Top Five Fantasy Books - Audio Version With Guest Andrew Head

Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I'm an author by also the director of the Centre. And today I'm joined by a special guest. His name is Andrew Hitt and he's based in Australia. Andrew's joined one of our creative writing courses, but Andrew also is blind and so is the expert among us on audio books. And I thought he'd be brilliant to get Andrew along to have a chat with me about accessing fantasy books in the audio version. So hello Andrew. Hello Julia, nice to be here. So Andrew, tell us a little bit about yourself and your reading habits and your journey to having a go at creative writing. Well, as mentioned I'm blind so I do access a lot of my books and material in general through computer the talks or you know back in the day it was cassettes and CDs. Oh yeah. Yeah and now a lot on audible but you know there's I still enjoy getting a CD. There's a thriller author Matthew Riley who produced like I get his books on CD for Christmas just because it's you know it's nice having physical book still sometimes. My journey to creative writing I guess books have given me so much enjoyment over the years and I've always considered myself a bit of a storyteller you know I had as a child I had a tape recorder and I'd record stories and stuff and cassette as well. That's actually one of those techniques that all writers should try is speaking out your story because you can really hear it you know properly hear it if you do that. I remember doing that on the days of cassette players before we had phones that could record. I would sit there and press play on my clunky tape recorder and read my stories out. It's a really good tip to do that for everybody. So Andrew you've been managing to interact in the online course brilliantly and I presume that's partly to do with the huge advances in software allowing you to sort of hear in real time what's being put up in text. Is that how it works? Yes yes so I have this is a screen reader on the Apple products called voice over and it basically speaks everything or all the text that appears on the screen. And it's been a real joy actually to discover this this possibility for us on the course and you're really enriching it. Right let's get down to business let's talk about your favorite books. So I've suggested that you want to say a little bit about what you look for in an audio book and then we're going to have a look at your top five. So first of all when you're sort of playing the samples what are you looking for when you're testing your next best listen? Well I'm a bit I'm a bit biased I don't particularly there's there's a few American accents I enjoy which I'll get on to in a bit but I mainly you know I mainly look for I think fantasy is better when it's read by a British person that's just that's just me half Australian half British so very proud of both heritage. So yeah British is better and you know someone that has good inflection or expression when they're reading and especially when it comes to what people the characters are saying in the story obviously and someone who can do different voices for the different characters so that you know you always know who's speaking even before it's even before they read out you know this person said. Do you have a preference so say if it's a book with more than one point of view sometimes the producers do it in different readers male for example or sometimes it's just the same person reading all of it do you have a preference when it comes to that? I don't really like I guess if if it isn't there then that's if it's a whole do you mean like if it's a whole chapter from a female and then a chapter from a male? Yeah for example I've had a psychological thriller which had two points of view and the way that the people who produced that audio book decided to do that was to have a male read the male part and a female read the female part which you know that's quite good because absolutely clear who's speaking but sometimes if one of those voices isn't that great you might not bother to listen to it which you know if you don't like one of the voices for example I've had that recently I started listening to something and one of the voices was really great and I thought no no I can't I can't listen to this yes um yes I do think it enhances the experience when you're reading a book if the chapter from a female point of view is done by a female it doesn't in my opinion it doesn't always have to be but if it if it can then all the better um and you might get great too sort of clung into really long listens um in my household I've got a son who loves fans you know loves sort of great big fantasy door stock books and I know that um he listens to lots and we had a conversation and I was recommending something and he said oh no that's only 10 hours I only get ones which over 20 hours I think good is getting his money worse but does that matter to you at all um well obviously um if I really enjoy the book or the series the longer the better then um you know shorter if it's a good story a shorter book won't stop it won't stop me getting it okay right let's go down to your top five then so I don't know if you rank these or if they're all like a flat you know they're all equally good um so I'll let you decide how you're going to place your books well I think some of them I'm going to do I'm going to talk about because there's a few different versions uh so if if you like I can go into the book and then what I like about different versions yeah far away um all right well uh obviously well it's obvious to us uh gonna start with Lord of the Rings and I guess uh you know you're going to put all all three of them into one um so I quite like um the Andy the recent Andy circus recordings of both the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit yeah I think he does I think he does a very good job with different voices and he's got a lot of uh expression and enthusiasm in his voice uh just even when he's reading the the text when someone's not speaking though if he's describing a scene or something um yeah and um in in contrast that um I know I know you have a different opinion but I'm not all that fast about the robbing rules uh recording of the Lord of the Rings I did hear it and I do enjoy it but I do think he didn't do as good a job on the voices um so for me it wasn't as engaging um but yeah that's just me um I do really like uh Martin Shaw's reading of the Hobbit as well I never knew why they abridged it I uh you know if if I could either boil a short abridged books um I really think uh Martin Shaw should have just done it unabridged because having now heard it unabridged I'm like oh well you know there's so many little bits were just chopped out here and there and I don't see why and in terms of the Hobbit Martin Shaw would be my favorite narrator because he was the first one I heard and I'm just going up with him reading the Hobbit and I think he's done a very good job with different characters voices and he's got a nice voice to listen to in general um and then of course he does a good job of the uh so i'm really in as well and that was of course unabridged so a fantastic job because that's such that's much harder material to put across yes you know you need to ask that with the voice to do that one I think yeah hmm if that's unabridged why didn't they do that with it anyway uh and then of course there's the or the radio plays um of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit um and uh funny story actually I got the Lord of the Rings radio play as an 11 year old and uh for a few years I thought that that radio play was the whole the the BBC 13 episode one I thought that was the whole story and then someone or like a friend of mine were like no that's different like this heaps more and you know at first I was disappointed because I thought oh like I've been you know missing out on stuff but then I was like oh wow there's like heaps more yes and then I went and found the robbinggles uh narration and read it all the way through um yeah I think the thing about the BBC um radio plays they did a really good job on the music oh yeah and and then of course you know the radio plays the ultimate well you know you got different actors for each part so it really uh things it to life uh and of course for me as a blind person it uh in you know in a lot of ways the radio plays a lot better than a movie because you're only listening to it so you always know what's going on all the time I think it's I think it's a really well chosen well edited um production that I just it's really stood the test of time that one hasn't it oh yeah um so and I know there's so you you rate of the of the Lord of the Rings if I said you know I'm putting you on a desert island with your cassette tape and you could only take either the BBC version or the Andy Circus version which you're going to choose Andrew uh horrible question I know it is it is uh oh I would have to be uh the radio play I think that's the right answer because you get a whole you get a whole sort of um collection of people there and I'll allow you to have a version you know a braille version of Lord of the Rings to fill in the bits they miss out thank you yeah that's your desert island book for you it would be my desert island book as well yeah braille versions huge by the way each book is each of the three books is about ten volumes of braille that sounds wonderful you got thirty volume it's big you could build a shelter with it at the same time oh just take one and break out each each time you progress in the story oh absolutely okay so that's your best of your reviews what's your number two on your fantasy hit list oh well the second in my opinion the second greatest of the in things you can see what this is going is good old CS Lewis and again the the Chronicles of Narnia Radio plays and there's two versions that I quite like there's the the BBC version and I'm not sure if you've heard them but the focus on the family versions no I don't know those that's new to me that's really interesting so focus on the family is that an American production or I think I think it is that they use all British actors as is appropriate and at the beginning of them they have his or what you call it it's foster son or stepson uh double question yeah he does sort of a introductory commentary to all of the books before they get into it and yeah the I've got both and the really nice thing about the focus on the family ones is I think it's more of the story they've got a narrator whereas with the BBC ones they you know they don't so I think yeah you're you're really able to get almost the whole story with you know the narrator and then all the actors coming in at the various parts and I did listen to an interview with the creators and they said that you know they did have to add in like they added in other scenes for a bit more dramatic or explaining things a bit more as as they do with any adaptation but I I think it yeah the focus on the family ones are more special because they're more of the more of the book as CS Lewis intended it I think which is just lovely um that's because famously the battle in line the Witch and the Wardrobe is largely told in retrospect and is about half a page so if you need to put in a bit of you know live action moments I think yeah it's pretty much from what I remember it's pretty much as long gets to the battlefield another Witch is mine and in order to like no that's it yeah yeah in both in both versions um and some of the actors are better in focus on the family you know but then some actors are better in uh the BBC one so but again if I had to choose I'd take the focus on the family radio ones over uh yeah thank you for thank you for mentioning those because I was not on now of course going to go and look those up so okay now three on your list Andrew. Number three would have to be uh the Wheel of Time series um and there's actually this one and another one that have recently been making TV shows um but yeah they're really like uh the Wheel of Time because it does what we were talking about before where if there's a chapter from a male's point of view as a male narrator and a female narrator for the chapters from female's point of view um so that's always exciting I um I always I prefer the the male narrator uh Michael Kramer he's American uh and the female is Kate Redding and fun fact they're actually married ah so it was very easy for them to do to do the Wheel of Time uh yeah I didn't know that when I was reading it and then I I got a audible gave us a Christmas present you could you could download of different narrators have memories of Christmas and they both featured in it and Michael Kramer said yeah for those who don't know Kate no I'm Eric oh yeah so that was special because it's like oh okay that you know that makes it more and when I reread the Wheel of Time it yeah make it more special um many many many many many many hours of listening in that you could probably hear listening to that oh no it took me uh a year and three months and for two and a half of those months I was overseas if I hadn't gone overseas it would have you know probably taken me a year but yeah either way and that was pretty like I wasn't uh I'd left study and I was looking for work at the time and I was uh nearly single so I had a lot you know I just read it read it and read it and read it and read it and it still took me that long with some pretty heavy here we go you know so going back to the desert island scenario it might actually be quite a good pick for that hmm oh yeah you know a year to be rescued from your desert island that was number three so where are we going on for number four uh well it would have to be the witch up which is another uh show that books have been made into a tv series and the the narrator it's just one narrator for that he's British and he he's got a very nice voice to listen to when he's reading but he also does a very good job of the different uh voices and it's very clear who's speaking um yeah and again that's a uh series uh series of books they're more you ten hour versions yeah and they they're very much they've got the sort of storyteller within it as well haven't they in those ones yeah because it's sort of more of an episodic than some of the larger huge story arc you know fantasy epics yeah quite often the witcher goes off and fights the monster and that's that's what you're doing in that particular episode yeah so that for the first two books it that is a lot like that and then it gets more coherent uh when you get to book three um yeah okay so um just recap because we're going to go to find out what your last pick is we've done Lord of the Rings where Martin Shaw and the BBC version were fighting it out um run the Chronicles of Narnia where um it was the uh sort of the family sorry tell me the name of that again focus on the family regularly focus on the family focus on the family win out yeah number three was Wheel of Time and number four was witcher so number five in the last place I had a I guess they're not in any real particular order I should have put this one at number three um and I feel silly for making last but uh oh well the order changed in my head I guess but uh it had to be of course the Harry Potter series read by Stephen Fry yes and and Stephen Fry does a fantastic job with all the different voices um and he's yeah the the way he reads a lot of inflection and enthusiasm uh if that makes sense not sure if that's the right word but yeah um and there's oh this is a good chance to talk about it um put it out there a lot of blind people they prefer the neurotic Jim Dale who does the American audiobook of Harry Potter while they needs to be a separate one for Americans I don't know but anyway um you know a lot of the complaint is Stephen Fry reads to slow compared to Jim uh Jim Dale and I've heard bits and pieces of Jim Dale reading them and oh it is void that the way he does voices are just nothing compared to Stephen Fry one example was Uncle Vernon sounded really Jim Dale gave Uncle Vernon uh from whatever remember a real nasally voice whereas you know clearly says he's got a booing voice and Stephen Fry just you know just knows it that's such a good job I did feel at one state when I had small children that the sound track to our parenting was Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter because it puts all the children go to sleep um yes they'll be listening to it someone somewhere in the house to be listening to it so I can I've got his Harry Ron and Hermione in his tone just ingrained in my head as soon as he does that he must say it thousands of times during the course of reading yeah yeah so that I that is um again another very pleasurable um read listening experience so we've we've got Lord has read let's put them in the order you were thinking also we've got Lord of the Rings the Chronicles of Nania Harry Potter the Wheel of Time and Witcher is there any other sort of sneaky little gem that doesn't fit in the sort of the the big players that you've come across that you'd like to mention some honorable mention for anything yes um there's a fantasy series by Raymond Feist and there's a few different it's a few different series but the one I've read is the the Rift Wars saga and it's narrated by an American name Sean Mangon um or I think he's or he's Canadian I'm not sure um but he sounds very American um but he again it's it's a very nice smooth voice and he uh he also he's very good with different accents in particular uh which I know it's not fantasy but he he reads uh if you want a good idea of how he does accents you should read the Matthew Riley's uh books where he's a thriller writer and you know dealing with lots of different countries so he does really good you know accents for the different countries of our world um but I first encountered him in the Raymond Feist Rift Wars saga fantasy series and thought he did a fantastic job he gives I don't know if you've read it but he gives the invaders in that series Japanese accents so he's really he's really sort of stretching into other areas to find a way of differentiating voices which uh yeah you know it must be really hard that must be so hard as a a voice artist to think how am I going to make these different aliens sound different from um yeah for each other I noticed that in the Marvel series in uh Captain Marvel they gave one set of who you thought bad guys um australian accents and I said oh that's a bit that's a bit out there and then of course the twist was the twist was they weren't actually bad they turned out to be allies and you should have guessed because they don't ever think of Australians as being bad guys whereas if they had a a toffee nose British accent what of course they're going to be a bad guy you know I'd like to sort of throw in here for something I listened to a lot when I was growing up which you might know um which started as a radio play as a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy which is a fan of reaction um you know in sci-fi but we still allow that as fantasy um and that's extremely entertaining and different from the others you've mentioned um it's got quite a lot of parody and jokes uh in it um connected to the world we're real world. Hmm I've I've listened to both the radio play and um the proper books where uh Douglas Adams actually reads the uh and and he does a fantastic job um you know sometimes authors read their own books and they're just you know not they're not a a voice actor by profession so they're not quite as good but he's done a superb job um yeah excellent um so uh Andrew we always finish the podcast as I think you might be aware of picking where in all the fantasy world is the best place for something and as we've been talking about audio versions I thought we'd choose where in all the fantasy world is the best place to be a speaker or an orator you know the emphasizing here voices have you got a favorite fantasy world for appreciation of voice? Yes yes I I thought long and hard about this because I wanted to choose I had in mind to choose um you know that everyone expects that you're gonna go for one of the in things uh and and I I tried to think of a different one uh but I couldn't uh I was gonna mention two one from Tolkien and one from something else just to I don't know balance things out of it but uh I couldn't you know the only place I could think of um all right now I'll just go with this um well it'd have to be Rivendell wouldn't it and the the uh the Hall of Fire I think where they had a art of the feast they had the all the tales being told and that sort of thing yes I've always wanted to I've always that's one of those areas where I don't think any version any red version is as good as the one you imagine because the description is so beautiful about how it sort of melds into dreams um then you ask your imagination has to fill in what that most beautiful elven voice would sound like hmm you know they tell a lot of tales there I think you know you had a had an image of you know myself as a hobbit there with my hobbit wife having some meat after a feast hosted by Elrond himself so yeah it's a nice nice image I it's definitely a great place to go I came up with a different um um think different emphasis really uh I wanted to mention there's a book called The Spoken Mage series by Melanie Celier um and we have to mention this is because the great magic works in her world you know magic is off the budget of magic how do you do magic in a fantasy world is often one of the key world building questions um and in her world it's normally a world where people write down the magic the spell and when they rip the parchment that's when the spell is released it's like a stored stored power and into this world comes um her main character who of course is the first spoken mage the person who can say the spell without writing it down first but it's not quite as simple as that she has to formulate it in a certain way but the way the way that Melanie makes the spoken word so powerful uh in this series it's really it's a very enjoyable series it's a coming of age story really she then goes to a a college and has to learn how to fit in with the the ordinary um mages and then of course there's a wider political situation where she's then upset into the front line because she's able to do a quick rapid responses to other people's attacks by magic because she doesn't have to write things down anyway it's an excellent series very enjoyable if you like sort of tomorrow appears and that kind of writing of um magic where people come of age Ursula Le Guin was a verse C series if you like that you might well like these books so have a look them up i think there is yeah yes i'm yes there are audio versions as well i've got them so you can uh access them you don't have to find another braille doorstock you can listen to these um anyway and you thank you so much for joining me and um i think we should probably make this a regular feature to help promote accessing fantasy books through the spoken versions of them so um if you don't mind we'll invite you back in uh in a few months time to see what you've listened to since then so thank you very much no problem yeah absolutely i'd love to thank you and goodbye goodbye thanks for listening to myth makers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy visit oxfordcenterforfantasy.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses in person stays in Oxford plus visit our shop for great gifts tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide