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Great audiobooks that come to mind because the narrator is amazing and NOT Ray Porter?
Don’t get me wrong. I love Ray Porter narrated audiobooks. Sometimes I’ll give listen simply BECAUSE it’s Ray Porter.
But at some point, every book starts to sound the same, and his tendencies and flavour as a voice actor start to color the story. You can almost predict what voice he’s going to use and when, and it starts to take away from the story a bit.
So I was wondering if you all had any recommendations for great audiobooks that came to mind simply because the narrator was amazing?
I think I feel the same way about RC Bray. There’s always a Skippy just waiting to make an appearance.
Marc Thompson (of Thrawn and Star Wars) is tremendous and memorable as well.
I would listen to literally anything Stephen Fry narrates. He did the Harry Potter audiobooks in England but he’s also written several books that he narrates himself and has done some classics like the entirety of Sherlock Holmes. He’s such a good voice actor, you really forget sometimes that you’re only listening to one person, and then his natural narration voice is so smooth and calming to listen to
I really recommend the audio version of the book Mythos, which he wrote. He narrates it and it is sublime. Also it’s well written, funny and very educational.
Come on now, you aren’t listening to Harry Potter for real unless you’re listening to Jim Dale.
I’ve only heard a clip of him and didn’t rate it. Perhaps it was poor example, but Fry is just SO excellent I find it hard to believe anyone could top him
I couldn't get around the idea of an American (or any other non-British person) narrating a very British story.
edit: OMG I WAS WRONG. I must've listened to some weirdly tagged version way back when and assumed it was Jim Dale. I just did a youtube search from Jim Dale. He sounds bloody great.
edit 2: I wonder if I knew the Jim Dale version was sold in the US, heard the first little "This is Audible" and turned it right off. What a tremendous error. Though I do so love the Fry versions, so not a loss really...
He’s English actually! He used to be in the Carry On movies. I just don’t think he does as good a job as Stephen Fry
Fry is like your grandpa reading you a story. Dale has won awards for how many distinct voices he made. His voices are still how I hear the characters when I read the books, fanfics, etc.
They’re different. Fry isn’t bad. It’s just a totally different vibe.
Different strokes. I found Dale’s voice grating in the clip I listened to. Interesting that you say Fry is like your grandpa, Dale sounds (and is) much older to me! Fry also does different voices - I have caught myself forgetting that I’m only listening to one person
His Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy narration was top notch.
Also Leevar Burton (Reading Rainbow) does a podcast of short stories.
Ah yes, I haven’t got around to those yet so I forgot them!
My favorite narrators are Michael Kramer and Kate Reading - either Kramer solo, or as the Kramer/Reading duo for multi-narrator books. They've become the primary narrators for Brandon Sanderson, with Kramer handling the Mistborn books and the pair of them doing Stormlight.
I believe they also read the Wheel of Time series. Definitely my favorite duo in the fantasy space.
edit: moving to fast :)
Brandon chose them for his work specifically because of their work on WoT. He Alsop got them to agree on how characters' names are pronounced, which they notably didn't for WoT. I might excuse that if they lived thousands of miles apart or something like that, but they're married to each other.
Wheel of Time (your fingers are probably just too fast)
They're the best epic-fantasy narrators working right now.
Reading also narrates the Furies of Calderon series by Jim Butcher. It’s also really good.
Neil Gaiman narrates a lot of his own books, and he's got an exceptional voice. It's also nice knowing that the speaker is perfectly following the author's intentions, because they're the same person.
I'd say that's not a given. Much how a great writer might not be a great public speaker, talents show through in different ways. Being a great novellist doesn't make you a great scriptwriter. Being a great scriptwriter doesn't make you a great actor. And reading audiobooks is more acting and less writing.
Stephen King does a good job narrarating his own work. But Frank Muller was masterful, possibly one of the best. Having direct comparisons shows a stark difference...Frank shows an incredible depth of character voices, and adjusting pacing and tone with tension that King himself can't match.
I think Gaiman does a fine job, better than a random person, but I wouldn't class it as masterful.
Douglas Adams also narrated all the Hitchhiker's books, and he's fantastic for the very same reasons.
The Sandman audiobooks also have a full cast. Who are all incredible
I'd recommend the Dresden Files books, narrated by James Masters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame.
The first two books are a bit rough around the edges (still good though!), but by the third the author Jim Butcher figured out what what works and what doesn't and the story really takes of.
Sadly they're incredibly misogynistic.
Same applies to the Morse books. Samuel West is a fantastic reader, but you want to strangle Colin Dexter.
That was unfortunately my experience when I started to read the first Dresden book. They've been recommended a lot but after listening for about a half hour I couldn't stop hearing it. Maybe it's "just a part of the character" but there's a lot of other books I can read where I don't have to listen to that.
Oh man I could get get past the "ASMR" lipsmacking that was going on and dropped it 5 minutes in.
I had a couple I was going to recommend that I recently went through and liked (Project Hail Mary which was significantly elevated in audiobook form vs paper, and the Bobiverse books)... then I checked and saw they were Ray Porter >.>
Wil Wheaton has done quite a bit of audio book narration lately with an understandable focus on sci fi - he narrates a lot of John Scalzi's books.
Three come to mind in the fantasy genre specifically:
The Hobbit narrated by Andy Serkis
Skyward (Brandon Sanderson) and sequels, narrated by Sophie Aldred (UK edition, there's a different US narrator)
Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) and sequels, narrated by Moira Quirk
All are really dynamic, have great and very distinctive voices and are just generally pleasant to listen to. Plus the books are all great too.
Moira Quirk is wonderful. I'd add Mary Robinette Kowal (October Daye, Lady Astronaut) and Kevin Free (Murderbot)
I'm currently listening to the Andy Serkis narrations of Lord of the Rings, and so far it has made the opening bits of Fellowship, which I find interminable when trying to read myself, downright pleasant.
Only critique is that he's not the best singer...
More than made up for it with his voice work though. Getting to hear his Golumn again is always great.
I don't necessarily agree - he's usually on key, but I also think a lot of his singing is in-character. That is, deliberately middling, what you might expect to hear from the average singer.
I'm actually listening to skyward right now, it's narrated by Suzy Jackson and she's been pretty good so far and I'm already on part 5. I didn't know there was a separate UK narrator.
Suzy Jackson’s narration is also pretty good. I personally definitely prefer Sophie Aldred’s but I have no complaints about Jackson’s at all. Sadly Aldred didn’t record the Skyward Flight novellas, so for those you only have Suzy Jackson. I wouldn’t really be bothered by this if not for the fact that the two pronounce Jorgen’s name completely differently (Jackson’s /dʒɔɹgən/ versus Aldred’s /jœ:gən/)
The version of Dune that was read by a whole cast of people, with the main narrator being Simon Vance. It is the version that I had listened to, the performance that the cast had done was really good. It just brought the book to life, verses of it was just one narrator doing the reading.
Second this, it really helped my wife differentiate all the characters, the chapters where it just went to the narrator was always jarring though, wish they could have used the cast throughout the book.
Do you happen to have a link to this particular version handy? I read through all of Dune and, while thoroughly enjoyed it, could have used the help of an audiobook at times.
Here is the Audible link to the version that I had listened to, although I had listened to it through my library system.
World War Z is one of my go-to audiobook recommendations for anything, period. it's structured as "an oral history of the zombie war", and the audiobook version has an incredible ensemble cast (the author is Mel Brooks' son so he has a ton of Hollywood connections).
Andy Weir's Artemis isn't as good as The Martian or Project Hail Mary (in particular, Weir is not good at writing female protagonists) but the audiobook version was narrated by Rosario Dawson who I thought did a wonderful job with it.
World War Z is also really good without the audio version, it is one of my favorite books that I had read. The way that it is structured is such an interesting way of telling a story, especially a zombie book. Because it talks about the survivors and the shit that they went through to just to survive.
There is a astronaut survived that was up in orbit, which was really refreshing in a way. The reason being we really don't see that in other books, tv shows or movies (even the movie version of the book). It also talks about the post zombie world, albeit in not that much detail.
I couldn’t stand Rosario Dawson’s narration and wanted to stop listening at multiple points. It was hard to follow her, it’s hard to explain but the volume varied too much and inflection was off putting. To be fair, I think the female protagonist was also poorly written, and the whole book ended up being a bit of a letdown compared to The Martian and Project Hail Mary.
I've really been enjoying Steven Weber's "It". Great range, and nails the quirks of every character.
George Guidall is great in everything he reads. His rendition of Dune is spot on, though old so it has some pops and cracks in the audio. It does mean you don't need to listen to the weird Simon Vance/Scott Brick version though. He's also a perfect fit for the gunslinger (Dark Tower anthology).
The Dark Tower was also partially recorded by Frank Muller, who I felt had a better range for the characters, but had a less "Western" feeling than George. Both bring something unique to it.
I liked Jefferson Mays doing the Expanse novels, but that may just be because I enjoyed them so much. But he remained clear and consistent throughout, which is all I can ask of any narrator.
I'll second Jefferson Mays. He did a great job of changing his inflection enough for different characters that you knew who was talking but not so much that it veered in a bad place that takes me out of the book. Basically, I need him to do more books but his reading of the Expanse is perfect.
I love Travis Baldtree - he narrates the Cradle series by Will Wight!
He also narrates the "The Ripple System" series by Kyle Kirrin that I really enjoyed his production of. Several others, just haven't listened to them yet.
He also narrated his own Legends and Lattes
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is an excellent book that is funny, sad and hopeful. Noah narrates his own book and does a great job.
Noah's narration shines by being able to do the accents and speak the langauges he references throughout. He was very enjoyable
The Witcher series by Andrsez Sapkowski, read by Peter Kenny, has been really excellent voice acting. I highly recommend it.
Steven Pacey, reading The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie was also memorable and wonderful.
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is one of the best narrated books I've listened to.
I love that one. In a similar vein, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon has William Dufris as narrator and Simon Prebble does The Baroque Cycle. Both are fantastic!
Some of my favorites:
R.C. Bray and Will Wheaton do a lot of sci-fi. John Lee did Pillars of the Earth wonderfully (hard recommend) and Bill Bryson did all of his own books, and they’re all excellent.
Will Wheaton is an amazing narrator! I don't think it matters what he's reading honestly, I'm gonna listen to it.
When he was just getting started it was hard. Red Shirts is a hard listen, especially since 2 of the main character have pretty similar sounding names. There was one scene where Dahl and Duvall were talking back and forth for like 50 lines and my ears did the equivillent of defocusings your eyes, Wil was just straight monotone Wil saying
"..." said Duvall
"..." replied Dahl
"..." retorted Duvall
...
By the collpasing emire series he's attempting voices and inflections and I'm happy to see his growth.
My first book narrated by R.C. Bray was Columbus Day, and at first I thought I wouldn't like his narration style, or the writing of Craig Alanson, too much "Huuahh" for my liking. But after getting a bit further into book, I've realised that in both cases it was just an excellent depiction of how the main character thinks and talks. Other, and especially non-military, characters are both written and narrated drastically different. Made me appreciate both author and narrator much more!
Dungeon Crawler Carl - narrated by Jeff Hays
Expeditionary Force - narrated by R.C. Bray
I think you got those backwards! Both great tho. A new ExFor book coming out apparently, which is weird.
You are right! I'll fix.
Came here looking for Dungeon Crawler Carl, glad someone posted it. Jeff Hays is the most talented narrator I've ever heard.
I completely forgot it was all one person.
I've mentioned this before, but it deserves repeating - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson read by the late David Warner. Here we have one of the cornerstone works of a quietly influential and brilliant author narrated by a classically trained stage and screen actor (who passed away days after I finished listening. It was eerie.). The setting descriptions have a resonance because of his performance. It was chilling, a real listening experience. Anyone who might be turned off because of the more recent adaptations (Current Netflix and c.2000 film adaptation) - listen to the OG. It's the kind of subtle scary that creeps up on you and disappears without a trace rather than the kind that jump-scares you into indifference.
I also really liked Hitchhikers Guide. Stephen Fry could narrate a phone book and find a way to make it interesting, I'm convinced.
Stephen Pacey does an excellent job with all of Joe Abercrombies books. Really gets into his characters and feels like a cast instead of just one person. Really enjoy his voicing of Inquisitor Glokta
I’ve read the first law trilogy multiple times but haven’t listened to the audiobooks. I’ve only heard good things about Stephen Pacey’s narration, I should really find the time to listen to the books.
Its taken years for me to accept that I must listen to Scott Brick's stupid sing-song performances.
Marc Thompson doing any of Zahn's work is exceptional. I'm also a sucker for Simon Vance, even though with some performances you can hear traffic in the background. He can also get like Porter where Bond and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Millennium trilogy blend.
I like Joe Barrett a lot. He did an excellent reading of The Hustler by Tevis.
Tom Stechschulte is also absolutely perfect for all of Cormac McCarthy's novels, but No Country for Old Men really stood out.
I hope Scott Brick retires. Some people feel this way about Peter Giles, though -- and I really like his voice. He was great for Heat 2
I like John Lee in general but when he reads Alastair Reynolds books it's a very good match. He narrates mosy of Reynolds' books but not Revenger etc, which is good because I don't think he would have fit the tone.
Jefferson Mays. He narrated all of the audiobooks for the The Expanse series.
Such a phenomenal job, to this day my favourite narration performance. His performance is also a big part of the reason why I couldn't get into the TV adaptation. The vocal performances, accent choices etc. were just a huge downgrade after having listened to all of the books that had been released by the time the first episode of the TV series aired.
Hard agree. Not sure how he does it but he goes from Martian neo-Texan to beltah pidgin to an older Indian woman seamlessly. There are so many different voices with unique regional accents and none of them seem forced. Really enjoyed the audiobooks and his reading was a big part of that. Though hearing him say "Oh hell yes" makes you realize how often that phrase shows up.
Wayne June, the voice actor of the narrator in the darkest dungeon video game has voiced a couple HP lovecraft audiobooks that you can find for free on youtube.
Heath Miller does an amazing job with the He Who Fights with Monsters LitRPG series by Shirtaloon. I don't yet have any other books that he's narrated yet, but I definitely look forward to any he does.
(A second comment but the first was already being voted so I wanted to not ride its tails with these)
Say what you will about some of the flaws of the book itself, but the narration of Neil Stephenson's Seveneves was well done by Mary Robinette Kowal and Will Damron. Anathem and Diamond Age also have good audio books. I've just recently started listening to Baroque Cycle so no room to comment there yet (and I only read Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon in paper form).
World War Z's audio book is quite well done with a cast of people, it's just unfortunate that the audio book is heavily abridged and hence loses out significantly to the paper book. Still better than that abomination of a movie though...
I didn’t know that and i just finished it. I could only find it in my own language sadly and that wasn’t great either. It was over 13 hours but I have no idea if it was abridged.
If it was 13 hours it was likely unabridged. The US version is only 6 hours!
Holy shit that's quite a difference but I'm glad to know.
Awakenings and Musicophilia by the author Oliver Sacks. The perfect balance between science and human emotions beautifully written and narrated.
I'm a huge fan of Sack's book the Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat as an introduction to neurological disorders and the practice of neurology for people who don't have medical background. However I know nothing about the audiobook quality
If you can get ahold of the R.C. Bray version of the Martian, it is so good. My absolute favorite way of presenting that story.
Just noticed you mentioned him. You don’t really have to worry about knowing voices he’s gonna use. Most of the story is just the one voice.
I’m genuinely shocked I haven’t seen Tim Gerard Reynolds recommended on here. He narrates the Red Rising trilogy. He is an amazing narrator. I’ve never felt so proud to be Irish than I did while listening to the beginning of Red Rising and I’m not even Irish.
I really enjoyed "Infinite Jest" as narrated by Sean Pratt. It is such a journey of a book, and I absolutely think he enhanced it for me. He made the funny parts more funny, and the tender parts more heartfelt.
The only tricky thing - I'm not sure if they have resolved this in another edition, but the endnotes were in a separate audiobook. So I was bouncing back and forth.
It made it rougher, but was worth it. One endnote in particular was probably one of my favorite narrated parts in the whole book.
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit read by Phil Dragash. It is a fan recording. Dragash just made it himself and published it. It has since been DMCA'd off his website, but it is still available at the internet archive. https://archive.org/search?query=phil+dragash+lord+of+the+rings
I have tried both of the official LOTR recordings, and this one is by far the best. It is definitely amateur; there are some minor issues and sections that should have been re-recorded. But these are very few and do not distract from the work.
Suzy Jackson really nailed it in the Skyward series by Brandon Sanderson. All the cute little voices for doom slug and boom slug really brought depth to some arguably throw away characters. Managed to capture male voices very well too!
Children of Blood and Bone has a wonderful narrator. I loved her so much I bought the second one as soon as I finished the first one.
Gathering Moss and Braiding Sweetgrass authored and read by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Some of the most beautifully layered tangently described areas of topics from bryology, ecology, new kinder economic models, life stories, indigenous history and more. The way she wrote and reads feels so gentle and woven together, it warms the soul while teaching you so much about her areas of expertise and broader life.
My favorite is Roy Dotrice narrating the A song of ice and fire books. He would consistently surprise me with a range of voices in a book with so many characters to keep track of. Not only that, but how recognizable all of the characters became by his portrayal of them, knowing who was talking with little context. I can still hear his interpretation of multiple characters in my heads years after I last heard them.