it a few days ago. Not only does the narrator do a good job of giving everyone a distinctive voice, some of them get multiple accents! When they're running a con while posing as merchants from X or Y fantasyland, the narrator just rolls with it and gives people different diction.
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# ? Apr 17, 2017 19:40 |
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Eezee posted:Just finished the Lies of Locke Lamorra after somebody recommended it a few pages back. Very fun book and one of the best narrators that I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. The only bummer is that now I have to wait for the next in the series.
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# ? Apr 19, 2017 15:28 |
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ElGroucho posted:The only bummer is that now I have to wait for the next in the series. The next two aren't quite as good as the first, and he's not the most prolific writer so there may be a wait before we get #4. Still - they're really good and feel like a great breath of fresh air as fantasy goes.
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# ? Apr 19, 2017 19:51 |
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Yeah, I wasn't a fan of Locke Lamorra: High Seas Outlaw. I'm hoping book three is better, but I haven't played it beyond the one lady's job proposition.
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# ? Apr 19, 2017 20:41 |
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I felt the third book was much better than the second, but still not quite as good as the first. Take from that what you will.
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# ? Apr 19, 2017 20:54 |
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Any suggestions for Neil Gaiman-esque magical realism that isn't super twee?
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# ? Apr 20, 2017 00:14 |
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precision posted:Any suggestions for Neil Gaiman-esque magical realism that isn't super twee? Last Call by Tim Powers. If you haven't read it, buckle up.
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# ? Apr 20, 2017 01:15 |
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Peas and Rice posted:Last Call by Tim Powers. If you haven't read it, buckle up. Seconding this along with virtually everything else Tim Powers has done, especially Declare and The Stress of Her Regard. Also highly recommended: The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, which is Gaiman-y as hell. It starts with a woman's investigation into the disappearance of her cruel and mysterious adoptive father, who may or may not be God, and gets substantially weirder from there.
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# ? Apr 20, 2017 04:32 |
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precision posted:Any suggestions for Neil Gaiman-esque magical realism that isn't super twee? Maybe the stuff by Haruki Murakami? I liked Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World but haven't read anything else by him.
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# ? Apr 20, 2017 10:07 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 06:22 |
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The Lewis Black audible channel is great, but you can't queue the episodes.
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# ? Apr 20, 2017 22:32 |