Escape Artists, audiofiction and me
I have come late to audio fiction, I think I first started buying audio books in 2007 or 2008. My main motivation at the time was to find something to distract myself from mundane tasks, like housework, and because I had a disjointed commute so reading from a traditional book was difficult as I kept having to change from train to bus and back again, and because I wanted to be able to 'read' while I did things like cycling to the office, or walking with Tesla, or continue my never ending project of building a model of the Unseen University.
audible.com tells me that I have a library of over 50 books now, although several of those are free chapters and interviews and such - in addition I have a few books from other sources, like iTunes or even (gasp) an actual bookshop with aisles I can walk through etc.
I no longer listen while cycling, because I live on the kind of roads where you really want to hear the traffic (which is sparse but fast), and I also no longer listen while I walk the dogs (we got another dog), because I live near the kind of woods where you really want to hear what is happening (like being charged by a spooked elk). But now I am driving instead, so I am trying with some success and some failure to listen to audiobooks while on the roads.
I need a new car stereo so I don't have to burn everything to CD and then stop to swap them out and in. But that's besides the point.
What I meant to talk about was the podcasts from Escape Artists: Escape Pod, PseudoPod and PodCastle.
For those who don't know, Escape Artists' podcasts are professional SF (, horror, and fantasy) short stories narrated by fans, available for free (donations welcome). I loved them when I first discovered them (which was probably 2008 too), because of course I would - I love SF, I love audiofiction, I love amateur dramatics and I love fan-driven activities, and Escape Artists hit all of those buttons.
Except then I stopped loving them. And I felt really bad about it, then I figured out why I didn't like them any more, and I really still feel bad about, it but I'm going to explain it anyway.
The fannish narrators, it seems to me, are not fans of audiofiction. The best audiobooks are, in my opinion, performances by the narrator as much as stories by the author. Sometimes, they have multiple actors narrating different sections, sometimes they are even more dramatised, with multiple actors narrating direct speech in character, with musical interludes and sound effects. Other times, they are just one actor, taking different voices for different characters (something I cannot do, and therefore admire all the more).
The worst audiobooks I have purchased have been narrated by the author, far too quickly and with the same speech patterns repeating, and repeating, and repeating, and ... I jerk awake. I sometimes scrub backwards, trying to find out who it is who started this speech. I restart the chapter, not sure I got the whole sense of it. I put my iPhone on half speed, so I can understand one sentence before the narrator has moved to the third one. I give up.
Escape Artists podcasts follow this trend. I don't care about lower production values in amateur things, and I have a big rant about mainstream theatre production values sucking up arts funding to prove it (maybe later). I do care about translating from one medium to another without researching and loving and understanding the second medium - and a big "hello" to all the novelists who think they can write plays without understanding how a theatre and a stage work. Fans working to create their own versions of the things they love, I love it too. Sheesh, fans run better conventions than professionals, for no pay and out of love. (I don't follow fanfiction and fanart much, so I can't comment on that aspect.)
So. I don't listen to the Escape Artists podcasts any more. I doubt that they have noticed, which is good, and they shouldn't really care, either. What would make me happy, though, should anyone read this from Escape Artists, and what would make the podcasts better, is if they got their narrators to listen to some professional audio work, and maybe take some basic acting lessons. One acting lesson might be all it takes, where the lesson is about all the different nuances you can give to a simple phrase.
audible.com tells me that I have a library of over 50 books now, although several of those are free chapters and interviews and such - in addition I have a few books from other sources, like iTunes or even (gasp) an actual bookshop with aisles I can walk through etc.
I no longer listen while cycling, because I live on the kind of roads where you really want to hear the traffic (which is sparse but fast), and I also no longer listen while I walk the dogs (we got another dog), because I live near the kind of woods where you really want to hear what is happening (like being charged by a spooked elk). But now I am driving instead, so I am trying with some success and some failure to listen to audiobooks while on the roads.
I need a new car stereo so I don't have to burn everything to CD and then stop to swap them out and in. But that's besides the point.
What I meant to talk about was the podcasts from Escape Artists: Escape Pod, PseudoPod and PodCastle.
For those who don't know, Escape Artists' podcasts are professional SF (, horror, and fantasy) short stories narrated by fans, available for free (donations welcome). I loved them when I first discovered them (which was probably 2008 too), because of course I would - I love SF, I love audiofiction, I love amateur dramatics and I love fan-driven activities, and Escape Artists hit all of those buttons.
Except then I stopped loving them. And I felt really bad about it, then I figured out why I didn't like them any more, and I really still feel bad about, it but I'm going to explain it anyway.
The fannish narrators, it seems to me, are not fans of audiofiction. The best audiobooks are, in my opinion, performances by the narrator as much as stories by the author. Sometimes, they have multiple actors narrating different sections, sometimes they are even more dramatised, with multiple actors narrating direct speech in character, with musical interludes and sound effects. Other times, they are just one actor, taking different voices for different characters (something I cannot do, and therefore admire all the more).
The worst audiobooks I have purchased have been narrated by the author, far too quickly and with the same speech patterns repeating, and repeating, and repeating, and ... I jerk awake. I sometimes scrub backwards, trying to find out who it is who started this speech. I restart the chapter, not sure I got the whole sense of it. I put my iPhone on half speed, so I can understand one sentence before the narrator has moved to the third one. I give up.
Escape Artists podcasts follow this trend. I don't care about lower production values in amateur things, and I have a big rant about mainstream theatre production values sucking up arts funding to prove it (maybe later). I do care about translating from one medium to another without researching and loving and understanding the second medium - and a big "hello" to all the novelists who think they can write plays without understanding how a theatre and a stage work. Fans working to create their own versions of the things they love, I love it too. Sheesh, fans run better conventions than professionals, for no pay and out of love. (I don't follow fanfiction and fanart much, so I can't comment on that aspect.)
So. I don't listen to the Escape Artists podcasts any more. I doubt that they have noticed, which is good, and they shouldn't really care, either. What would make me happy, though, should anyone read this from Escape Artists, and what would make the podcasts better, is if they got their narrators to listen to some professional audio work, and maybe take some basic acting lessons. One acting lesson might be all it takes, where the lesson is about all the different nuances you can give to a simple phrase.