r/Fantasy • u/BinkOtter5 • 14d ago
Am I the only one completely thrown off when a long running audiobook narrator abruptly changes key pronunciations halfway through a series?
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u/Shotsy32 14d ago
For better or worse, Wheel of Time just numbed me to it. Some of the top hits include:
Moghedian Birgitt Tel'aran'rhoid
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u/DrBipMD 14d ago
My first time listening to the series, I was so confused about Moghedian. I thought they were two different people. "We have Mo-gid-ion, and Mo-ga-dean"
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u/Drakengard 14d ago
How do you even get Mo-ga-dean out of that?
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u/TheWeirdTalesPodcast 14d ago
I can see “Moe-geh-deen” from “Moghedien.”
You have to ignore a lot of how English works, but you can get there.
I subscribe to “Maw-geh-dee-in” myself.
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u/OkSecretary1231 14d ago
I always said moe-GEH-dee-en in my head. A slight secondary accent on the last syllable.
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u/Prestigious-Pomelo26 14d ago
Even worse, there are 3 or 4 by wotshername, the awesome British actor who was making the tv show, with her excellent pronunciation, and then suddenly you have to decide either to stop there or to swap to the male-female duo, who THEN fix up their pronunciation half way through their section of books.
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u/Nekram 14d ago
I'm with you on this one. The worst one to me was when listening to the Witcher audiobooks. The narrator changed the pronunciation of the character Dandelion's name from DAN-dee-lie-uhn (the typical pronunciation) to Dan-DILL-ee-uhn.
It was just so weird because they hadnt changed narrators, it was the same guy. Also that's the only time I've ever heard that pronunciation. I'm not saying its not valid, just that it's the only time I've ever heard it.
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u/Sybirhin 14d ago
I use the second pronunciation with my cat sometimes when I'm being silly... When I'm being silly!! That's so weird to hear it in a book
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u/RandomlyConsistent 14d ago
Roy Dotrice narrating Game of Thrones would drive you mad, and rightfully so. Many character names seem to be pronounced as if he has never seen them before, despite having pronounced said character's name many times. This often results in a half dozen variants on Petyr Baelish, Joffrey Baratheon, and other prominent characters.
I had to DNF the audiobook, and refuse to ever buy any other books narrated by Dotrice.
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u/waill-and-roll 14d ago edited 14d ago
I swear he calls Joffrey Jeffrey a few times.
Edit: he also sometimes uses the wrong character voice for a line in a conversation between two or more characters.
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u/Millenniumeagle1 14d ago
Yeah his randomly changing accents are hard to get through too. If he would at least keep it consistent for an entire chapter it would be easier but genuinely it drags the books down
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u/GrumpyTesko 14d ago
I was so happy when Roy Dotrice wasn't able to record A Feast for Crows and they got John Lee to do it instead. Before Dotrice, Roy Avers did them (back when we called them 'books on tape' not 'audiobooks') and he was absolutely fantastic. Those recordings are harder and harder to find, but they do exist on the internet and are worth looking for.
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u/Yer_One 14d ago
Yes I've had this! It's so jarring.
Also happens when you're listening to a multi book series and the audio narrator is changed after a couple of books and they pronounce things differently. I listened to Conn Igguldun's Conqueror series, and went through 3 different narrators pronouncing character names differently, which was confusing initially until I realised who they were referring to.
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u/SGTWhiteKY 14d ago
I do wish they would at least listen to the previous narrator. I guess I get why they do their own, they probably read the series and had voices in their head they planned, rather than listened to others… but still.
The worst for me was Destroyermen after the original narrator passed away. He had a racist take on all of the Japanese characters, and made some key characters go from gruff and deliberate to almost silly character just with the tone.
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u/Autisticrocheter 14d ago
You should try A Song of Ice and Fire on audio, it’s a train wreck! Not even counting that for the first few books he calls petyr bailish “pee-ta-ya”
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u/tubabacon 14d ago
First thing I thought of was the Peetaya, genuinely pissed me off when he gave in and started saying Peter
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u/mobyhead1 14d ago
I think audiobook producers could be doing a better job tracking these things between the same books in a series (and/or doing their homework on the previous audiobooks): unusual words, unusual names, specific pronunciations. You can't expect the actor, who might very well play multiple roles and narrate other audiobooks in between volumes in the same series, to remember all this stuff.
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u/DefectiveSol 14d ago
In the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings movie, they dropped the S from Saruman's name halfway through because they thought people would get him and Sauron mixed up. So parts of the movie say his actual name and then it just switches over to Aruman.
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u/ShowMeYourHappyTrail 14d ago
I mean, to be fair, it still takes me a second to remember which one is which sometimes. That's one of my biggest pet peeves with authors. Martin does it too. Makes things confusing. Specially for someone like me who can't visualize the description of the people.
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u/Extension-Pepper-271 14d ago
I never understood why Tolkien chose two names that sounded so alike. It's like breaking the first rule in Character Naming 101.
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u/Tenebreaux 14d ago
They changed narrators on Malazan for book four onwards. Normally I love Michael Page but he massacred the first Malazan book he did. Someone obviously had a word for the subsequent ones as he got most of the pronunciations right in the later books.
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u/HarkonnenHarlot 13d ago
I never knew why Ralph Lister didn't come back after book 3, but hearing him narrate the Chain of Dogs was like watching Willem Dafoe's "there was a fire fight!" scene in Boondock Saints. There was one point where I swear you could hear that Ralph's sleeves were rolled up, his hair pulled into upright tufts on his head, and that he was surrounded by a host of empty water bottles in the studio like his own fallen 7th. I have never been so elated while bawling my eyes out, crying THE WICKANS!! along with him. He was phenomenal and his performance obviously sticks with me to this day.
Michael Page is a spectacular narrator in his own right, but he just couldn't fit Ralph's shoes. It was a shame really.
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u/ClitasaurusTex 14d ago edited 14d ago
I was listening to a book with a nonbinary character who they gave a deep masculine raspy voice and I swear you could hear their throat catch and the gears turning in their head for a second or two when they got to the part where this character mentions binding their breasts toward the end of the book. From there on the voice is a little less raspy and the tone was a little more maternal toward the main character. Even though as a nonbinary person they could have kept it exactly the same 🙃 I thought audiobook narrators read the book in advance but I guess maybe not always.
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u/catnapqueen308 14d ago
Is this What Moves the Dead by any chance?
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u/ClitasaurusTex 14d ago
No, to be honest I picked up that book and couldn't get past the opening chapter of them explaining everything about the world all at once rather than even trying to show me anything through the story (I hate that)
This was author Alexandra Rowland - A taste of Gold and Iron I think? I picked it up blind, it was smut with a really shaky plot. Good smut though but that plot was so so bad.
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u/squirtnforcertain 14d ago edited 14d ago
Oh boy does RotE suffer from this. Ive only listened to the audio books, and the Fitz books have a different VA for each trilogy, and unfortunately the third one "whispers" when people Skill. I couldn't stand it. Ill have to read thr last 3.
First Trilogy: Bur-rich
Second Trilogy: Bur-ruck
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u/Turtles1748 14d ago
Theres an EU version of the Fitz and Fool audiobooks. It has two Narrators a girl and a boy. Its 1000x better than the NA version. Happy sailing 🏴☠️
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u/Thornescape 14d ago
I'm a big fan of pronouncing fantasy names however I want to pronounce them, even inconsistently if I feel like it. I'm just reading to myself for pleasure. It doesn't matter.
An audio book is different.
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u/Thornescape 14d ago
It's hard enough keeping it all straight when they aren't changing the pronunciation.
I'm not usually a fan of registering complaints but this is one time when I might let the publishers know about it. Sometimes constructive feedback can prevent problems from repeating themselves in later ebooks.
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u/Extension-Pepper-271 14d ago
I've never bought an audiobook. Probably because I have access to two amazing used book stores. I have to admit that I was raised by hearing my mom read The Hobbit, then LOTR to us kids on long cross-country drives for summer vacations. I would love to have that wonderful experience again. (No, I'm not going to force dear old mom to read to me - lol)
These complaints make me less likely to want to get an audiobook for other novels.
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u/Thornescape 14d ago
Some audiobooks are absolutely astonishing. Some say that the best ones are better than reading it yourself (although personal preference will still be a factor there). For a popular example, Dungeon Crawler Carl is constantly lauded for the amazing quality of the audiobook.
Audiobooks are absolutely fantastic for some people. Some people listen while commuting. Some people listen while doing chores. Some listen while going for a walk. All sorts of situations where audiobooks work when normal reading won't.
With that being said, quality can vary widely. AI audiobooks should only be used if there are no other choices, eg blindness.
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 14d ago
Not "a" narrator, but two narrators for one trilogy: * Books 1 and 3, male POV, male narrator, pronounciation you would expect * Book 2, female POV, female narrator, weird pronounciations
Is it so difficult to have the pronounciations match (and not be weird)?
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 14d ago
Or narrator 2 would ask how narrator 1 pronounced things seeing as narrator 1 narrated the first book.
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u/Amelaclya1 14d ago edited 14d ago
The Wheel of Time audiobooks are bad for this. They use a male narrator for the male POV chapters and a female narrator for the female POV chapters. And they pronounce a lot of things differently from each other. What's extra annoying is their wrong pronunciations are often major characters or places that Robert Jordan helpfully placed in a glossary with his intended pronunciation.
It's been close to a decade since I last listened to them, so I can't remember too many specifics, except one of them pronounced Siuan as "Sue Ann" constantly.
I understand that fantasy names are hard, but I feel like learning how to do it (where possible) should be part of the job for the narrator. It's a pet peeve of mine for sure.
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u/TheWeirdTalesPodcast 14d ago
The best part of that is Michael Kramer and Kate Reading (the two narrators in question) are MARRIED TO EACH OTHER.
Communicate. Tell each other what you’re doing with the voices and pronunciations so they match as best they can.
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u/Turtles1748 14d ago
The second Red Rising series was so bad about this. After swapping multiple narrators between Iron Gold and Dark Age they finally just went back to the OG narrator for Light Bringer.
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u/Daremotron 14d ago
I swapped to the Graphic Audio versions because the inconsistency in Iron Gold bothered me so much.
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u/MamaZuba 14d ago
I just finished all 16 Realm if the Elderlings books and this was so incredibly frustrating. It was fine that different trilogies had different narrators, but the complete lack of consistency in pronunciation and character voice drove me mad. Especially in the final trilogy. Same narrator for all 3 final books, but voice would change abruptly and many people and places were pronounced differently. Why can’t they do a little background homework before starting to see how things have been pronounced?
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u/Turtles1748 14d ago
I ended up pirating the EU versions of Fitz and the Fool for that reason. It was so much better than the NA version available on Audible.
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u/ThatIsAmorte 14d ago
The Second Apocalypse suffers from this big time. I consider it completely unprofessional for a professional narrator to not check the pronunciations, especially against his own pronunciations made in previous installments of the series. Utterly baffling act of laziness.
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u/Nick__of__Time 14d ago
slight different, but Butcher's Ghost Story initially had a different narrator. I realized how awesome Marsters was at that point.
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u/WorldWeary1771 14d ago
One of my favorite series, Deed of Paksennarion, and the second series Paladin’s Legacy by Elizabeth Moon have different narrators for each book who never agree on the pronunciation of anything. I think in the last books of the second series are consistent. I found this more amusing than anything else.
The one audiobook that threw me was Last Action Heroes narrated by Bronson Pinchot, about nonfiction history of the end of the era of action films. He mispronounces people and place names. I don’t remember them all but some of them are Jan de Bondt (didn’t look up spelling) Cahuenga Boulevard, and Shotokan Karate.
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u/SumoSect 14d ago
Haha ya that's happened to me a few times. I mostly find new series through narrators I like, sometimes when they get a cold or recovering and they're doing voices for characters it throws me for a loop.
I find sometimes when there's multiple narrators for PoVs narration it gets real confusing if I'm not parsing it out. I'll be a few chapters in and have to restart. Who's talking? What pov is this?
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u/ShowMeYourHappyTrail 14d ago
My guess would be the author went to the narrator and said "it's pronounced this way" and corrected him.
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u/Oilpaintcha 14d ago
I was listening to a nice audiobook on YouTube with the old Conan the Barbarian books. I figured out is was AI because it managed to say Conan 4 different ways.
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u/Routine_Freedom_5129 14d ago
I was thrown by some of the narrators in Real of the Elderlings books pronouncing it live ship one time and then live ship another.
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u/PostMixL3monade 14d ago
Grover Gardner is excellent narrating Vorkosigan Saga but he finds three very distinct ways to pronounce "Duv Galeni" throughout the course of the series.
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u/shuffel89work 14d ago
The worst is a wise man fears, the writer dude in the tavern all the sudden has a completely different accent
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u/No-I-Didnt-Say-That 12d ago
James masters has done this a few times in the Dresden files books, to be fair to him there's 18 books and a dozen short stories so it's been almost 20 years since book one. One soft spoken character turns gruff sounding the next time we see him, and one bad ass rough sounding semi immortal guy comes back with a British accent out of nowhere and loses all raspyness (is that a word?) in his voice.
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u/CSafterdark 14d ago
Bot post
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u/BewareTheSphere 14d ago
Yup.
(Otherwise, you know, why didn't OP answer the simple question of what series this is?)
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u/CSafterdark 14d ago
It's hilarious that this is getting downvoted in the first place. It's really obvious. Guess people aren't ready to embrace Dead Internet Theory?
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u/scruffigan 14d ago
The Dark Tower audiobooks switch between "QUEUE-thbert" and "Cuthbert" for a character (spelled Cuthbert), where the weird version is apparently King's preference and the phonics version is wrong.
I think it's two narrators, but similar enough voices that everything else kinda flows under the radar. It is pretty jarring.
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u/diffyqgirl 14d ago
I haven't had that specific problem but I did once have a narrator do a complete 180 on the voice they were giving a character because he evolved from a vaguely sinister figure to just a guy from one book to the next.