Audio books can be strange sometimes, take "Devastation of Baal", it's a dope ass book that I absolutely loved. The narrator was really good except one thing, his voice for Mephiston sounds like Mandark from Dexter's Lab, super hard to take him seriously even when he was doing his crazy ass OP stuff.
I think one of the few narrations I've disliked is in descent of angels and fallen angels where 2 of the main/semi main characters Zahriel and Nemiel don't sound any different from 15yrs old to fully fledged astartes lol. In fallen angels, after being astartes for 50yrs+ they still sound like adolescent teens, which is annoying as fuck.
I actually returned the Ahriman: Eternal audio book over this exact reason. They made him sound like an old point dexter, and it was insufferable to hear one of my favorite characters sound like that.
Yeah the ahriman books narration are awful for this reason but to be fair I think John French describes shit too much too. I dont need to know every line and what shape it is making on someone's face
Yeah it’s annoying that Mephiston has a whiny voice in the Dante books, but in the Mephiston series of books he has a deep gravelly voice. Wish there was more consistency between the voice acting (Black Library’s fault I suppose, not the actors)
Fear to tread is like this.
Everything else is good, but then for some reason Sanguinius is voiced like someone doing a spooky ghost impression.
WoooooOOOOOOoooo, I am Sanguuuiiniiuuusssss woooooooOooooOooOoooo
Oh i found it nice, though it was weird thr few first lines then it just, made sense I guess. Though I do see him less as a plotting vempirrle minus thr accent and more of an intelectual brute.
Can agree the Devastation of Baal was ruined for me by the narrator. I have listened to over 300 audiobooks and The Devastation of Baal was one of the worst. You get some great narrators, but the guy that did this book was sorry to say pretty horrid.
I have had a similar experience with Renegades: Harrowmaster. The narrator's delivery just makes everyone sound like teenagers not taking things seriously rather than, y'know, Astartes.
Oh thank Emps I am not thr only onr, rvrn left an audible review stated exectly that. All id fine, but I was constsbtly seeing mepgiston twirling his victorian era overly long moustache and secretly planing to tie some damsel to a train track....
Yeah. Hellsreach is a very good audiobook, but I would be lying if I said his voice for Hellbrecht isn’t absolutely horrible to listen to. I get what he was going for, but I would rather listen to earrape remixes for a few hours
I’m listening to it now and it’s a slog - though I devoured the physical book in no time. There are parts where you can hear him zoning out. And there’s not enough difference between the character voices. Perhaps Jonathan Keeble has spoiled me for audiobook narration.
I don't know you, fellow redditor, but after going through the Felix and Gotrek books I'm inclined to believe you are a man of impeccable taste. I'm amazed at the effort and talent of Jonathan Keeble. Can you recommend any books where the others are narrating?
So I can recommend the Eisenhorn (and then Ravenor) series for Toby Longworth, and Stephen Perring narrates the fantastic Ciaphas Cain novels which take a slightly more humorous approach to the 40k universe.
>more convenient for consuming large amounts of books while sstill functioning in society
Off topic but I think sitting down and do real reading makes you function better in todays fast paced society.
I think learning about yourself and what works for you and doing whatever that is, be it reading paper books, e books, listening to audiobooks, or anything else, is better in today’s fast paced society.
I find that audiobooks really work for me, because I can occupy my hands and my creative, distractable tendencies with painting, which helps me better absorb content. I alternate between fiction, o’reilly audiobooks on software development, and podcasts, and it helps me consume way more useful knowledge.
Describing the enjoying of art as "absorbing content" or "consuming" is a pretty bleak way to describe a core part of the human experience. Unless you have severe diagnosed ADHD (in which case do whatever lets you function) then its hardly a bad thing to train yourself to have a longer attention span instead of giving in to every bodily whim.
Well, I do have ADHD, but I think you’re overly dwelling on the word ‘consume’ a bit. It’s just the best verb I can think of right now that encompasses both reading and listening, lol.
I mostly take issue with this notion that there is a “correct” or “superior” way to consume content. Books are great. If you like reading books, do it. Audiobooks are great. If you find it easier to listen to a book while doing something else, like working out, walking, painting miniatures, etc., then do that.
If you find reading books difficult, and you want to try to train yourself to focus on reading, sure. But if you’re only doing that because you feel you ‘should’ be consuming content in this way, due to some value judgement on reading being somehow better, even though you’d rather be listening to an audiobook, then something has gone wrong.
I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling miserable because I couldn’t do things the way I felt that I ‘should’ have been able to them( ironically, reading isn’t one of them), and I only learned as an adult that the adaptations that allow me to navigate the world as someone with ADHD, if they’re not harming me or others, are OK, even if they’re not the ‘normal’ or ‘right’ or ‘best’ way of doing them. So I’m maybe a little sensitive to these kinds of things.
true yes but, I can work while I have an audiobook in my ear. It's how I passed all my exams and its great when im driving or doing any type of work. With a 2 year old I font get that much time to do anything relaxing and my hobby time I can smash out an audiobook at the same time. I don't even get much time to read white dwarf these days.
I wonder if the delivery might’ve been a deliberate choice, from what I know about carcharodons (which is admittedly pretty superficial) uncanny valley and weird dispassionate emotion is kind of their whole thing.
I accidentally put the night lord omnibus on 1.25 speed.
It was DRAMATICALLY better to listen to.
It's now the default way I listen to all war hammer book. Try it and see if the book get better.
As someone with a scouse accent I find I sometimes have to bump it up to 1.5 and above with some narrators.
We talk quickly here and the pace is GLACIAL.
I do feel like I'm robbing myself of time I've paid for though.
Thanks will do
Edit: curently reading betwen 1.10 an 1.15 speed it does seem better even if the pauses are still noticeable beyond that it's too fast to understand
This is one of those opinions that get me put up against the wall, but there is a particular narrator that everyone absolutely dickrides and I can’t stand him. He pronounces things wrong, sounds bored and has odd inflection. Really ruins the HH books for me. It’s to the point that I have to take a break every now and then and listen to an actual decent narrator like RC Bray. That would be my suggestion to you.
I’ve got Keeble for Betrayer right now! Dude loves his demon voices, but his voice for Angron is a bit… constricted.
I just got to one of Reddit’s favorite passages:
His first thought was that his optical sensors were malfunctioning.
“My optical sensors are malfunctioning,” he said.
Except he said nothing, because nothing came out.
I don't know, I thought he was really good for the first few HH books he covered. He's the best Horus by far. He can project a very noble appeal to characters better than many can. But he does mispronounce things a lot, but he does it so confidently it makes you second guess yourself.
I quite like a lot of his narration (I enjoy the nobility he tends to inflect on characters who should have it) but I can see where you're coming from. I think some of it is just him being one of the earliest major Black Library audiobook narrators and them not entirely knowing what they were doing with direction.
I've not minded him too much for the Horus Heresy, but Im revisiting the Eisenhorn series and I'm definitely finding him less enjoyable there. I'm sure its more because I know these books well enough that I've imagined the character's voices and his don't match that, but some of his choices are definitely odd. Fishig sounds terrible, and his delivery of some of Eisenhorn's lines are just bland. I agree with him sounding a bit bored at times.
I almost missed 'my patience is limited, unlike my authority' because he just rolled through it with no emphasis. It's like, *the* line from the series. I know that, to him, it's likely just another line of dialogue but it pulled me out of it completely and it's not the only line that could have used some added flair. There's a few points so far that have had me thinking 'i wish I'd just read this instead'
I just finished listening to the Spears of the Emperor narrated by Kelly Hotten. A rare 40k novel with full narration by a woman, but she really fucking nailed it. She gave such fantastic performances for each of the Marines that I could tell who was speaking just by the voice she used. I was absolutely engrossed in it. Definitely one of my favorite audiobooks.
The fall of cadia narrator fucking sucks. Huge shame. I didn't love the narrator for the new Mike Brooks Ork book, I liked the first narrator way more. John Banks is an all time narrator for sure though. I like Richard Reed a lot too.
The narrator for Da Big Dakka really threw me off, big time. Mostly because I liked the narrator from Brutal Kunnin' but also because his voice was super familiar. He's the voice actor for Sergeant-Major Morrow in Darktide, which I found to he distracting in a way.
I stopped reading the Gaunts Ghosts books for this reason. Got to to Blood Pact (i think) and they changed narrator for the first time. He had a bit of a Irish/ Scottish accent and at first in thought it would be kinda nice to hear a more genuine tone to the Tanith accents, then we got to Mad Larkin and I instantly turned the book off. Narrator turned a nuanced and troubled character into a bloody caricature. He went from grizzled but damaged veteran to Mcgukit from Gravity Falls. I was beyond mad.
It was similar for one of the dawn of fire books, dude kept saying words weird (like pronouncing empyrean as empy-ree-ann) and he gave Rowboat Girlyman the voice of a British Disney villain. That one i managed to endure, but it was a close thing.
Salvation’s Reach with James McPherson as narrator.
I didn’t get very far in that one, refunded within a half hour sadly.
Fingers crossed that the last two books get re-recorded by Toby Longworth
Yeah, the Larkin bit was off putting with all the development since the beginning
I had a hard time adjusting to the new voices and I just couldn’t tough it out, funnily enough
I was the same. Made it through Disney Rowboat so thought I could hack it. Was a little miffed at the change in tone of Mabon Etagower (I'm taking a guess at the spelling because audio book) but was willing to continue. But then Hark.... then Larkin.... and I was done.
I listen to a fair few indie audiodramas and I sometimes find the same issue with American casts, sometimes I can't tell characters apart because they all sound the same with my ear to yank accents. I've heard the inverse with Americans and British audiodramas and I wonder if the same is applying to you.
possibly, I've listened to a couple American abooks that I didn't have an issue with (ready player one, necromancer) but the 4-5 40k books have been difficult, I get less than half of the info.
This is me with the Infinite and the Divine and ESPECIALLY Twice Dead King.
Couldn’t get past the first few chapters in either audiobook because I found the “exceedingly British man doing a bizarre vaguely middle eastern accent” bit was just too grating. Not that they were doing a terrible job or anything, I just can’t for the life of me understand why they wouldn’t just speak normally instead of doing an accent for EVERY character
I think the part of twice dead king that made me turn it off was when one of the main characters’s subroutines starts doing this awful shrieking yell when he gets ork guys on his foot. Made me cringe so hard, I felt like almost embarrassed for listening to it
I actually enjoyed the narration for Ruin a decent amount, but there was that part where Oltyx arrives on the fallen dynasty planet with the giant construct being followed by chanting cultists and it was legitimately uncomfortable to listen to because it was very loud and repetitive.
Why i could never listen to Spear of the Emperor. The whole thing is done by a woman. Nothing against females. Just sounds weird having her trying to do all these male voices. Couldn't even get past the first chapter.
Another 1 is Fulgrim book. Just started it and the scene where he does the voice for Fabious Bile.... jesus christ.... think 80's witch voice with the high pitch shrieking. Just sounds like ass. I was getting sucked in tell that point. Then just completely ruined the immersion.
Audio books can be strange sometimes, take "Devastation of Baal", it's a dope ass book that I absolutely loved. The narrator was really good except one thing, his voice for Mephiston sounds like Mandark from Dexter's Lab, super hard to take him seriously even when he was doing his crazy ass OP stuff.
I think one of the few narrations I've disliked is in descent of angels and fallen angels where 2 of the main/semi main characters Zahriel and Nemiel don't sound any different from 15yrs old to fully fledged astartes lol. In fallen angels, after being astartes for 50yrs+ they still sound like adolescent teens, which is annoying as fuck.
Yeah one of my biggest gripes is when they give space marine innocent young boy voices. It happened recently in Fear to Tread for me.
I actually returned the Ahriman: Eternal audio book over this exact reason. They made him sound like an old point dexter, and it was insufferable to hear one of my favorite characters sound like that.
Yeah the ahriman books narration are awful for this reason but to be fair I think John French describes shit too much too. I dont need to know every line and what shape it is making on someone's face
I hate that narrator's deamoj voices. Every fucking time I hear Tzeech deamons I hear someone doing a spooky ghost voice.
You act like tzeech deamons wouldn’t do spooky ghost voices just to fuck with people
That's bad but I can't get over Ahriman sounding like a god damn nerd. Like it's only a step away from full-blown Mandark energy.
Yeah it’s annoying that Mephiston has a whiny voice in the Dante books, but in the Mephiston series of books he has a deep gravelly voice. Wish there was more consistency between the voice acting (Black Library’s fault I suppose, not the actors)
Fear to tread is like this. Everything else is good, but then for some reason Sanguinius is voiced like someone doing a spooky ghost impression. WoooooOOOOOOoooo, I am Sanguuuiiniiuuusssss woooooooOooooOooOoooo
Yeah, the Fall of Cadia audiobook is broadly an excellent read of the book... Except for Abaddon, who just sounds drunk off his warp moonshine.
Oh i found it nice, though it was weird thr few first lines then it just, made sense I guess. Though I do see him less as a plotting vempirrle minus thr accent and more of an intelectual brute.
The sheer amount of bit parts Abadon has in 40k novels makes him hilariously prone to wildly different voicings (and behaviour) in audiobooks.
Can agree the Devastation of Baal was ruined for me by the narrator. I have listened to over 300 audiobooks and The Devastation of Baal was one of the worst. You get some great narrators, but the guy that did this book was sorry to say pretty horrid.
I have had a similar experience with Renegades: Harrowmaster. The narrator's delivery just makes everyone sound like teenagers not taking things seriously rather than, y'know, Astartes.
Hilarious
Oh thank Emps I am not thr only onr, rvrn left an audible review stated exectly that. All id fine, but I was constsbtly seeing mepgiston twirling his victorian era overly long moustache and secretly planing to tie some damsel to a train track....
Yeah. Hellsreach is a very good audiobook, but I would be lying if I said his voice for Hellbrecht isn’t absolutely horrible to listen to. I get what he was going for, but I would rather listen to earrape remixes for a few hours
Yep I remember that and same with the narrator for the Dawn of Fire series. His voices were so bad I dropped it completely.
Yep that guy totally botched rawboat girlyman's voice
I’m listening to it now and it’s a slog - though I devoured the physical book in no time. There are parts where you can hear him zoning out. And there’s not enough difference between the character voices. Perhaps Jonathan Keeble has spoiled me for audiobook narration.
Toby Longworth, Johnathan Keeble and Stephen Perring are the Holy Trinity of Warhammer narrators and that's a hill I'll die on.
I don't know you, fellow redditor, but after going through the Felix and Gotrek books I'm inclined to believe you are a man of impeccable taste. I'm amazed at the effort and talent of Jonathan Keeble. Can you recommend any books where the others are narrating?
So I can recommend the Eisenhorn (and then Ravenor) series for Toby Longworth, and Stephen Perring narrates the fantastic Ciaphas Cain novels which take a slightly more humorous approach to the 40k universe.
Stephen Perring and Penelope Rawlins do the Cain books so damn well. (With a bit of Emma Gregory here and there as Jenit Sulla's memoirs.)
Toby Longworth does most of the famous and well written Gaunt's Ghosts series, so if you were ever wanting to get around to that, there ya go.
>more convenient for consuming large amounts of books while sstill functioning in society Off topic but I think sitting down and do real reading makes you function better in todays fast paced society.
True but i do it for books that provide real personal growth, 40k books are like my comfort junkfood
To be fair, taking time to read and slow down immediacy can do wonders!
I get that completely. 40K books are fun, but it's important to read some actual literature too
I read for work, the last thing I want to do is in read in my spare time.
I think learning about yourself and what works for you and doing whatever that is, be it reading paper books, e books, listening to audiobooks, or anything else, is better in today’s fast paced society. I find that audiobooks really work for me, because I can occupy my hands and my creative, distractable tendencies with painting, which helps me better absorb content. I alternate between fiction, o’reilly audiobooks on software development, and podcasts, and it helps me consume way more useful knowledge.
Describing the enjoying of art as "absorbing content" or "consuming" is a pretty bleak way to describe a core part of the human experience. Unless you have severe diagnosed ADHD (in which case do whatever lets you function) then its hardly a bad thing to train yourself to have a longer attention span instead of giving in to every bodily whim.
Well, I do have ADHD, but I think you’re overly dwelling on the word ‘consume’ a bit. It’s just the best verb I can think of right now that encompasses both reading and listening, lol. I mostly take issue with this notion that there is a “correct” or “superior” way to consume content. Books are great. If you like reading books, do it. Audiobooks are great. If you find it easier to listen to a book while doing something else, like working out, walking, painting miniatures, etc., then do that. If you find reading books difficult, and you want to try to train yourself to focus on reading, sure. But if you’re only doing that because you feel you ‘should’ be consuming content in this way, due to some value judgement on reading being somehow better, even though you’d rather be listening to an audiobook, then something has gone wrong. I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling miserable because I couldn’t do things the way I felt that I ‘should’ have been able to them( ironically, reading isn’t one of them), and I only learned as an adult that the adaptations that allow me to navigate the world as someone with ADHD, if they’re not harming me or others, are OK, even if they’re not the ‘normal’ or ‘right’ or ‘best’ way of doing them. So I’m maybe a little sensitive to these kinds of things.
true yes but, I can work while I have an audiobook in my ear. It's how I passed all my exams and its great when im driving or doing any type of work. With a 2 year old I font get that much time to do anything relaxing and my hobby time I can smash out an audiobook at the same time. I don't even get much time to read white dwarf these days.
I wonder if the delivery might’ve been a deliberate choice, from what I know about carcharodons (which is admittedly pretty superficial) uncanny valley and weird dispassionate emotion is kind of their whole thing.
I accidentally put the night lord omnibus on 1.25 speed. It was DRAMATICALLY better to listen to. It's now the default way I listen to all war hammer book. Try it and see if the book get better.
As someone with a scouse accent I find I sometimes have to bump it up to 1.5 and above with some narrators. We talk quickly here and the pace is GLACIAL. I do feel like I'm robbing myself of time I've paid for though.
I think a lot of 40k books could only be improved by a Scouse narrator.
So ah glassed that cunt fa saying Steeeeven Gherrahd was mid. Exterminatus the whole of Manchestah.
Thanks will do Edit: curently reading betwen 1.10 an 1.15 speed it does seem better even if the pauses are still noticeable beyond that it's too fast to understand
This is one of those opinions that get me put up against the wall, but there is a particular narrator that everyone absolutely dickrides and I can’t stand him. He pronounces things wrong, sounds bored and has odd inflection. Really ruins the HH books for me. It’s to the point that I have to take a break every now and then and listen to an actual decent narrator like RC Bray. That would be my suggestion to you.
Keeble?
I’ve got Keeble for Betrayer right now! Dude loves his demon voices, but his voice for Angron is a bit… constricted. I just got to one of Reddit’s favorite passages: His first thought was that his optical sensors were malfunctioning. “My optical sensors are malfunctioning,” he said. Except he said nothing, because nothing came out.
I kind of digged his Angron voice to be honest
It's definitely something! It does make it clear in the book that Angron can't breathe through his nose. Demigod Schmemigod.
Toby longworth. 🫢😬
I loved his narration for the Gaunt's Ghosts series.
I bet that could have been good. But he just simply doesn’t have that space marine vibe.
I don't know, I thought he was really good for the first few HH books he covered. He's the best Horus by far. He can project a very noble appeal to characters better than many can. But he does mispronounce things a lot, but he does it so confidently it makes you second guess yourself.
Damn. I've just got through the Eisenhorn trilogy audiobooks as my introduction to 40k and I _loved_ Longworth's narration.
I quite like a lot of his narration (I enjoy the nobility he tends to inflect on characters who should have it) but I can see where you're coming from. I think some of it is just him being one of the earliest major Black Library audiobook narrators and them not entirely knowing what they were doing with direction.
Yeah, I could definitely listen to him in other books. He’s not bad, he’s just not right to portray SM in my mind.
I've not minded him too much for the Horus Heresy, but Im revisiting the Eisenhorn series and I'm definitely finding him less enjoyable there. I'm sure its more because I know these books well enough that I've imagined the character's voices and his don't match that, but some of his choices are definitely odd. Fishig sounds terrible, and his delivery of some of Eisenhorn's lines are just bland. I agree with him sounding a bit bored at times. I almost missed 'my patience is limited, unlike my authority' because he just rolled through it with no emphasis. It's like, *the* line from the series. I know that, to him, it's likely just another line of dialogue but it pulled me out of it completely and it's not the only line that could have used some added flair. There's a few points so far that have had me thinking 'i wish I'd just read this instead'
I just finished listening to the Spears of the Emperor narrated by Kelly Hotten. A rare 40k novel with full narration by a woman, but she really fucking nailed it. She gave such fantastic performances for each of the Marines that I could tell who was speaking just by the voice she used. I was absolutely engrossed in it. Definitely one of my favorite audiobooks.
Her accent for Ekene Dubaku sure was something
I thought Goto did an amazing job. Up there with Andrew Wincot and Keeble. preference I guess
The fall of cadia narrator fucking sucks. Huge shame. I didn't love the narrator for the new Mike Brooks Ork book, I liked the first narrator way more. John Banks is an all time narrator for sure though. I like Richard Reed a lot too.
John Banks is fantastic!
The narrator for Da Big Dakka really threw me off, big time. Mostly because I liked the narrator from Brutal Kunnin' but also because his voice was super familiar. He's the voice actor for Sergeant-Major Morrow in Darktide, which I found to he distracting in a way.
I stopped reading the Gaunts Ghosts books for this reason. Got to to Blood Pact (i think) and they changed narrator for the first time. He had a bit of a Irish/ Scottish accent and at first in thought it would be kinda nice to hear a more genuine tone to the Tanith accents, then we got to Mad Larkin and I instantly turned the book off. Narrator turned a nuanced and troubled character into a bloody caricature. He went from grizzled but damaged veteran to Mcgukit from Gravity Falls. I was beyond mad. It was similar for one of the dawn of fire books, dude kept saying words weird (like pronouncing empyrean as empy-ree-ann) and he gave Rowboat Girlyman the voice of a British Disney villain. That one i managed to endure, but it was a close thing.
Salvation’s Reach with James McPherson as narrator. I didn’t get very far in that one, refunded within a half hour sadly. Fingers crossed that the last two books get re-recorded by Toby Longworth
Maybe that's the one i was thinking of
Yeah, the Larkin bit was off putting with all the development since the beginning I had a hard time adjusting to the new voices and I just couldn’t tough it out, funnily enough
I was the same. Made it through Disney Rowboat so thought I could hack it. Was a little miffed at the change in tone of Mabon Etagower (I'm taking a guess at the spelling because audio book) but was willing to continue. But then Hark.... then Larkin.... and I was done.
none of the 40k audiobooks work for me, maybe it's the British accent but my brain tunes out very quickly.
I have the opposite problem - anything about 40K in American accents and pronunciations just sounds wrong.
I listen to a fair few indie audiodramas and I sometimes find the same issue with American casts, sometimes I can't tell characters apart because they all sound the same with my ear to yank accents. I've heard the inverse with Americans and British audiodramas and I wonder if the same is applying to you.
possibly, I've listened to a couple American abooks that I didn't have an issue with (ready player one, necromancer) but the 4-5 40k books have been difficult, I get less than half of the info.
Why I'm not listening to audio books. Wrong voice, wrong "melody" and stuff like that will make me stop listening. I'd rather just read it.
Fall of Cadia’s audiobook is decent, but Trazyn’s voice really throws me after listening to The Infinite and the Divine
This is me with the Infinite and the Divine and ESPECIALLY Twice Dead King. Couldn’t get past the first few chapters in either audiobook because I found the “exceedingly British man doing a bizarre vaguely middle eastern accent” bit was just too grating. Not that they were doing a terrible job or anything, I just can’t for the life of me understand why they wouldn’t just speak normally instead of doing an accent for EVERY character I think the part of twice dead king that made me turn it off was when one of the main characters’s subroutines starts doing this awful shrieking yell when he gets ork guys on his foot. Made me cringe so hard, I felt like almost embarrassed for listening to it
I actually enjoyed the narration for Ruin a decent amount, but there was that part where Oltyx arrives on the fallen dynasty planet with the giant construct being followed by chanting cultists and it was legitimately uncomfortable to listen to because it was very loud and repetitive.
Why i could never listen to Spear of the Emperor. The whole thing is done by a woman. Nothing against females. Just sounds weird having her trying to do all these male voices. Couldn't even get past the first chapter. Another 1 is Fulgrim book. Just started it and the scene where he does the voice for Fabious Bile.... jesus christ.... think 80's witch voice with the high pitch shrieking. Just sounds like ass. I was getting sucked in tell that point. Then just completely ruined the immersion.
Man if somone could be bothered, it would be a really useful to train one of those ai models to solve this
I can't imagine paying actual money to hear a book read by an AI. I could've done that myself.
I use a text to speech reader for my ebooks. It's not as good as an actual narrator, but it's good though when I need to do two things at once