Every time the audiobook reader for The Expanse pronounces gimbal as 'jimbal', (and that word is used a lot, in every book) it draws me out of the story immediately. It bothered me in book one, and when the guy continued doing it in book two I had to look it up to make sure 'jimbal' wasn't an acceptable alternate pronunciation that we just don't use in aerospace. As best I can tell, it is not. Sometimes the audiobook readers for The Wheel of Time make mistakes, too, though I don't immediately recall any.
But the fact is that the written word is optimized to be read, and if you wanted to optimize for telling the story verbally, you would write the script differently. Half the ships in The Expanse have nicknames, and sometimes it wasn't immediately obvious to me that the ship that one character was calling 'The Canterbury' was the same ship that someone else was calling 'The Cant' and I think it IS much more obvious in text. In the audiobook, I was thinking we were suddenly talking about a new ship I'd never heard of, but I think if I had been reading the book, it would have been more obvious. Some stuff just doesn't work as well in audiobook form, I think.
Also, because it's an activity I do while doing other stuff (driving, mowing the yard, cooking, cleaning) sometimes my focus shifts to the other thing for a while and I have to back up the audio file and listen again. That's something that only happens with actual books when I'm reading when I should be sleeping.
Audiobooks - people are listening to the book. It is a passive action. They are not reading it. They are using their ears to listen to the book. Much like one can read a play or watch a play or listen to the play. The verb is different because the kind of action being performed is different.
Now whether it gives the same experience, I do not know.
-Samantha Jones, SatC
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- 18/03/2024 02:09:57 PM
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