Audible’s Palladium Wars and Frontlines narrators

This has come up several times on Twitter today already, and I am sure I’ll read it a few dozen more times in the Amazon reviews, so I am going to explain the situation one more time in order to have something to link whenever this pops up in the future.

Book 1, AFTERSHOCKS, was narrated by Luke Daniels. 

In 2019, I finished two novels, one for each series, and I managed to outpace Luke, who has a very busy narration schedule for Audible because he is awesome and in very high demand. We had to either find a new narrator or delay the audiobook release for a year or more (not a realistic option.) So we chose a new narrator for the Palladium Wars series, Angelo DiLoreto.

Unfortunately, Angelo passed away unexpectedly after he had recorded book 2, BALLISTIC. 

Now we needed a new narrator, both for Frontlines book 7 (which also couldn’t be worked into Luke Daniels’ schedule) and Palladium Wars book 3, CITADEL.

I had input on the available narrators under consideration, and I requested that the two series be narrated by two different artists. Since we had to choose new narrators anyway, I wanted each series to have its own voice, to make sure they didn’t sound the same. So Frontlines went to Eric G. Dove, who narrated book 7, ORDERS OF BATTLE, and will to the best of my knowledge also narrate future Frontlines books. I requested Eric because he was the closest to Luke Daniels’ original cadence and voice, and I thought this would help with continuity. I think he did an excellent job carrying on Frontlines, and a lot of listeners seem to agree.

Palladium Wars went to Korey Jackson, whose voice I absolutely love, and who doesn’t sound anything like Eric or Luke. He narrated CITADEL and will (again, to the best of my knowledge) continue to narrate the series.

I understand that people who like to listen to audiobooks like to have continuity when it comes to narrators because it usually feels jarring when you have to get used to familiar characters speaking in a new voice. I feel the same way. But I hope the above explanation will make folks understand why the switch happened, and that it wasn’t arbitrary or somehow related to money or what-have-you.