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I'm currently listening to The Talisman on audiobook and although I like Frank Muller, I know you mean by his voice in this book...there's a definite "raspy" quality to his words, an airy hiss at the end of some of the sentences. It kind of reminds me of how when Dana Carvey used to do an impression of Mickey Rooney where he said "I was the number one star...in the world...!"
Anyway after one disc I'm used to it but every once in a while it hits me.
LOL - that's hilarious! It is like Dana doing Mickey Rooney!
I have to say that I totally agree with you on this topic. The narrative portions of the book were annoyingly dramatic to me on a line-by-line basis. I will say that I enjoyed most of the choices Frank made for the different characters...except for Wolf. I thought he sounded like Peter Boyle in "Young Frankenstein." :laugh:
I actually registered for this site just to bring this up. Muller is great on other works, but this one is impossible to listen to, which is a shame because I've read the hard copy 5 times. Elmore Leonard? Muller is awesome. Other works too. But he is fail here. In the Talisman, Muller does this breathy, deliver each sentence like he's posing a movie promotion byline each time which makes me have to shut it off by the time Jack meets Speedy. William Shatner would do a better job. I can't get into it because I'm distracted by his terrible delivery. Yes people, he is typically a good reader, but anyone can have a bad day.
It's worth a re-record. Some of these great defenders should try listening instead of judging by the name on the cover.
The other piece is that it's still on cassette, at least through my library, and very fuzzy to the point of bordering on the teacher in Peanuts cartoons. I acquired a different copy, same difference. Mildly better clarity but the delivery is still awful.
Great book, terrible recording. Hellblazer was ruined by delivering Constantine through Keanu, the person performing the work DOES matter, so please commission Muller, or someone else, to update this work.
So I take it one of my favorite books, ever, is doomed to have this as the only available audio reading of it?
I've been through the audio twice and didn't mind the voice. Different folks have different preferences, I guess. The only audiobook I've ever stopped listening to was a Janet Evanovich where the reader had a high, nasally voice.
I've not heard The Talisman but I do own it. It's just waiting in kind of a long line to get on the mp-3 player.
But I've liked everything I've heard from Frank Muller. It doesn't mean that one won't rub me the wrong way one of these days. Sometimes, no matter how good a narrator is, they just don't work for a particular book. One thing I love about Frank is that it never sounds like he's reading.
This might be an off-the-beaten-path response to those who do audiobooks all the time for a variety of reasons, but if you're turned off by the narration of this particular audiobook and have the chance, this is a book worth reading as a book or on your kindle. It's the best collaborative novel ever written, rising to the top of Straub's craft and near the top of King's, in one reader's opinion.
I was sorry to read of Frank Muller's passing--I had no idea :(