If you like Muller, try Dominion.At 10:36 AM 7/13/2005, you wrote:
Muller was fantastic. Mind you, I have all the Douglas Adams books read by the master himself, and I wouldn't want those read by synthetic speech.
Bruce
-- Bruce Toews E-mail and MSN/Windows Messenger: water_drinker@xxxxxxxx Web Site (including info on my weekly commentaries): http://www.ogts.net Info on the Best TV Show of All Time: http://www.cornergas.com
On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Sarah Cranston wrote:
Having read all these different opinions about reading material and speech verses human narration, I have come to the conclusion that there aren't two of us on this list who prefer the exact same ratio of TTS and narrated audio. I was pleasantly surprised to realize how many people share my preference for the DoubleTalk synth. I have only read one book narrated by a human being in four years, and it was read by Frank Muller, the man who narrated the first four Dark Tower books by Stephen King, a fantastic and sorely missed narrator. Other than that, it's DoubleTalk and Braille all the way for me. In my own opinion, a good book would only be ruined by human narration, no matter how good the narrator.
-----Original Message----- From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Mike Pietruk Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 9:00 AM To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bookport] Re: Preferring Synthetic Speech to Human Narration
There is something to be said for an excellently narrated fiction book especially if the narrator can bring things to life. For a work of fiction, if done well, it makes the audio book a great experience. On the other hand, non-fiction is usually boring as a narrator can only do so much unless the book is of a lighter genre.
I suspect that something psychological may also be at play here. A book from Web Braille, BookShare, or scanned on a scanner is immediately available. Something borrowed from RFB&D or a NLS library, on the other hand, must be ordered first and then received at a later time. Downloaded books provide immediate reading which massages one's psyche.
