TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 19 September 2024 - 02:20 PM, said:
This won't necessarily sway anyone who found The Silmarillion too dense or confusing, but if anyone's looking to try it I really recommend the audiobook read by Andy Serkis.
I started listening to it today and he's absolutely nailed the tone - he's delivering it like an elder might tell myths around a fire, which is perfect. He's putting a lot of work into the pronunciation as well so it might help people who find all the similar names blur into one.
I have also listened to this and it's AMAZING! He also utterly nails LOTR too.
Though I always thought that it would have been hilarious if he trolled everyone and made gollum Northern or something like "Ey up precious, ahm Gollum!"
A Haunting Poem
I Scream
You Scream
We all Scream
For I Scream.
Finished "The Trouble with Peace"
over the 8 hour flight.
I suspect I may need to buy more books during the trip. It'll be quite a trick finding something not in French though
Are you in Paris? If so, there is a big W. H. Smith bookstore there. Big cities will have small selections of English books. Otherwise, yes downloads might be your best options. But might not work, at least with Amazon, if you find yourself in a different territory than your account's address. Unless you use a VPN. . .
For book reviews, author interviews, giveaways, related articles and news, and much more, check out www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com
Just read the new Lev Grossman book, Bright Sword. It's a post-Arthurian story- a young knight (kinda) with big dreams goes to Camelot to try to gain membership to the Round Table, only to find that he's just died along with most of the group, leaving the weirdos and misfits behind.
Enjoyed it a lot. It's interesting that it's so very different in tone to Magicians- while that was a tribute to Narnia, it was also heavily taking the piss in an almost Abercrombie-esque way, and featured snark by the hatful. While snark is present here, this is much more earnest, and engages much more seriously in examining the building blocks of Arthurian legend. There's a lot of thematic depth going on: it examines the tension between the British folklore/religion elements of the stories and the Christian trappings, thoughts on what being 'British' actually means for a character whose legend was created over a long time of extreme changes in Britain's makeup and who ruled it, the responsibilities of being not just a king but a legendary chosen one... while also finding time to tell the individual stories of the knights involved. And despite all that it's still also just a rolicking good adventure.
So GRRM did a comprehensive political History of Westeros as a book.
It's generally good so far, but not including a map was certainly a choice.
I may need to put my amazon app on this phone tommorrow, I'm pretty sure I got some stuff in my eBook library still unread. Not ideal for this phone's screen, probably, but it may have to do.
The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard
THE CONTESTtm WINNER--чемпіон самоконтролю
Jump Around, on 23 October 2011 - 11:04 AM, said:
And I want to state that Ment has out-weaseled me by far in this game.
Had high hopes for Audible's The Boys: Dramatized Adaptation... until I saw that it's by the same group (Graphic Audio) that did those other terrible dramatized adaptations. In this one the narrator's voice isn't even pleasant, and his intonation and timing are frequently off. As if he doesn't know what he's saying. (And it turns out that---at least in this case---the adaptation of the graphic novel (or of an intermediary imageless novelization?) has a lot of third-person-narrational blather. "A panel is a thousand and one"...) On top of that, the accents are bad. Looked up the actors and they're the same bunch of horrible hacks (in mostly bad ways) from the other awful adaptations.
Now on to... IDK what, going to pick one of the below for my final four hours or so of Audible Plus:
Gilgamesh: A New Translation by Stephen Mitchell - came out after 2000 so I'm pretty sure I haven't read it
The Jade Setter of Janloon (standalone prequel to a series that's in the depths of my "to listen to" pile)
Zelazny (haven't read anything by him yet iirc---well at least nothing I remember): The Dream Master (interesting premise though I'm leery of the "psychoanalyst" part)
Creatures of Light and Darkness
Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland
Walking to Aldebaran (Adrian Tchaikovsky, another one on my TLT pile)
The Cretaceous Past (by Cixin Liu, author of The Three-Body Problem)
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 25 September 2024 - 03:33 PM
I love the opening sentence of Mitchell's Gilgamesh:
Quote
He had seen everything, had experienced all emotions, from exultation to despair, had been granted a vision into the great mystery, the secret places, the days before the flood.
lol, Gilgamesh already saw it all, so all literature that came afterwards is just redundant.
Or: the rest of human literature is just footnotes to Gilgamesh.
Was surprised to realize that "Uruk" is (obviously---once you realize it) the name that eventually became "Iraq".
Alternate translation:
Quote
This was the man to whom all things were known; this was the king who knew the countries of the world.
Literal translation (whoa this one is actually my favorite):
Quote
He who has seen the history of Gilgamesh, knows all * * * together * * * has seen all kinds of wisdom, knows the mysteries and has seen what is hidden, he bringeth news dating farther back [than the deluge?]; He has travelled far-distant roads, and become weary on a memorial tablet [inscribing?] all the other things the wall of Uruk-supuru
[missing]
He spoke a charm which does not leave * * * the god who from distant days ***
So today I finished the 3rd Malazan Book of the Fallen, Memories of Ice as I am going through the series on audiobook.
It's been a fascinating way to re-experience the books I know and love so well, and I'm really enjoying it.
Except
Ralph Lister is... Not a good narrator. Don't get me wrong, his expression as he reads the narrative is fine, and on some of the characters he does a good job (a couple of them, he totally nails! Like his voice for Bauchelain was great).
But some make me shudder and cringe. He isn't great at regional accents and when he tries to do them he shifts. So for Gesler in DHG and the Mott characters in MOI he tries a regional accent and it doesn't work.
A lot of his characters sound very similar to each other as he appears to be quite good at cheeky/slight cockney.
The most egregious one though is Kalam. His Kalam is just awful. He's taken a deep voiced, massive, dangerous assassin and made him a bit whiny, nasal and a little camp. It's very off-putting.
I know that the narrator changes after this so I'm hoping the new guy is better.
A Haunting Poem
I Scream
You Scream
We all Scream
For I Scream.
Tiste Simeon, on 26 September 2024 - 06:15 PM, said:
But some make me shudder and cringe. He isn't great at regional accents and when he tries to do them he shifts. So for Gesler in DHG and the Mott characters in MOI he tries a regional accent and it doesn't work.
A lot of his characters sound very similar to each other as he appears to be quite good at cheeky/slight cockney.
The most egregious one though is Kalam. His Kalam is just awful. He's taken a deep voiced, massive, dangerous assassin and made him a bit whiny, nasal and a little camp. It's very off-putting.
I know that the narrator changes after this so I'm hoping the new guy is better.
Wonder if AI accent changers will get good enough to be worth using retroactively on audiobooks. Like an option you could select. (Yes these already exist, including some that do it in real-time with negligible latency. And yes if they do get good enough to be used widely in media then actors who are capable of good accent work without AI assistance will probably become rarer... and in the audiobook realm they seem pretty rare already.)
Could also be great for doing character voices more generally---especially gender swaps.
I remember liking Page's Tehol.
The audiobook performer for Mitchell's Gilgamesh seemed pretty decent, for the style he's doing---about 4/5ths "elderly dramatic storyteller addressing an audience" and 1/5th some 20th century Shakespearean actor theatricality (but with an American accent, and not that superfast style...). I studied ancient Mesopotamian ritual theater a little (what little is known or speculated) and his performance IMO misses the ritual and spiritual aspects of it.
... that is, he seemed pretty decent... until I heard the voice he does for Gilgamesh. Yikes. High-pitched, clipped, speaking rapidly, with a bit of a strange accent that doesn't remind me of any nationality in particular (well, at least there's nothing to definitively mess up---unless that's supposed to be an Iraqi accent?).
And some sections are extremely repetitive, but he performs them in a slow and very boring way that's simultaneously lacking in the sorts of ritualistic rhythm or intonation that might make the repetition somewhat entrancing. If he wanted to go for more of a "dynamic storyteller" style he could have at least varied the performance of the repetitions a bit---or if he was reluctant to add to much "interpretation", he could have sped up on each iteration to acknowledge that the reader just heard the same exact paragraph five times, as well as add a bit of excitement and a sense of anticipation, like it's building up to something.
The text has shocked me repeatedly (mostly just because of how little of the story I remembered) and made me lol a couple of times, though it's hard to tell whether the humor was intended by the ancient authors (or the translator). For example,
Spoiler
Enkidu, a gigantic wild man, declares:
Quote
"I will shout to his face: I am the mightiest! I am the man who can make the world tremble! I am supreme!"
And as he marches through the city to confront the king:
Quote
the people gathered around him, marvelling, the crowds kept pressing closer to see him, they kissed his feet like a little baby. "What an enormous man!" they whispered.
"like a little baby", lol
Actually Mitchell's translation placed "like a little baby" before "they kissed his feet", but I think it's better with the punchline delayed.
Some other examples:
Quote
When the bull [of Heaven] snorted, the earth cracked open and a hundred warriors fell in and died. It snorted again, the earth cracked open and two hundred warriors fell in and died. When it snorted a third time, the earth cracked open and Enkidu fell in, up to his waist [he is very large], he jumped out and grabbed the Bull's horns, it spat its slobber into his face, it lifted its tail and spewed dung all over him. Gilgamesh rushed in and shouted, "Dear friend,"
So Gilgamesh rushed in---to the shit? And shouted---through the shit?... lol
Gilgamesh keeps having terrible prophetic dreams, each one more terrible than the last, and each time Enkidu explains why it's actually a wonderful dream. (Like in the first one he dreams they're in a pit and a mountain, so big they look like flies in comparison, topples down on top of them. But Enkidu says that means the monster they're going to slay will fall.) Then Enkidu has a terrible prophetic dream, and Gilgamesh is like, How do you know it's not a wonderful dream? And Enkidu's like, Nah, I'm gonna die. And he does.
One thing I don't like about the translation (and which may partly be a product of its 2004 publication date, back when there was still massive opposition to gay marriage in the United States) is that it downplays (so far) the homoerotic elements, which seem pretty clear in some of the ancient texts, and make the story make more sense:
Spoiler
The hero, Gilgamesh, is a tyrant who, because he's bigger and stronger than everyone else, goes around "crushing" the men of his kingdom, and whenever he sees a woman he's attracted to, he has sex with her---presumably whether or not she's willing. So his people (Gilgamesh is the king) appeal to the gods for help, and they create a hero, almost as big and strong as Gilgamesh, to grapple with him and become his gay lover. So Gilgamesh is too busy fucking Enkidu to go around crushing and raping everybody. As opposed to "oh, now he just has a friend close to his own size to play with. And caress the way a husband caresses a wife... but totally no homo, no way! He just happened to lose interest in sex...
Some other choice bits:
Spoiler
"his face [grew] pale like a severed head"
"lips [...] like flies"
"he trampled my bones"
"may drunkards vomit all over you"
"my mouth that cursed you will bless you now"
"you were the wide belt around my loins"
"may the warrior long to be naked
beside you"
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 27 September 2024 - 03:02 PM
Interests:Sacrificing myself for everyone else's greater good!
Posted 27 September 2024 - 05:51 PM
Azath, are there any narrators that you DO like? That aren't AI?
As for myself, I'm finally listening to a book that has been on my trp for ages: THE WINTER KING by Bernard Cornwell. I must admit that I'm ashamed of myself for waiting so long to start this because it is fantastic. Macros, you were right yet again.
This post has been edited by JPK: 27 September 2024 - 06:04 PM
Azath, are there any narrators that you DO like? That aren't AI?
Sure. Michael Page (who does the latter MBotF books) is one of my favorites---especially his performances for the Gentleman Bastard series. I like Lister too despite his flaws. Same goes for Anne Flosnik's Rainwild Chronicles. Steven Pacey's great, particularly for the Abercrombie books. Of course Roy Dotrice is my favorite... because he's dead now and ready to be reanimated by AI! (Kidding about that last one---well, the "because" part, that is... hopefully his estate will sign over his vocal likeness, at least initially for other excellent performers to transform their own nuanced performances into his distinctive voices while maintaining most of the nuance.)
I haven't heard any fully AI generated audiobook performances that I like as much as a good human performance. As I've mentioned many times here, I don't like it when audiobook performers sound like they have no idea what they're saying and seem to be just reading off words with minimal preparation and without bothering to redo parts that come out crappily. While AI singing has impressed me with its emulation of emotion that even seems to fit the lyrics, AI generated audiobook performances that aren't directly based on a human performance of the same text (as in the case of voice changers, like the one in the video) have not impressed me yet.
Tiste Simeon, on 27 September 2024 - 06:33 PM, said:
Azath is just wrong and I find it best to ignore him.
Issues aside I'm really loving going through MBOTF again in a new format.
JPK The Winter King is a great series!
It's very obvious that you didn't bother reading what I wrote after "AI" (... much less listen to the first 30 seconds of the video, which demonstrate that the accent changing technology has already gotten pretty good). Really not trying to troll you. Oh well. Guess I shouldn't have bothered demonstrating how AI can solve the problem you were talking about. It should soon be able to automatically go back through any audiobook and change any voice you want it to into almost any voice you like.
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 27 September 2024 - 07:54 PM
Interests:Sacrificing myself for everyone else's greater good!
Posted 27 September 2024 - 11:24 PM
I appreciate you answering, Azath. I was mostly curious because you've just come off of a string of narrators that you haven't cared for. You were right about that narrator for adaptation The Boys though. I listened to the opening and I haven't come across one that bad in awhile.
Finished Gilgamesh. And canceled Audible. Just as the opening lines promised, I've now seen and felt everything, and I know all!
In all seriousness though, here are a few more of my favorite bits (including a quote from the (2004) translator's commentary on how it relates to the invasion of Iraq---contains spoilers), along with some of my reactions (and some photo illustrations of the dazzling shades / of stones that shine like skies or fire or stars).
Enkidu looks at
Spoiler
bread and human beer for the first time and is like "what the fuck is this weird looking shit". And the sex priestess who's been following her divine calling to fuck him into becoming civilized is like, "It's processed food. Try it and it'll hack your brain into Its image." So she cuts his hair and then, lo and behold, he "becomes fully human". Via haircut. Still a ginormous beast-man who wants to make the world tremble, but... that's human, all-too-human.
There is one pretty cool
Spoiler
epic magical battle tactic: as the fire-breathing monster with the voice of thunder and a thousand changing nightmare faces charges at Gilgamesh, the sun "[throws] the south wind, the north wind, the east and the west, [howling] storm wind[s], [shrieking] gale wind[s, hurricanes, tornadoes], to pin him down and paralyze his steps [and his fiery breath]"---though he can still speak... And, as Gilgamesh holds his knife to the monster's throat, it turns out the monster, who is the divinely appointed guardian of the sacred cedar forest (forbidden to mortals, even Gilgamesh), is actually very reasonable, and begs for mercy, even offers to let Gilgamesh have the sacred cedar trees he wants to chop down, but Gilgamesh murders him anyway, and right before Gilgamesh chops off his head to bear aloft as a jolly trophy, the guardian curses him to watch Enkidu "die in great pain" and for Gilgamesh to be "inconsolable," for his "merciless heart [to be] crushed with grief". (As Gilgamesh used to "crush" the men of Uruk... back when he was also raping the women, before he had Enkidu to fuck and cherish.)
Quote
In Iraq, when the dust blows, stopping men and tanks, it brings with it memories of an ancient world, much older than Islam or Christianity. Western civilization originated from that place [... It is] the oldest story in the world, a thousand years older than the Iliad or the Bible.
It also contains better versions of major stories that later appear in the Bible. More dramatic, more fantastic, more poetic, richer in sensory details, more ethically complex, and even a little bit funnier. And IMO more moving.
Quote
[Gilgamesh] has a particular relevance in today's world, with its
Spoiler
polarizedfundamentalisms, each side fervently believing in its own righteousness, each on a crusade, or jihad, against what it perceives as an evil enemy. The hero of this epic is an antihero, a superman (a superpower, one might say) who doesn't know the difference between strength and arrogance. By preemptively attacking a monster, he brings on himself a disaster that can only be overcome by an agonizing journey, a quest that results in wisdom by proving its own futility."
So at first you might think: oh, Gilgamesh is a tyrant, therefore he's like primordial Saddam. So the first tablet might be summarized as: Gay marriage saves Iraq from Saddam Hussein. But no: the monster Gilgamesh is the United States! We are the WMD-chimeras!
Quote
the sun was hurtling towards the entrance [of the pitch dark cave / tunnel it goes into at night], he had barely escaped
dazzling to see
there were trees that grew rubies, trees with lapis lazuli flowers,
trees that dangled gigantic coral clusters
like [clusters of] dates. Everywhere sparkling on all the branches were enormous jewels,
emeralds, sapphires, hematite,
diamonds, carnelians,
pearls. Gilgamesh looked up
And marveled at it all.
"For six days I would not let him be buried, thinking if my grief is violent enough, perhaps he will come back to life again
for six days [...] I [knelt by his body and] mourned him,
until a maggot [hopped] out of his nose
---then I was afraid"
lol
Quote
"Why are your cheeks so hollow? Why is your face so ravaged, [frost-bitten, burned] by the desert"
"and sweet sleep has rarely softened my face"
"the [Earth] shattered like a clay [jug]"
"even the gods were afraid,
the water rose higher and higher until the gods fled
to Anu's palace in the highest heaven
but Anu had shut the gates
the gods cowered by the palace wall like dogs
sweet-voiced Aruru, mother of [humanity],
screamed out like a woman in childbirth
"If only that day had never been
when I spoke up for evil in the counsel of the gods!
How could I have agreed to destroy my children
by sending the great flood upon them?
Instead of a flood, we should have sent lions [Yay kitties! ...]"
the other gods were lamenting with her,
they sat and listened to her and wept,
their lips were parched, crusted with scabs"
he took off his [...] skins and let them float away on the waves
... shades of Ishtar's sacred seven veils (which she casts off---the probable source of the dance of the seven veils from the Bible)? And like the stray serpent who steals the magical plant of restoring youth that Gilgamesh was bearing back for the people of Iraq (Gilgamesh carelessly leaves it on the ground to take a nap, and the innocent snake is like, "oh, this smells nice"), and then sheds its skin. And Mitchell's translation is actually "animal skins": just as the wild man Enkidu, suckling antelope's tits (for milk), and eating wild grass, is covered with long hair growing out all over his body, but becomes "civilized" and has his hair shorn away... so too Gilgamesh here is accepting that the "animal" form (to which people were reduced to during the flood, "like fish"---when even the gods cowered "like dogs") must give way to the flux of reality and the teleology of the divine, "the waves" of fate that wet the "clay" of humanity---to become AI? (Kidding! ... cyborgs.)
It reminds me of what a famous mathematician (whose name I forget)---who saw forms both startlingly new and ravishingly beautiful---once said: "Good mathematicians see analogies. Great mathematicians see analogies between analogies."
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 29 September 2024 - 03:21 PM
As for myself, I'm finally listening to a book that has been on my trp for ages: THE WINTER KING by Bernard Cornwell. I must admit that I'm ashamed of myself for waiting so long to start this because it is fantastic. Macros, you were right yet again.
You're in for such a treat!
Finished Andy Serkis reading Silmarillion, wasted no time starting Fellowship of the Ring.
May have forgotten how much singing there was in this book...
TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 30 September 2024 - 11:27 AM, said:
JPK, on 27 September 2024 - 05:51 PM, said:
As for myself, I'm finally listening to a book that has been on my trp for ages: THE WINTER KING by Bernard Cornwell. I must admit that I'm ashamed of myself for waiting so long to start this because it is fantastic. Macros, you were right yet again.
You're in for such a treat!
Finished Andy Serkis reading Silmarillion, wasted no time starting Fellowship of the Ring.
May have forgotten how much singing there was in this book...
Serkis can sing though!
A Haunting Poem
I Scream
You Scream
We all Scream
For I Scream.
As a fantasy pop-sci take on fictional history, it's good. Since I despise Targs and their tyranny as a matter of principle, I found myself not caring for any characters (that weren't agents of chaos or outright separatists), which probably isn't the right way to approach this.
The week is gonna be pretty insane work-wise, but I'll probably try to pick up the 3rd Age of Madness book over the weekend
The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard
THE CONTESTtm WINNER--чемпіон самоконтролю
Jump Around, on 23 October 2011 - 11:04 AM, said:
And I want to state that Ment has out-weaseled me by far in this game.
Help
TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 19 September 2024 - 02:20 PM, said:
