Audiobook Adventures: Chapter 27

Not much to report this time around.

I finished recording "Toyman," the third book in the Dumarest series.  I thought I had till a certain day to turn in the completed reading, but in checking today, I discovered I have five days less than I thought I did.  Even if I edit one whole chapter each day (which is unlikely), I won't make the deadline.  I don't know why I can't be a bit more diligent about recording these things; if I just made a point to record the whole book in, say, a week, then I would better remember the character names and their voices, and I could take my time to edit the recordings, which is the worst part about doing these things anyway.


On that note, I haven't taken on any new projects, at least not for Audible.  I've got the three remaining Dumarest books on my contract, all due before the end of the year, and then I can think about the future, Eckhart.

But that's not entirely true, as I, just a couple of days ago, saw that a Ray Bradbury story was looking for auditions.  I thought about it, and figured I may never again get the chance to be the official narrator for a Bradbury project, and that it would be great to say I did that one day, so I went ahead and sent in my audition.  If I say nothing about it, I guess you'll know I didn't get it.

"Toyman" was a really solid book, and it feels more episodic than the last one, where at least Earl Dumarest fell in love.  In this one, he does get one more step toward his goal, but it's a little step, with a heck of a lot of work to get there.  Once again, Tubb did that thing I complained about in my last post about this stuff, except that he did it twice in "Derai," and once in "Toyman," and even then, at the very end of the book.  There is an action scene, it abruptly ends, and then, afterward, the character tells the other characters what happened.  I'm not at all sure why you'd tell a story this way*, but it must be something Tubb enjoys doing, much like when Stephen King will say, "They went their separate ways.  It was the last time Alex and Amanda would ever see each other alive."

In the last book, I chose for all the characters on the Planet Hive to have English accents, except for the villainous Cyber, who had a nasal American one.  In this book, I decided every citizen of the planet Toy would have American accents, and so, gave this particular Cyber a snooty English one.  There have been a Cyber in each of the three books I've read, and instead of giving all three the same voice--which might have been the way to go--I tried to make them each unique.

I also, for some inexplicable reason, chose to pronounce "laboratory" the other way at one point early in this book.  Then, to my horror, I discovered that later scenes actually took place in the laboratory.  Damn my dialectic creativity.

I also had our thirteen Halloween marathon episodes to edit, and that took a huge chunk--a positive, enjoyable one, though--out of my available edit time.  I wonder, is it better to have too many irons in the fire, or too few?

Rish

*The only real reason I can think of is if it's a children's story you're telling, and by having the narrator alive and well, and looking back on a life-threatening experience, it reassures the listeners that he did, indeed survive.