A community for all things related to the Discworld series of books by Sir Terry Pratchett.
Some of the Nigel and Stephen audiobooks have absolutely woeful audio quality. Tony’s were always good quality but the Abridgements did result in a sub-par experience.
All the new Penguin Audiobooks have excellent production and audio quality and although some of the narrators performances aren’t very popular, they are very entertaining.
I will say Bill Nighy seems completely disinterested with the footnotes.
You just described all of Bill Nighy’s roles.
That's the point. It's supposed to be very dry.
My problem with Jon Culshaw is that his voice makes me fall asleep, so I keep missing stuff. He's not boring, just very relaxing. Unless he's doing Big Fido 😱
The original versions are old favorites, despite the audio problems in some of them. I've listened to most of the Penguin versions. Some are outstanding, like Pyramids, read by Andy Serkis. Most of them are pretty good.
But a few are so terrible I can't bear to listen to them. Like Hogfather, read by Sian Clifford. She read the wizard voices in a falsetto to scratch glass. And Katherine Parkinson absolutely laid waste to Monstrous Regiment with her appalling rendition of Jackrum. So clear she Just Didn't Get It.
Parkinson can't do accents or voices. She should have just read the book in her normal voice.
She should have read the book before recording it. It really felt like someone just handed her the first Discworld book she'd ever seen, and shoved her into the recording booth.