Audiobooks

[IndomitableEm]

Hello! So after years and years of refusing to do so, I've finally gotten into listening to audiobooks. I used to avoid them primarily because I'd try to listen to them and read the same book at the same time, and I generally read much faster than an audiobook plays. I also didn't have long stretches of time to devote to them. Now that I have an hour commute to work, I've found them to be really helpful.

Now to Mr Modesitt's books. I first listened to Magi'i of Cyador (narrated by Kirby Heyborne) and absolutely loved it. I love Mr Heyborne's narration, and in particular I love the way he portrays Lorn and Ryalth and their relationship. I also love his choice of accent for the Cyadorans. (I didn't personally love his pronunciation of Myryan's name, mostly because, in several rereads of Lorn's books, I've always pronounced it closer to Miriam, though obviously with an N at the end instead of an M).

I've moved on now to listening to the Parafaith War (narrated by Joel Richard), which I'm enjoying immensely. (I tried to listen to Haze, my favorite Modesitt book, but I find that William Dufris is not to my taste).

Having said all of that, I did notice something quite odd. I'm listening via Audible, and I've noticed that some of the cover art for the audiobooks is... particularly bad. I first noticed it with Magi'i, which show a version of Lorn that doesn't really match what is depicted in the book, facing off against what strikes me as a very poor rendition of a fantasy dragon. A bigger surprise came when I started The Parafaith War. The image for TPW is clearly a romance novel half-naked hunk, wearing either gym shorts or a pair of boxers (depending on your interpretation), with a space suit helmet and a slight overlay of technical bits on his shoulder. I was flabbergasted that it was chosen as the cover to this book. I can see the attempt to connect it to the original cover, but... in my opinion it fails to do so.

What are y'all's thoughts on these audiobook covers? For Mr. Modesitt, what kind of control does Tor give you over these things?

[lmodesitt]

I'm often asked to suggest the cover concept on the covers of new releases from Tor, and I get to comment on the Tor covers before they're finalized. I don't get that kind of control for audiobook, but I suspect part of the problem there is that audiobooks are lower margin and the audiobook packagers try to get cover art as inexpensively as possible.


L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

[JTass]

Just FYI - GraphicAudio produced full-cast productions of the first 6 titles in the Recluce series, which are excellent.

Links to a sample and to the individual titles are in this post:
http://ibdof.com/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=121845

Most GraphicAudio titles are available on Audible after a delay to ensure exclusivity for some period (the period seems to vary by series/author).