*audiobook; corrected
Do they do anything particular with their voice or tone in order to enhance the story?
My copy of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, narrated by Stephen Fry. It is relentlessly british.
The version read by Douglas himself is also great
You can edit titles here on Lemmy btw
Do you mean audiobook rather than ebook?
Yes!
Listen to samples of books read by Stephen Fry. He’s among the best reading voices out there.
Gilbert Gottfried reads 50 Shades of Gray
Fun story: my boyfriend and his sister used to live together and we’d all party at their place. After months of his sister crushing hard on this guy she worked with, she and him had gone to her room for some alone time. Her asshole brother decided that was the time to blast this audio directly through her bedroom door.
8 years later and they’re still dating so I guess it worked.
Fun fact fyi, unlike Reddit, post titles are editable on Lemmy
Any of the Terry Pratchett audiobooks that were read by Nigel Planer! Most probably know him best as Neil from The Young Ones in the 80s but he’s been in a ton of things since then including a few of the live action Discworld tv specials! He really has a great talent for bringing the books to life usind the right amount of humor that series really needs!
Wil Wheaton brings a lot to the books he narrates, but the best combo I’ve heard so far is John Malkovich reading Breakfast of Champions.
Dear god no. Wil Wheaton has the most grating, whiny, nasal voice I’ve ever heard, immediately puts me off any book he narrates. He only has one reading style which doesn’t translate at all between different books
Eat a dick, Captain Picard
American Gods, full cast
And sandman. Kat dennings as death is perfection.
‘Toast on Toast’ read by Steven Toast.
Didn’t know that existed but I’ll download it right now
Anything I’ve listened to with Ray Porter reading it. His intonation is great and just brings that something extra to the stories. In particular Project Hail Mary and the Bobiverse books. He also did Paradox Bound, which felt like a fine time travel story but his portrayal of the voice of the “faceless men” made the character 's menace come to life for me in a way I don’t think would be captured in text.
Anything with George Guidall.
He has a deep, resonant voice. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it’s very comforting.
He has done probably hundreds of audiobooks but one series I remember him doing was The Cat Who… line of mysteries. Very lightweight but fun books.
Wow. Gee whiz. My suggestions can’t compete with John Malkovich or Nigel Planer, but…
Some (maybe most?) Star Wars novels are packed with sound effects and electronic voice distortion effects. I’ve listened to Labyrinth of Evil, Darth Plagueis, and Path of Destruction.
Also, I recall being impressed listening to the Silmarillion and the narrator’s pronunciation. Sure, it was a professional production so they had to get it right, but still impressive to hear.
The Alan Partridge autobiography’s voiced by Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge but I suppose you’d only like it if you’d seen enough Alan Partridge.
I’m going to be controversial.
I think the best audiobook is text to speech.
I prefer to not filter any stories through an other person. I want the raw data from the book, without any other feelings and impressions added to the original.AI readings are demonstrably terrible.
More butchery of the English language I’ve never heard.
This is why I said that I am going to be controversial.
Text to speech is only going to be better with time.
My most important preference is to have the text delivered without reader bias towards its contents. And that’s only possible with computer speech.Understood & I hear you. Some people’s voices, candor and pace can put me right off listening, make me want the words without their voice. Unfortunately, with a well voiced & read book, I’ll listen far longer than I can bring myself to focus on actual reading. Though reading the words makes them stick in memory differently, mostly better, than listening for me.
Do you have preferences about which text to speech engine that you use?
I like Google tts. I tried Samsung’s one and I just couldn’t find a good pitch/tone that I liked from it.
Even when the author coached the narrator? I know of at least one audiobook where the author used the narrator’s voice to fill in what words on paper couldn’t
That sounds like a special scenario.
Tho I’m not sure if a book needs a narrator it can be still called a book instead of a theater piece or voice play.It didn’t need a narrator, but care was taken to ensure a unified voice between author and narrator. Great audiobooks generally strive for something like that where the performance adds rather than detracts
