I don’t know how many covers this book will spawn, but there’s another out in the wild. I’m afraid I haven’t yet found out the name of the artist. Pretty, no?
It looks cold up there.
The audiobook will be available at the end of the month from Tantor Media, in mp3 as well as standard CD format. It runs for a staggering 17 hours, and is narrated by Steven Crossley.
If 17 hours sounds like a long time, Blake Charlton claims to listen to audiobooks at double speed, which was something I’d never really thought you could do. I agree with Peter V. Brett, in that it might sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks were doing the reading, which would make for an altogether different listening experience. If I’m honest, I think Alvin might kill the noir mood.
i did mention in an earlier tweet that the programs can control the frequency, so the voices don’t get higher.
and 17 hours is nothing for an audiobook. The Passage (whatever you think about it) clocks in at 37 hours and is selling like bread.
Yo Blake – yeah, I did see that after the post was drafted, but I still wanted to sneak Alvin into a blog post.
The audiobook world seems much bigger than I realised. In the UK, it’s a tiny section of the bookstore, and mostly BBC shows or poetry or whatever. I guess the market Stateside is pretty lively.
The audiobook market here is weird too, a lot of stuff seems to just go direct to libraries. I must quiz my neighbour more since it’s his line of business. Anyway *joy* Have you heard it, did he do a good job?
Blake was kind enough to recommend me some audiobooks. What I’ve discovered is that they don’t release them all over here, audible.co.uk having about half the number as its US sister company. Even worse I note for some things like The Passage you can only get the abridged version in the UK
Adele – I haven’t heard it yet, no – but I’ve been in touch with the voice actor (last night in fact), who said he enjoyed the read, and that it was easy to read aloud (I’m guessing if the writing’s naff or purple, it’s tough for the actors to get their vocab around it), and that there were incredibly few mistakes. These are all good omens! I’ll link to a sample when it’s live.
Adrian – we get an awful lot of abridged texts, don’t we? Which is why I was surprised at 17 hours for mine.
I’ve listened to Steven’s readings of both Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing Of The Dog and John Connolly’s The Book Of Lost Things. He’s a great audiobook reader. He has a good pace and is just the right amount of animated. Score!
I can’t wait to hear what accents and tones he does for all your characters. Did he ask you for any direction in that regard? I always wonder if writers get any input when it comes to interpreting their books for audio. Accent choices to reflect social standing in fantasy and scifi audio books fascinate me. How will a conversation between Denlin and Randur sound? Will you be able to spot a cultist from their tone? Exciting!
Audiobooks don’t have a big presence in book stores in the UK, which I find very frustrating, although good libraries do a little better. Fortunately that’s why they made the internet.
Nice cover!
Looks like he’s wearing a puffa jacket & jeans though, as if someone’s accidently stumbled through an interdimensional portal from 90s Peckham to Villjamur “Wossappened to the sun?! British summers, eh?” ;P
isserly (new avatar?) – unfortunately I’ve only this last day or so been emailing him, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see for pronunciations – the whole thing has already been recorded. But he’s a British narrator, isn’t he? I’m hoping a lot of the pronunciations will be how I intended, for that reason alone!
Alex – I could write one of those M John Harrison style short stories were the fella wonders down to the toilets in a Peckham curry house only to shuffle through the portal…!
You’ve done well to get an audio version so quickly. Even the mighty Joe of Abercrombie has only just got his books audioreleased.
The audio market seems to be growing as I know quite a few people who’ve started using them. I use them whenever I’m on holiday and have long bus journeys (can’t read on a bus).
Audible is a great way of getting people hooked on audio books and it makes it hard to justify illegally downloading them, plus their program is better at remembering where you are. The smaller library than the .com service and abridged versions is a real annoyance though.