LW: Faint criticism but mostly praise of the narration of the audio book ..

[Nick]

Not sure this is a complaint or just a general frustration when listening to Science Fiction audio books.

I've listened to this audible book a few months ago and now I'm rereading it as a kindle eBook.

While I thought the narration of this book was excellent there were parts where the narrator was a bit too good doing the voice of the belter's accent. Given reading the kind of lines given to the belters will always be tricky because you have a abbreviated sentence structure with some mix of Spanish and English it appears.

The narrator probably went for the performance and forwent trying to speak it clearly to make it understandable. The lines are something that you could repeat three or four times with the audio version and still not understand and what takes you three or four times reading to glean most of the meaning from the written word.

Small complaint but otherwise I loved the narration of this book and agree with its nomination of a Audie this last year (Fuzzy Nation won).
http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/2012...

An example from the very first belter slang spoken in the book:
“And then it was all pow! Room full up with bladeboys howling and humping shank,” the girl said, waving a hand. “Look like a dance number, ’cept that Bomie’s got this look he didn’t know nothing never and ever amen. You know, que?”

Corey, James S.A. (2011-06-15). Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse) (p. 17). Hachette Book Group. Kindle Edition.

EDIT: I'm sure it would also help if I had backed down the narration speed to 1x. :-)

[Tamahome]

I just skipped over the belter talk. :) Are we discussing this book too early?

[Ulmer Ian]

Belter speak has a lot of German too.

The part you quote is one of the more understandable bits. I think Tamahome just skipping over it is a fine technique. If a Belter says something important one of the characters repeats it, it's like talking to R2D2.

though yea as you read the book you learn to understand more of it. I guess you miss out on that with the audio book. But I wouldn't consider it important.

[Vincent]

Soo, not a blocker for the audio then. I'm still not sure if I'm better off using Kindle or Audible version for S&L books.

[Nick]

No, it doesn't ruin the audio book. Belter slang doesn't show up that much and most of the time you get the key points of what was said restated by someone who speaks normal English.

[Random]

Nick wrote: "EDIT: I'm sure it would also help if I had backed down the narration speed to 1x. :-) "

I started the audio version last night and so far I haven't had any issues understanding the belter speak. I'm not very far into it though so that might change. :)

[Nick]

@Random - Yeh, I have a habit of listening to most of my books at 2x or 3x narration speed unless there is just a lot of things going on or the narrator is a fast reader. I had a "well duh" moment after I put the post up that I should have slowed the narration down during those parts.

[kvon]

I like the narrator's different personas, but his voice is somewhat offputting to me, I'm not sure why. A bit too flat? In the lack of depth sense, not the flat/sharp sense.

And I've made a drinking game out of his use of 'Oh-kay'. I'm not sure if it's as noticeable in the print, but lord does it come out a lot, and 95% of the time in the same 'I'm thinking here' tone. (Unfortunately no actual drinking is usually involved, as I listen when I'm driving; I just announce 'Drink'.)

[Elzibub]

I'm listening to the Audible version & really enjoying it. The Holden parts remind me of Firefly (the grittier version, where the characters are actually allowed to curse in English, although Firefly wouldn't be Firefly without the random Chinese :D) and somewhat of BSG. The Miller parts feel like a subtle, non-cliche noir detective story, also along the lines of BSG due to the nature of the station environment & cop rank issues. I like that the story gets straight to the action, yet still really gets me involved with the characters without having unnecessary extra world-building lingo or back story getting in the way.

I'd love to see this made into a mini-series or movie! I'm only halfway through so far, but I currently give Leviathan Wakes 5 Stars. Hopefully I won't be disappointed by the end of the book. Sadly, the next book is not out on Audible yet - I hope they release it soon! At the rate I'm going, I'll finish the audiobook in a couple of days.

[Elzibub]

And as far as the Belter language goes, it is difficult to understand in the audiobook, but I feel like it has the same effect as foreign language spoken in an English speaking movie that doesn't get translated: it adds to the flavor and sense of "otherness", but you get the gist of what's going on in context. I'm really impressed with the narrator's accent on any foreign language words, be they Spanish, French, German or Russian. Gives me a real feel of the melting pot nature of existence. Reminds me of the Cityspeak spoken by the character Gaff in the movie Bladerunner.

[Leesa]

Now that I've read threads where others are talking about the accents/evolved language, I'm a little disappointed that this is carried over very much in the audiobook. Amos is the only one with a distinctively different voice, and he's an Earther!

I may have to buy the ebook just so I can see some of the dialogue.