[tristanperry]

I don't know... whilst I'm not an audio book fan myself, people who are fans seem very sensitive to different audiobook performers. For example, James Marsters wasn't able to read a single book in the Dresden Files series, and lots of fans quickly noticed and complained.

It's similar to saying that voice actors (and then actual visual actors) will soon be out of business because we can soon 'automate' that too...

Voice (audiobook) acting is a _performance_, not a routine task to tick the "available on Audible" box.

[7thaccount]

I was just about to post this when I saw your comment. Yeah, when we accidentally got the non-Marster's (still good) audiobook my wife and I were immediately like "this is not right". Master's is the only audiobook personality I know and is talked about by fans all the time (think he used to be in Buffy).

For anyone who hasn't ever read the Dresden Files, it is a fantasy series set in modern Chicago with a young wizard way in over his head. The series starts off kinda bleh with the first few books, but steadily picks up pace as the main character gets more involved with all the crazy things going on. The author puts basically every single (ok a lot) of diverse mythologies as if it is all real (Odin, Mab, Erlking, Skinwalkers, Trolls, the Fae, Necromancers, 4 different kinds of Vampires, Roman Gods, the White God, Angels, Demons, Lucifer, Dragons, Cthulhu, and about a dozen other bad and good things all with a single coherant plot. The main character starts to see that all of these major supernatural entities are moving their armies like 3D chess. The characters take some time to develop, but are seriously good.

[belinder]

next book when

[7thaccount]

Peace Talks is supposed to be in December or January I think. He has been wrapping up the editing since September.

The dresden files subreddit has one of the author's beta readers that sends us some updates although no spoilers of course. She says it will be as big of a whammy as "Changes".

There was also a new Goodman Gray shirt story released recently.

[belinder]

Oh man I cant wait! thanks for the update

[wccrawford]

Marsters did eventually record that book. I listened to the original and definitely missed his reading of the book. I felt the other reader did a decent job (way better than most readers), but Marsters simply does a masterful job.

[Digit-Al]

You mean a "Marster-ful" job ;-)

[agentwiggles]

Peter Kenny is the narrator for most of Iain Banks' Culture series. Hearing a different narrator for Matter just felt off, I've come to associate Peter's accent with the setting.

[sethammons]

Solid example. That lone book using a separate narrator was jarring. I agree with the performance aspect. It will take general AI to understand timing of a joke, or pausing for drama. One must literally understand the text to deliver a good narration. I don't expect to see AI capable of that in my life.