Alvin Fox 05-15-2012, 09:03 AM
A month and a half and I think I'll answer.
I've been listening to many audiobooks since around October. There are a few different kinds. The most terrible kind are the straight readings. Someone is just reading, not doing different voices, or very slightly different voices. These people tend to have no inflection. There have been times where I can make out a good joke but the reader makes no acknowledgement of having read a joke. The most common audiobooks are men doing voices and accents. They talk lighter/higher/softer for women and I'm okay with that having grown up with Monty Python and Kids in the Hall. I haven't heard any ridiculous falsettos (I think of [video=youtube;WbeuOT2Ksz8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbeuOT2Ksz8[/video]) but I also think that hearing women doing men's voices is terrible. The woman that read the Hunger Games trilogy sounds like she lowered her voice and held her breath to do a man's voice. The best single person audiobook I've heard is Jim Dale reading the Harry Potter series. He has a unique and distinct voice for every character through all seven books.
Now we get into multicast recordings. Some are just two people reading a book. Usually if a book goes back and forth from first and third person perspectives, or just two different perspectives that eventually meet up and then they "talk to each other" when they meet. It can get to more than two people though. Hyperion had a different actor for each pilgrim. Each actor would read their pilgrims story. And then there's Graphic Audio's recordings. Holy crap. Their tagline is "A movie in your mind". Every character is cast by a different actor, all of the "s/he said"s are removed. Some of the other lines are removed as well. That's because there are full sound effects. Rain, footsteps, fire crackling, swordfights ranging from one-on-one to battles involving hundreds of people. There's original music as well. It's just- wow. I've been listening to Simon R. Green's Deathstalker and Forest Kingdom books. Nothing compares to those.