My favourite thing (that I know of) to come out of Simpsonville, South Carloina is narrator Mark F. Smith. To me he’s just a voice, a dude who reads a lot of the audiobooks that I often listen to, but rarely comment on. This novel, particularly, is a rather special to me as it is the only audiobook I’ve ever attempted to record for myself. That attempt, thankfully lost on some old hard-drive somewhere, was a complete and utter failure. But when Mark F. Smith reads it I can see just how dismal was my reading was and how easy Smith makes it seem. Mark F. Smith’s voice isn’t particularly resonant, nor is it particularly distinctive. I don’t even think his voice a whole lot better than mine. But, what Mark’s voice has, which mine lacks, is a whole lot of consistency, a kind of vocal solidity which is absolutely required to make an audiobook truly listenable. Smith’s pronunciation isn’t perfect. But I know how hard that is too. Take this word: “Asclepius”
It’s the name of one of the ships in the story.
I spent maybe five or six minutes researching it, and then figuring out how to pronounce it. I can do it now, like a champ actually – uh-sklee-pee-uhs – but, when I actually ran into it in the text I kept pausing to pronounce it, and ruining the audiobook’s flow. Smith’s pronunciation, though close, isn’t right, at least not exactly, but it does flow – and that’s far more than I could ever achieve.
Thanks Mark F. Smith. Your readings are appreciated on multiple levels!
This World Is Taboo
By Murray Leinster; Read by Mark F. Smith
8 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 1 Minute [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 17, 2010
Calhoun is an Interstellar Medical Serviceman, and he’s needed on Dara. Trouble is: Dara is forbidden. Taboo. And breaking quarantine will make Calhoun a presumed plague-carrier and subject to being shot on sight by anyone from Weald. But hey! If he did the smart thing, we wouldn’t have a story! But why are men from Dara shooting at him? First published in Amazing, July 1961 under the title Pariah Planet.
Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4390
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[Thanks also to Ans Wink and Laurie Anne Walden]
Posted by Jesse Willis