Author: Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Reader: Michael Shanks

Short Review: Star crossed lovers set in an intricately woven universe including space ships, elements of magic and linguistics. The reader needed someone to insist on better pacing in an otherwise very solid performance.

Long Review: The list of things I enjoyed about this audio book is fairly long. Deeply developed characters with a solid back story, a carefully crafted universe and enough suspense to keep you guessing.

Often with a story like this, the author is tempted to start too early – but Lee and Miller toss us into the middle with fine results. I love books with compelling characters, and on that front this one definitely delivers. I care about the whole lot of them. I want everything to work out, but am not quite sure how it might. I also like that just when I was getting frustrated by the lack of communication between characters, one of them steps forward and starts dealing. Much of the fabric of this story is tied up in how hard it is to communicate with someone who cannot totally understand local customs. Even the learned linguist who can manage to navigate conversations that require careful use of  just the right ‘voice’ cannot anticipate culturally based responses to her actions.

It was only after I had finished listening to this book that I realized that it is in fact Book 1 of a full series set in the Liaden Universe. It does not seem that any others are available (yet) in audio form, but I like the story enough that I plan to read the rest on paper.

The biggest drawback to this audio book was getting used to the reader. Michael Shanks, who portrayed Dr. Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1, does a fine job with the actual reading and voices.  My frustration is with his phrasing. The first time he shifted to a new character’s point of view I was very confused for a minute or two until I figured out that I was now hearing someone else’s thoughts. I often experienced a sort of point of view whiplash throughout the book.

I haven’t seen this book in paper – but a quick peek Local Custom on Amazon.com shows me that there are in fact numbered chapters and paragraphs separated by extra space. There is no mention of chapters and no pauses between sections. It sometimes felt like he was in a rush to keep moving through the book. I was able to adjust to this odd pacing, but your mileage may vary. You can download the first three chapters for free from the Buzzy Multimedia page for Local Custom, so you can easily see if this bothers you before you purchase it.

I wish they could re-edit it and just add in more pauses and chapter breaks. It would bring this book up to a five star experience.

Author: David Sedaris

Reader: David Sedaris

Short review: One of Sedaris’ best books of essays and stories, read tenderly and hilariously and scathingly by the author. Several pieces are live performances, and many of them are downright great.

Long review: I’m a fan of David Sedaris, and this book has a lot to do with that. This time around, he includes more stories about his family and growing up in North Carolina, including some really poignant pieces about his own weaknesses. “Repeat After Me” is particularly important to me, because Sedaris deals with his guilt and his family’s anguish over being used as fodder for his work. Sedaris is generally funny, but he’s also clearly a man who loves his family and isn’t particularly comfortable with the way he exposes them to scrutiny by writing about them. I love that about him, in part because I’m always terrified that I’ll hurt my family and friends in my own (nowhere near as successful) writing.

“Six to Eight Black Men” is a side-splittingly funny story about Dutch Christmas traditions. Sedaris’ pieces about travel and other cultures always get me, but this one succeeds because of both how very ridiculous the traditions seem to Americans and the reaction of the live audience.

Sedaris’ significantly-younger brother Paul is perhaps the star of this book. He features in two great stories: “Rooster at the Hitchin’ Post,” about Paul’s wedding, and “Baby Einstein,” about Paul’s daughter’s birth. The first is read in front of a live audience, which I particularly appreciate. Within the confines of the stories, the contrasting sexuality and temperaments of the two Sedaris brothers make for a wonderful dichotomy. Paul pokes at David’s homosexuality (referring to him as “Big gay hoss”) and David explains that his would-be macho brother is short and sloppy, with a higher voice than David’s nasal high tenor. The portrayal could seem cruel in another writer’s voice, but David Sedaris skewers himself right along with his little brother to keep things fair. But it all seems loving. Sedaris’ constant turns from the sweetness of love and birth to the family’s odd jokes about kids’ names, sexuality, in-laws, and the like keep the pace moving quickly and allow the shock of his humor to build over and over again.

 Author: David Sedaris

 Reader: David Sedaris

 Short Review: Sedaris’ funny, self-deprecating, heart-breaking stories about moving to France with his partner Hugh, learning French, his family, and his own flaws and experiences. The author reads his own work in his distinctive voice, never flinching as he excoriates himself either in front of a live audience or alone in a studio. Sedaris is an amazing, brave writer and reader. I’ve listened to this particular book three or four times, and I know I’ll keep returning to it.

Long Review: I adore Sedaris’ stories. I learned of his work listening to his pieces on NPR’s This American Life. I’ve read several of his books on paper, but because I fell for this writer reading his own work, I truly prefer his audiobooks to their paper siblings.

There are a few real standouts in the book. My favorites are “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” a description of his traumatic time in a French class taught by a heartless misanthrope; “Jesus Shaves,” a recounting of his French class’ strange discussion about how holidays are celebrated in their home countries; “A Shiner Like a Diamond,” about his sister Amy’s habit of transforming herself into strange characters and how it tortures their father; “The Youth in Asia,” about the Sedaris family’s relationship to their pets; and “I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing,” about his father’s strange views on food and frugality.

Some listeners may be put off by some of Sedaris’ topics. He openly discusses some medical and dental issues that may gross out the delicate. He’s gay and out, and there are some people who still take offense at that for whatever reason, though I doubt they’d settle on Sedaris’ work for entertainment in the first place. And he openly discusses some very self-destructive drug use when he was a student. None of those things throw me, though. It’s his honesty that makes me love Sedaris’ work so much, and I have a deep-seated appreciation for people who describe their faults without hesitation.

 Author: Neal Stephenson

 Reader: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, Neal Stephenson

 Short Review: A pretty good but overly long book from one of my favorite authors, read less-than-ideally. This alternate future tale depicts a world where the intellectual elite are forcibly cloistered in pseudo-monastic communities around the world where they’re free to think and learn but denied access to many technologies and to “saecular,” (i.e., non-intellectual) society. The protagonist Fraa Erasmus is layered and likeable, but the book could stand to lose a couple of hundred pages and the narration isn’t as good as it should be. In this instance, I think I would have preferred the paper book to the audio book.

Long Review: This book has gotten a lot of attention on the web. Stephenson is a very important, very good sci-fi writer, and his work is particularly popular among web monkeys like me. He wrote The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, i.e., oh-my-god-the-best-sci-fi-book-everrrrr. My heart breaks to criticize him. He’s brilliant, and he writes great women and interesting plots, and he clearly knows more about science than I do, so I won’t criticize him there. But, sometimes, he needs to be reigned in. It feels like he just plain wasn’t this time. I don’t shy away from long books. I love long books, as long as their length is merited. This time around, Stephenson came up with a huuuuuge concept and fleshed out every little bit of it. I wish he’d paired things down.

Stephenson has a habit of going on tangents that get a bit out of hand. Some of the tangents, like the those about mythology in Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, amuse me to no end. In Anathem, some of the tangents were less appealing to me because they tended to be about mathematical theory, but in an alternate reality where each theorem has a different name. It just got to be a bit much. But, I’m a mythology buff and not a math buff, so another reader could have the opposite reaction.

Most of the major characters in this novel are compelling and likable, which is perhaps its greatest strength. Erasmus, Orolo, Ala, Lio, Jad, Sammann, Cord, and Yul are the kind of people who should populate more books. So many sci-fi and fantasy writers can only write plot, and fill their plots with little more than thumbnail sketches of people. Stephenson gives a lot of thought to his characters. He ends up constructing personalities we want to continue to follow, ever after hundreds of pages with them.

My biggest complaint about this book is the narration. William Dufris, who does the lion’s share of the narration, uses some inflections and has reading habits that really, really annoy me. In moments of tension, Dufris uses volume changes and breathiness to impart emotion rather than, you know, emotion. The result is swaths of text that are hard to understand because his attempts to emote just end up being hard to hear. Over and over, I’d be happy with the narration for ages and then I’d smack right into another instance of over-wrought, odd readings. It made my ears itch. And because this is a very long book, each instance bothered me more than the last, and each made me like the audiobook less. In all fairness, the spaces between these instances were generally good. I’d be fine with Dufris for an hour or two, and then I’d want to throttle him, and then my annoyance would pass and I’d forgive Dufris until . . . Remember, this is 32.5 hours of listening. Even if Dufris was annoying for only 5 percent of that time, that’s a lot of time with itchy teeth.

There are other narrators, who largely serve as the voice of a dictionary, introducing new words at chapter openings. Tavia Gilbert read from the dictionary several times, and her voice is wonderful. I will seek her out in other audio books. Neal Stephenson also reads some of the definitions, and I vastly preferred his narration to Dufris’. Whenever Stephenson would read a portion of the book, I would latch onto his voice and wish he’d continue for the rest of the work.

All in all, this is perhaps my least favorite book of Stephenson’s, and I’m not happy with the main reader. It is the longest audio book I’ve listened to, and I knew that the whole time I was listening. I couldn’t forget its length. Far too often, it felt like a lengthy homework assignment rather than an enjoyable passtime.

Author: Neil Gaiman

Reader: Neil Gaiman

Short Review: A stunning story beautifully read by the author. Coraline’s boredom leads her to a place just beyond our reality. What at first seems just odd and fun becomes creepy and worth escape, but only by delicate inches. Gaiman’s voice lulls and tantalizes. He is just so good at painting images with the combination of words and his own voice.

Long Review: This audio book painted such a vivid picture for me that I haven’t been able to force myself to see the movie. Yes. You read that right – I am an incredible Coraline fan who has not yet seen the (by all reports) stunning 3D masterpiece of a movie.

This otherworldly story transported me first to the land of childhood boredom filled, as it so often was, with distracted grownups with poor suggestions for self entertainment. After I was almost as restless as Coraline, I was pulled into a parallel world full of oddity and people and creatures who were not quite as one might expect. Initially Coraline is pleased by all the new diversions and entertainments, but it soon becomes quite clear that this is not a place she wants to remain and that returning to her boring home and inattentive parents is easier said than done. To add to the challenge, there are others to rescue and plenty of roadblocks in her path.

Between the beautifully crafted story and Gaiman’s talented reading, Coraline falls solidly into the “I don’t want to stop listening” category of audio books.

What age is this book appropriate for? There are a lot of very creepy bits to this story. Some listings I have seen claim that it is for ages 8 and up… others pitch it a few years older. I expect it really depends on the child in question. Does he or she like creepy? Or are they prone to nightmares?

If you would like to get a feel for this recording, the opening minutes of Coraline are available for your listening pleasure. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. If you have seen the movie and loved it I suspect that this audio book could give you a way to extend your Coraline joy.

And no, I still don’t want to see the movie. I think I will just stay home and listen to Mr. Gaiman’s voice reading Coraline to me again instead.

 Author: Neil Gaiman

 Reader: Neil Gaiman

 Short Review: Neil Gaiman reads his Newbery Medal winning book beautifully. His nod to Kipling’s The Jungle Book is just scary enough, intriguing, inventive, well-written, enchanting . . . it’s downright wonderful. I loved Bod, Silas, Scarlett, Liza, Miss Lupescu, and the rest of the graveyard’s denizens and rooted for them throughout the story. I miss them. I’ll return to this book again and recommend it to adults and kids.

Long Review: I’m a fan of Gaiman’s, and I am always intrigued by critically-acclaimed young adult fantasy, so I had to listen to this book. I was hopeful, but also worried. Some of the best books I’ve ever read were those I read when I was 10 or 12. I return to those books and keep tabs on books written for older kids, hoping to find more books to cherish and to foist on my growing nieces and nephews. But many things we’re supposed to love just fall flat for me. I’m not that impressed by some of the most beloved YA books, and some of the ones I did love then show me all of their holes when I pick them up now. This one, however, makes the good list. It’s rich enough for adults, appropriate for older kids, and enchanting for both.

Firstly, Gaiman is good at holding back. So many authors hand you all of the keys right at the beginning of the journey, and then you don’t have much to puzzle through and have less reason to keep going. Gaiman fights the urge to make sure he has told us everything there is to tell, so we keep reading, trying to line up our questions with possible answers, paying close attention to every little clue, wondering whether a character will return or a path will reappear. He refers to fascinating historical events and invents wondrous rituals and characters and communities, but he doesn’t give you so much information that any become boring. Neither does he condescend to his readers. I hate it when writers assume that kids can’t handle any frightening truths about life and death. In fact, kids see as much if not more terror and sadness as adults, and most of them don’t like being coddled. Gaiman doesn’t condescend to his readers or to the children who feature in his books.

Gaiman also happens to write strong female characters well. I wish I didn’t need to congratulate authors for doing that, but it still isn’t a given. Gaiman is a father to two daughters as well as the son whose childhood visits to a graveyard inspired this book. I think his relationship with his girls and the women in his life help him write girls and women well. That ability is particularly important for children’s and YA writers because so many boys are still hesitant to read books with female protagonists. Here, a boy is at the center of the story, but he’s surrounded by smart, heroic, strong, loving women and he cares for and respects them as much as he does Silas. It warms the cockles of my heart, that does.

Gaiman’s mythos is rooted firmly in the old greats. We see glimpses of well-researched historical fact, notice a figure from Grimm here and and an allusion to the Odyssey there. But from those roots, he takes us in very interesting directions. I love how he recasts traditional villains in new ways, making us wonder how evil some of the things we’ve had nightmares about really are. He takes the trope of fractured fairy tales a step further than many of his contemporaries. Gaiman doesn’t bother to argue with Grimm about who really understands monsters—he just plain rewrites the story in his way. It works.

I am impressed by Gaiman’s reading. I thought he did a great job with Fragile Things, and, if anything, he has gotten better. Gaiman has a nice voice, a good sense of character separation, paces himself well, and uses clear diction even when he is reading in different, heavier accents.

My only complaint is that a sequel isn’t available yet. I want to see more from this world, and I hope to see it soon.

 Short Review: A solid book of short stories read beautifully by the author.
 Long Review: I am a fan of Gaiman’s, so I was bound to pick this up eventually. Jeanne’s glowing review spurred me to pick it up at the library, and I was not disappointed in the least.

As is often the case, Gaiman’s publisher released this anthology of short stories not long after his novel Anansi Boys became such a huge hit. Sometimes those volumes of short stories, collected from periodicals hither and yon, are a waste of paper. Well, not this one. This is a solid collection of stories, as evidenced by the number of awards won by individual short stories in the anthology.

The Huge-Award winning “A Study in Emerald” is one of the standouts in the collection. I’m a Lovecraft fan and a Conan Doyle fan, so I was a bit wary of that story in particular. I didn’t see how the two could be blended. Well, of course, Gaiman did, and he melded the two giant’s universes gorgeously.

“October in the Chair” is another gem. It’s a story within a story, and the frame story in and of itself is one of the most enchanting things I’ve ever come across. I will never think of the months in the same way again. Gaiman built a new mythos and dropped it right into my head with a satisfying clink.

“Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire” is pithy and funny and good, and a great way to flip classic horror onto its head.

A few of the stories fell flat for me, but the best stories in the anthology were so intriguing that I know I’ll listen to at least those again and again. And the listening is truly enriched by Gaiman’s narration. Many authors have no business reading their work aloud–that’s not true of Gaiman. His voice is expressive, his timing is great, and his diction is beautiful. I’d actually like him to take work as an audiobook reader for other writers, but I don’t think that’s terribly likely. Instead, I’ll just cross my fingers and hope he narrates some more of his own work for future audiobooks.

His Dark Materials, Book Three: The Amber Spyglass

Author: Philip Pullman

Reader: Philip Pullman and a full cast

Short Review: The third and final book in a wonderful trilogy, well-read by the author and a full cast.

Long Review: If you didn’t enjoy the first and second book in the trilogy, you’re not likely to listen to this one. I, of course, love the series. This book is probably my least favorite of the three, because I don’t want the story to end, but also because I think it has a few problematic aspects.

Firstly–I just don’t buy the Mulefa’s development. Yeah yeah, it’s a fantasy, and we’re supposed to open our minds to different scientific possibilities. But I’ve never seen evolution work that way, so it rankles.
Second–I don’t think Lyra’s parents can magically become loving.
Thirdly–The trip to, well, the sacrifice/betrayal Will and Lyra have to make is crushing, of course, but also lasts too long. It’s hard to discuss without ruining several plot points, so I’ll leave it at that.

Apart from that, I love the book. I think Mary Malone is a fantastic character. Every child deserves such a surrogate, or auntie, or Mom. Maybe two would be better. I love hearing the development of Will and Lyra’s relationship. I love their selflessness. I wish all of the best for them, throughout. Just listen, and try not to be as bratty as I am as you do, and you’ll love it.

His Dark Materials, Book Two: The Subtle Knife

Author: Philip Pullman

Reader: Philip Pullman and a full cast

Short Review: Like The Golden Compass, this is a wonderful adventure told by a surprisingly-talented author-narrator and a full cast. The book is a bit less fantastic, in a sense, because some of it is set in our world, but no less enjoyable.

Long Review: As with the first book, I absolutely loved Pullman’s narration. I like to think that all talented writers are also talented story tellers, in the most literal sense. Sadly, it’s not so. Pullman clearly knows how to read aloud, though, and his pacing, diction, and performance are wonderful.

This story, because it is partially set in our world, has less of the comfort of the first book. Lyra has to travel without the help of Iorek and the Gyptians, she has lost any sort of parental support, and she knows how terrible the world(s) can be. All of the novels in the trilogy are dark, of course, but this book focuses on Lyra’s growing independence and responsibility. It also introduces Will, Lyra’s partner for the rest of the series. Where Lyra is boisterous and impetuous, Will is reserved and calculating. He is the first of the children we encounter in the story with a strong sense of adult responsibility, and that automatically changes the tone of the novel.

I’m reticent to say anything more, really, because I view the three books as part of a whole, and because I’d hate to ruin the story for anyone who hasn’t read or heard it. Suffice it to say I love these books and think you should listen to them. ‘Nuff said.

His Dark Materials, Book I: The Golden Compass

Author: Philip Pullman
Reader: Philip Pullman and a full cast

Short Review: A fantastic tale of adventure, rebellion, childhood, growth, and bears told by a surprisingly-talented author-narrator and a full cast.

Long Review: I’m a big fan of this book and the others in the trilogy, so I was excited to listen to it. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Pullman is a great reader–I think his narration in the audio book compares to the reading of greats like Derek Jacobi and Campbell Scott. I also liked the majority of the other voices in the full cast, only hearing a false note now and again. If I had to complain about anything, it’s that, for whatever reason, the default for female voices in the audiobook is “breathy.” My brain hears “breathy” as “weak” most of the time. I wanted the breathy women reading in this book to be more forceful throughout.

I think adolescent fiction and fantasy are both particularly well-suited to the audio book format. Stories like this beg to be told aloud, because the characters are so engaging and the plot flows from beginning to end, rather than backtracking or spending a lot of time on introspection or exposition, which is generally harder to pay close attention to while listening.

I guess this is my favorite book in the trilogy, because it’s the opening, and because the concepts of daemons and panzerbjorn are both so intriguing to me. That said, the three belong together. Each has its failings. And, of course, its strident critics and supporters. I’d encourage folks unfamiliar with the story to ignore all the hype (if it’s not too late) and just listen as a child would. This is an audiobook, and a series, I will listen to again.