10 Audiobook Narrators We Love

It's no secret we're huge fans of audiobooks here on The BiblioSanctum. Whether you're on the road, busy working, or just generally have your hands too full to read, listening to audiobooks is a great way to enjoy books thanks to the talented voice actors and actresses who narrate them. This "10..." post is inspired by some of our favorite narrators who bring these stories and characters to life!

SIMON VANCE
At the top of our lists is Simon Vance. The quality of his performances is undeniable, and if you doubt us, he's got the Audie and Earphone Awards to prove it. And the sheer number of books that he has narrated is staggering! It's no wonder the majority of the audiobooks on our Audible.com wishlists are narrated by Mr. Vance, including books we've already read, but want to hear him read it anyway. None of us could pick a favourite performance, so instead, why not check out his favourite!

LORELEI KING
Mogsy says: An accomplished actress, Lorelei King is definitely a favorite narrator of mine. Not only that, one of the first audiobooks I ever listened to was read by her - Moon Called by Patricia Briggs. I thought they couldn't have chosen a better voice for Mercy Thompson, and since then I have picked up most of the other audiobooks in the series. Sure, I could have read the books, but I'd much rather listen to Ms. King's performance. She certainly made an impression on me, and played a huge part in launching my interest in audiobooks.

GIDEON EMERY
Wendy says: My mage may have fallen in love with Fenris almost entirely because of his voice in Dragon Age II. And I may have started listening to The Laundry Files series entirely because they are narrated by Gideon Emery. Emery’s voice peppers many other video games that I play, so why shouldn’t I let him invade my reading hobby too. Lest you think my opinion of his narration is entirely biased by my infatuation, I am pleased to report that he does an excellent job narrating the Atrocity Archives, expertly maneuvering through various characters and bringing the right amount of feeling to each of them.

JAMES MARSTERS
Tiara says: Most people know him as Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fewer people know that he narrates Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files with the exception of one book. Admittedly, as a fan of the short-lived show, it took me a minute to get over the fact that he wasn't Paul Blackthorne when I listened to Fool Moon, but once I did, I was impressed with how he really brought the book to life and made a promise to listen to the rest of this series on audiobook due to his amazing performance. He has the perfect voice and attitude for the urban fantasy series.

MICHAEL PAGE
Mogsy says: The fantasy audiobook lover will be no stranger to Michael Page. His recent performances I've enjoyed include books by Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch, but Mr. Page has been narrating audiobooks since 1984 and has recorded over two hundred titles and won several awards since. In the past, I've been motivated to pick up the audiobook versions of several books on my TBR solely based on his name attached to them, which probably accounts for the great number of fantasy titles he's narrated in my library.

WILL PATTON
Wendy says: When I started listening to The Raven Boys, I was a bit surprised that a male was narrating a book with a female lead, surrounded by a large group of females. I’m still a bit new to audiobooks, so this might be more common than I realize, and there are male characters, some of whom have their POVs front and centre. Either way, once I got over my little mental stumble, I came to really enjoy Patton’s narration, and particularly loved the voice he gave to my favourite character, Ronan. I’d describe him as a dangerous creature, a poisonous coil ready to strike who deals only in cold, hard truth. Patton found all of those elements in Stiefvater’s writing and brought them to life in his narration.

JONATHAN DAVIS
Tiara says: No, not Freak On A Leash Jon Davis, but how metal would that be? Jonathan Davis/Narrator, as I often see his named written probably because there are so many people named Jonathan Davis, has an impressive catalog of books he's narrated ranging from Star Wars to Halo to Vonnegut's Galapagos. I first heard him narrating one of the tales in the book Stories and again in a book about human sexuality called Sex At Dawn. I felt he was one of the stronger narrators in both books. Recently, I'd listened to D.B. Jackson's Thieftaker because it included two things I loved, history and magic, and I really loved Jonathan's performance and how he brought the pre-Revolutionary War world of the conjurer Ethan Kaille to life.

MARC THOMPSON
Mogsy says: Star Wars books are a guilty pleasure of mine, and I'll read them whenever my brain is in need of some pure mind candy. Ever since I discovered their audiobooks, though, I've been indulging in them a lot more. One reason for this is because of Marc Thompson. Between the wide range of voices he does and the wicked pew pew sound effects, Star Wars audiobooks are actually fun. Mr. Thompson also has the overwhelming task of making the average of 30-40 characters in each book all sound distinct, while emulating the voices of prominent personalities or alien species that are already well established in media like the Star Wars movies, games, or TV. I'd say he handles it spectacularly -- just check out this video on how he can pull off his Star Wars character voices spontaneously, including Yoda, Han Solo, C-3PO and more.

ALESSANDRO JULIANI
Wendy says: Juliani played one of my favourite characters in Battlestar Galactica and I recently listened to him narrating John Scalzi’s contribution to the scifi compilation, METAtropolis. He and Scalzi were definitely the highlight of the compilation. Juliani captured Scalzi’s lighter tone, playing up the straight-faced sense of humour without losing the ‘moral of the story.’ While I didn’t enjoy the rest of this particular book, I'm glad I listened to it because now I intend to listen to more books narrated by Juliani.

SUZY JACKSON
Tiara says: I did not really care much for The Drowning Girl, but I thought Suzy Jackson did a phenomenal job narrating the book. She played the part of Imp so well, but sadly, the story itself never grabbed me. Suzy Jackson's performance did, though, and I went in search of other books she might've narrated. Surprisingly, I'd heard pieces of quite a few of them such as The Beauty Myth for a discussion I participated in and I'd listened to the story she narrated from Kiss Me Deadly. She doesn't have a huge collection of book she's done. She seems to be an up-and-coming narrator, but if she continues to deliver strong performances, she'll be someone we'll see (or hear, rather) often.

For my Listening Pleasure: Part 2

This post may or may not have just been
an excuse to post a picture of Claudia Black
on our blog. Image by Morhain-stef

It's been a few months since I stepped into this wonderful world of audiobooks and I continue to love it. Several narrators have quickly become favourites and, while my library is fairly good at keeping me supplied with audiobooks, an audible.com subscription is very, very tempting. I want to say that I can't quite justify the cost, but these narrators are really, really good. In honour of Audiobook Month, here are some of my favourites :

CLAUDIA BLACK: I know her skills as an actress from Farscape and other film and television work and I know her voice acting from Dragon Age and various other games. In all things, she has impressed me to no end, so I expected no less in her audiobook narrations. She did not let me down. In acting and voice acting, she had the advantage of the visuals to aid her performance. Her narrations prove that those are just icing on the cake. She is fully capable of weaving mere words on paper into an emotional adventure. She creates unique personalities for each of the characters not only different accents, but with nuance as well. And, while some narrators reserve emotion for only the characters’ spoken words, Black brings her all to everything, getting completely wrapped up in the moment and dragging the reader along with her for the excitement.

SIMON VANCE: Tiara recently listened to Medicus, read by Simon Vance and sang his praises. I hunted down his resume on Audible and found that he’s basically narrated all the things! At least, he’s narrated a LOT of the books I’ve got on my to-read pile and I am strongly considering that Audible account *just* for him since my library’s selection is so limited. I did listen to You Only Live Twice, though and can firmly second Tiara’s opinion. Early in my listening, she asked what I thought of him and I told her that there was no more Simon Vance. There was only James Bond and Tiger Tanaka. Here is a video of Vance discussing the best book he’s ever narrated, Interview with the Vampire. I’ve read the Anne Rice books he speaks of, but would definitely be interested in hearing them retold by Vance. It always increases the enjoyment of a product when you know the person delivering it enjoys it as much as you do.

HUMPHREY BOWER: Here's what I had to say about Bower's work on Shantaram: Bower almost literally brought every one of these characters to life. Slipping from Lin's native Australian to a myriad of different Indian accents, European, Palestinian, Afghani and more - it was dizzying to imagine how Bower could possibly keep track! Yet he did, making each each character perfectly unique and memorable, bringing out all the beauty and flaws that Lin loved about each one of them

JOHN LEE: I have actually not gotten beyond a few chapters of the China Mieville books narrated by Lee, but that does not mean he is unworthy of praise. In fact, it may be that he is just too good that stopped me from being able to listen to the books. Normally, I listen to books at work. I’m a multitasker and it feels wrong for me to be listening to a book without doing something else. But I found Perdido Street Station and Kraken just too engrossing to concentrate on both my work and listening to Lee. I definitely want to listen to more by him, but for the moment, I plan to read Mieville’s books myself.

JAMES MARSTERS: Like Claudia Black, I was a fan of the actor first. In this case, I knew Marsters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and admit to squeeing like a fangirl just a little bit when he slipped into a dirty cockney accent for one of the characters in Jim Butcher’s Turn Coat. Marsters made an excellent Harry Dresden, catching all the sarcasm, wit and self-deprecation perfectly.

Audiobook Review: Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

I'm not much of an audiobook person, but I need to do something with this Audible account. After unsuccessfully trying to listen to N.K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon, due to not caring for the narrator's voice, I decided to give Jim Butcher's Fool Moon a chance. It's narrated by James Marsters (yes, of the BtVS fame).

The second book in The Dresden Files takes place a bit after the events in Storm Front. After business slows down resulting in Harry taking some odd magical jobs here and there, Karrin Murphy contacts Harry for his help on a murder case. She takes him to a crime scene where one of Marcone's men has been brutally murdered and strange paw prints are left at the scene. Add the fact similar murders have been taking place during and around the full moon for a few months, and you have a formula.

I've read the first book twice now, and even though I liked it, I hadn't ventured any further in the series until now. I just get so bogged down with other books I want to read. I had to work out of town for two days, and I figured this would be the perfect read for my trip since I wouldn't be able to do much book reading. I try not to listen to anything too heavy and this was the perfect audio book with it's fast, easy pace. I found myself quickly caught up in the story.

I thought Butcher's take on werewolves was refreshing, especially how he used "lycanthropes," who aren't really werewolves, but people born with the ability to tap into the spirit of rage. When they are under the power of the spirit, they are more aggressive, stronger, and they heal quickly. His four definitions of werewolves in the story gives them real weaknesses and strengths (other than the silver bullet bit, but it comes into play as well) with the werewolves we typically think of, called loup-garou, not being as common in Harry's world as the other three types.

And Harry, good ol' self-deprecating Harry. He had me arguing with him so much in this book. His sense of heroic honor seems to make him do the dumbest things and aptly illustrates the point in one of my favorite quotes about just how much dumb luck the good guys have. I'm sure I would've been much more annoyed with him if I'd been reading this instead of listening to it because I would've spent a ridiculous amount of time rereading and trying to make sense out of the Harry's madness.

Regardless, I can't help but like the guy, even when I wish I could reach my hands into the book and throttle him while screaming, "Why would you do that?" That means I care about the character. It's only the characters I don't want to suffer so much that I argue with. But I do have to give him credit for the really ingenious things he did do during the course of this story. Also, he half quoted Spider-Man when he went on his "Knowledge is Power. And Power comes with responsibility!" rant. How can I hate a man like that?

Also, I'm glad that Harry was able to understand that he shouldn't withhold information about the supernatural from people like Murphy. They need that information to have a fighting chance. It's not enough to say, "It's dangerous," and leave it at that, especially when Murphy's job is to deal with the unknown. They may not use this information as intended, but he would be giving them the knowledge they need to try to stay alive. I'm not saying that he should spill everything he knows. He knows what's pertinent and what's not. How can he expect anyone, such as Murphy, to truly understand the gravity of the supernatural when he is only giving them half-information?

James Marsters is a wonderful narrator. True, I did balk a little at first, and I'm sorry for that. I was one of those people who got into the series because of the old Syfy show, and it's pretty much branded into my mind that Harry is Paul Blackthorne. Marsters really brought the characters to life for me after we crossed that Blackthorne hurdle. He did his best to give each character a distinct personality and a distinct sound, even the women. I loved the voice, the clipped, immaculate pronunciation, he used for Tera. It was like someone who learned English as a second language and still doesn't understand all the nuances of the English language, which I guess that would describe Tera to a "T." I love his Murphy as well.

I heard one glaring mistake, though. When the lycanthropes captured Harry, during that moment when he was goading Parker, he called Parker by Marcone's name. It wasn't dialogue, just Harry's narrating/thinking part. He said, "Instead Marcone spun in his heel, picked up a tire iron, and turned back to me..." He meant Parker spun on his heel. Marcone hadn't even showed up yet at this point. But overall, Marsters' narrating pretty much made this story for me. I've already decided that I'll listen to the rest of the series, except for the book he didn't narrate.

Story:

3 of 5 stars

Performance:

4 of 5 stars

Final Verdict:

3.5 of 5 stars