Today I’ll be reviewing the audio version of Wool First Shift 1-5.
I’m of two minds when it comes to the narrator. I really like the third person portion of the narration. I also like most of her female voices. On the hand, I find her male voices… distracting. They sound, how do I put it? Forced perhaps? They lack subtlety, with too much emphasis placed on their being of a lower key and/or raspy, depending on the character, rather than on the nuances that generally set male and female voices apart. Of course, at least she doesn’t make any of them sound like Bill & Ted as with the audio book I listened to just before this. Having a character that is supposed to be the most powerful being on the planet and of the highest esteem sound like a surfer dude is a bit off-putting to say the least, and the narrator and character were of the same gender, so that can’t even be used as an explanation. One other issue I have is that, whenever a character laughs, it ends up sounding a bit snide to me, and I picture the character sneering. This suits Bernard; Juliette, not so much.
Still, I’d call her a good narrator. I’ve heard far far worse.
The story itself is great. It has a sort of snowball effect… Starts out good, and just keeps gaining momentum, often travelling down areas you weren’t quite expecting. I’m not going to spend much time on it, but for the basics, it is a series of short stories combined into a decently long distopian overall story.
As of the posting of this blog, the audiobook is available on Audible for an astoundingly low USD 1.99. For over 17 hours of audio, and a great book to boot. If that isn’t the best deal on Audible right now, I’m an ostrich.
Now… off to listen to The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Again.
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