Scifi available in E-Books

[Jim]

Audio books are made for the commute. As for the rest, I guess some don't need or want the solo, quiet time, but my wife & I have to have it.

[[deleted user]]

i rember when i was a kid, when mom took us to the mall, id always take off to the bookstore...happy times. :)

[[deleted user]]

Jim wrote: Audio books are made for the commute.

Also for sharing, if you both like the same thing. With a complete audio book, reading need not be solitary.

[Dave]

Personally, my big problem with audio books is I keep wandering off to find something to read. I just can't follow it on audio.

[[deleted user]]

I like audio when I'm doing something mindless around the house. Listening to LOTR being read as a complete audio book is very soothing. I'd rather be on the battlements in Gondor than in the kitchen in Essex. (Well, not really. There are no murderous orcs in my kitchen, thank goodness.)

[E.D.]

I feel completely out of the loop when it comes to audio books, but I am amazed that so many avid readers take to them. I'm not a purist, or Luddite, but most definitely not a multi-tasker by today's apparent standards. I do see the "radio play" connection. I get that.

Is it mostly convenience? Does the narrator make all the difference? Can one make the same connection with the story, or does the medium effect that? Based on cost, is time money?

[[deleted user]]

E.D. wrote: "...Is it mostly convenience? Does the narrator make all the difference? Can one make the same connection with the story, or does the medium effect that?"

For me, the attraction the ability to "read" when doing something that demands my eyes, but not a lot of thought, such as walking to the store or tending the yard. (I also drag in a couple of hours of podcasts to listen to every day, too. You'd think there was no music on my iPod.)

I'm still not sure if it's rude to listen to my iPod while getting my teeth cleaned, but I do it anyway. (After all, with a mouth hung open and full of hardware, I can hardly participate in a conversation!)

Yes, the narrator makes a big difference. For fiction, some audiobooks are produced with multiple narrators for different points of view/characters; Most stick with a single narrator, though that narrator often affects different accents for different characters. And, more significantly, they give intonation to the dialog.

As a result, the audiobook becomes an amalgam of what the author wrote and how the narrator/producers decide to deal with that material. How the narrator inflects and emphasizes a line of dialog unavoidably influences how you perceive the author's writing. The narrator can emphasize anger, compassion, humor, etc.

I tend to prefer non-fiction for audiobooks (science, history), since that way the narrator is not as big an influence on the experience. (With living authors, I assume the narrator consults on both pronunciation and desired inflection.)

As an example of some good fiction audiobooks I've listened to:

All the Douglas Adams books (HHGttG, Dirk Gently, etc.). Jokes are funnier when they're told right. :)

Card's Ender's Game is an elaborate, multi-narrator production.

Willis's "To Say Nothing of the Dog" has a single narrator who does a wonderful job bringing out the wry humor in the text.

As a counterexample, I started listening to Beukes' "Zoo City" as an audiobook. Totally did not work for me, so I went back and read it the old-fashioned way on my Kindle :) The problem was twofold: the story has a lot of unfamiliar people/place/thing names (some South African names & terms, some invented for the fantasy). That made it hard recognize the "words" and follow what/who/whatever. And secondly, a lot of the text was "formatted" as special reports, e-mail, IM chats, which just don't lend themselves to narrating. (Try reading the full header of an e-mail out loud sometime; when just reading it normally, your eye picks out just a few things, such as sender and subject.) In text form, "Zoo City" was very good, by the way. :)

Amazon (which owns Audible) has this feature called Whispersyc, that which you by both the audiobook and the e-book together at a discount. The advanced Kindles (e.g. Fire) can jump back and forth between text and audio, with the theory that if your reading and need to go do something else, you can just flip on the audio and keep "reading" while you make dinner or water the flowers. It will even read the book to you, for many books actually highlighting the words in the e-book even as it speaks them (in human narration, not text-to-speech, which the Kindle also does.) I haven't actually found a use for this.



E.D. wrote: "Based on cost, is time money?"

I don't understand this question. Can you rephrase?

[Michele]

I'm guessing E.D. means is it worth the extra cost of an audiobook to save the time you would have spent reading with your eyes to be able to "read" with your ears while doing other things? I think so - I can read twice as many books :)

I love audiobooks, and whispersync makes it even more awesome. I have a boring routine delivery job and listening as I work makes the time go by so much faster.

Being an Audible member, with their daily deals and the way you can buy the book from Amazon and then get a great discount on adding the audio version makes it not such an expense. I am careful about how I spend my monthly credit and search for the best deals, so I don't feel I'm spending too much when I get books in both formats.

Good narration is important, I always listen to the samples. Also I recommend a good set of headphones. Hearing the words very clearly is key, and good headphones can help keep you from being distracted by random sounds.

[E.D.]

Thank you, G33z3r....as always, a very helpful and appreciated response (still chortling over The 18th Chapter, by the way). And thank you also, Michele...your decryption of my compressed question is spot on. One thing I have picked up (from other discussions here about book pricing) is audiobooks can get a bit expensive. I also relate to "reading" with your ears. Perhaps, that has been my problem..., not connecting "listening" with "reading".

I do recall reading something about Neil Gaiman recording his own works, which makes sense since he knows what he intended and has the personality and voice to probably make it work. I can see what G33z3r meant by "narrators and producers" influencing one's perception of the author's intentions. That, most likely, has been why I've not pursued audiobooks, I think. I think I might rethink that.

Again, thank you both. :}

[Jim]

G33z3r wrote: "For me, the attraction the ability to "read" when doing something that demands my eyes, but not a lot of thought, such as walking to the store or tending the yard...."

G33z3r put it very well for me with one minor difference - I usually prefer paper for nonfiction books for many reasons. I like to write notes & tend to reread some sections if they require a lot of thought. Audio books, like the TV, just keep on going & don't always allow the proper time for reflection & back-checking specifics. I recently listened to Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals & loved it, but wound up ordering it as a paper book because there are statistics I want to check.

I'm currently reading Understanding Wood Finishing which wouldn't port to audio well at all since it relies on a lot of pictures & inset notes. Ayn Rand tends to use a lot of big words very precisely, so I like to be able to stop & have a dictionary handy when I read her nonfiction.

[Jim]

Audio books are NOT expensive if you get them from the library, my main source. Overdrive has a lot in MP3 format. This means you can download them, put them on any device for any length of time for free. Very convenient shopping, too.

Michele wrote: "...I have a boring routine delivery job and listening as I work makes the time go by so much faster...."

I don't have a job where I can listen to them (I'm a sys admin which requires a fair amount of thought.) but do have a lot of chores & hobbies that are perfect. Mowing the fields, shoveling snow, sanding or finishing my latest carpentry project, & knitting/crocheting are all perfect times. If I'm just giving the dogs a run riding Chip around the place works, too. If something interesting comes up, there is always the pause button.

Over the past few years, I've come to rely on them more & more even though I've had an ereader for 5 years & thousands of paper books. They're just fitting into my daily routine better. They're an efficient, wonderful use of my time.

[[deleted user]]

E.D. wrote: "One thing I have picked up (from other discussions here about book pricing) is audiobooks can get a bit expensive...."

Not as expensive as you might think. As Jim mentioned, you can get a lot of audiobooks from libraries. Also, there are legit online sources such as Escape Pod and Podiobooks that provide SF/F downloads for free (courtesy of the author, of course. donations gratefully accepted.)

Also Librivox offers classic, out-of-copyright books in audio format for free (using volunteer narrators, so quality varies.) You can get the text version of these out-of-copyright works from Project Gutenberg for free, too, if you like.

Commercially, Audible (US) has several subscription plans (I max out with their Platinum plan), which when I combine with their frequent Buy One Get One free ("BOGO") sales, brings my per-audiobook cost down to about the same as an e-book. (Plus I get the NYTimes & WSJ read to me every morning as part of the sub :) Also, their daily deals and occasional other sales, where I can buy some audiobooks for us$5/less. So if you buy individual audiobooks at full price, it's expensive, And if you buy via CD, it's very pricey. But for us regular downloaders, its reasonable. (Assuming you have the eyes-busy mind-idle time to listen - it fits in anywhere you might otherwise listen to music.)

[[deleted user]]

To re-read Fountains of Paradise, I pulled an old paperback off my bookshelf, and soon realized this was the first time I read a physical, paper book in at least five months.

What a primitive technology this is. This "paperback" thing doesn't even have its own internal light source; I have to stay under a lamp or only read during daylight. I have to keep constant pressure to keep it open, or it will slam shut on me. And when I do want to put it down, it doesn't remember where I was reading the next time I pick it up, so I have to resort to some accessory to keep track of the current page. No matter how many times I tap on the page, it won't look up the definition of a words or search the text.

I don't think this "paperback" technology will ever catch on.

[[deleted user]]

i often read my kindle fire in the dark....a few nights ago i got a paper book, turned off the light, and curled up on the sofa to read...in the compleate darkness

[V.W.]

I can't use audiobooks. Listening to someone talk on and on puts me to sleep or my concentration shifts to something else and I don't hear what the narrator is saying, so I never finish the book or have to repeatedly listen to each chapter, which is very annoying.

[[deleted user]]

Slate has an interesting article, Who owns your digital content after you die?

The short form is simple: you should create a trust and buy all your ebooks, (emusic, emovies) through the trust, thus ensuring you can leave it all to your spouse or kids.

[Jim]

Or pull DRM off of them all & store them as regular files. You're allowed to do that for backup purposes. Use something like LastPass for all your accounts & give the password to someone you trust, too.

[Timothy]

I saw an interesting TV documentary recently saying that there is a lot of controversy versus what on earth should happen to the royalties of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Strictly speaking it should do to his relatives but I think at the moment they just end up with the publisher and disappear...

[Aishah]

I can't "read" audiobooks... I have to imagine each character with their own unique voice, intonation and accent. I'm a visual person, so I can't "see" what's happening in my mind when I'm listening to just one voice..

[Jim]

Maria, some audio books are audio productions with a cast reading the characters. The Audio Renaissance edition of Ender's Game that I listened to was done that way. Card did one of the voices & read the afterword. I've listened to several of his books & he's said that he writes his books to be read aloud. I've certainly enjoyed most of them better that way. Not every book or author fits them, though.

I'm very picky about readers. I rarely make it through the free, Libervox audio books. I appreciate the time & effort these people have made in reading, but their untrained voices just drive me nuts. Even some of the professional readers are awful, IMO. For instance, I don't like high, squeaky girl voices for any length of time, but some readers make books even better. Jim Dale reading the Harry Potter books is fantastic, but so was Stephen Fry, although they did it differently. One did a lot of different voices & Dobbie was hilarious, better than he had been in my head when I read the books in paper.

Listening to audio books is different than regular reading. I'm always doing something else like driving, mowing, or weeding. If something comes up, I have to hit the pause button. My daughter gave up her iPhone for an Android in part because iTunes kept screwing up her audio books. She loves it & so do the dogs since she'll extend her walks to listen longer. It took her a bit to work into them & figure out what she liked, but now that she has, she's hooked too. We both seem to get more reading listened to than read any more. It's too hard to find time just to sit & read.

[Aishah]

Jim, I'll make sure I listen to some of them then. I never knew there were audio productions with casts... Learnt something new today, then.
But I guess it's more because I'm very visual. Heck, I see words in my mind when I speak, or when I hear others speak. I just need to read and have words flash by and scenes happening.
I should give audiobooks a try before I turn deaf...

[Jim]

I'm happy you'll give them a shot, Maria. They're certainly not for everyone nor do all books fit to the format well. I started listening with the Old Time Radio programs: Lux & Mercury Theater, "The Shadow", "Ray Bradbury's Theater", "2000X, & others. Great productions & I got them for free. As a member of NoNags.com, I get access to them, but Archive.org & other places have them, too.

Then I moved on to short stories & novels. Many times it was as a reread. Since I already knew the story, zoning out for a bit wasn't the end of the world. I was mostly trying to fill up my commute or time sitting on a tractor.

I moved on to other light fiction. Candy reads like the Sookie Stackhouse series are fun, but mindless. I found out that Nancy Wu's reading of Undead and Unwed took a ridiculous read to such fun levels that I wound up listening to 6 or 8 more.

I can't listen to heavy factual books very well, though. Ayn Rand uses too many big words too precisely to be a good listen, but I've tried since archive.org has some of her radio interviews & such for free. Ditto with Huxley. While I listened to Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals first, I bought the hardback so I could get a better look at the facts & make some notes in it.

Part of the issue is what to listen to the stories on, too. I started with cassettes & then CD's, but that meant I could only listen in the car while driving & my tape deck got messed up more than once by filthy cassettes from the library. I really got hooked when I found I could download the books from the library & I got my Sandisk MP3 player. It's tiny, easy to use, & very portable. I listen with earbuds when I'm wandering around & can put on my ear protectors over them so I can hear just fine while mowing. (I don't need the ear protection while vacuuming, though.) I can also hook it up to the stereo in my car or shop & never miss a word.

Sorry, probably way more than you want to know, but I never thought audio books would be such a boon to me. Now I don't know what I'd do without them.