Audiobook Archives - Mark Lord's - Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction

I’m really enjoying listening to the audiobook version of Joe Abercrombie‘s The Heroes at the moment. I actually signed up for an Audible subscription as I tend to walk about an hour a day to and from work and I thought that it would be a good use of my time – that way I can probably listen to another book or two every month as well as the physical copy that I’m reading.

Seems to be working out quite well. The Heroes is about 21 hours long so quite long for an audiobook, but it’s really well narrated by Michael Page – some really good character voices really bring the story alive, although I’m sure reading it would as well, but you can’t always tell how different the experience would be.

Enough said about that, now about the book itself and why I’m liking it. Well I think partly its the humour – I have actually laughed out loud a few times while listening to it, so probably looked like a complete idiot as I was walking through the streets of London. Also it’s a great subject and probably one that Abercrombie was dying to write about I imagine as I think a lot of men do – basically here we have in great detail the story about a battle – the lead-up, the characters who will take part etc. So far I have only listened to a few hours, and it looks like we’re about to have an initial skirmish between two scouting parties. I think this is a really interesting representation of what war and battle is like – random events escalating to lead to other events, not really in the control of the opposing commanders – see War and Peace for another really good interpretation of this.

I guess this is a boy’s own book in a way – most boy’s being interested in battles after all. And for that it’s great fun and the kind of book that I’m sure a lot of boys/men would love to read or write. Me included.

Abercrombie: Warrior Model (crazythingsparentssay.failblog.org)
Favourite Fantasy Fiction Characters: Logen Ninefingers (aka the Bloody Nine) (marklord.info)

My local library service, Hertfordshire Libraries, has recently begun a service that allows users to download free e-books and audio books. I was quite startled and pleasantly surprised that they are doing this. For audio books it’s great, because these usually cost £2-3 to rent out for three weeks. I’m not as bothered about e-books, but it sounds like a good idea.

However, I do worry about DRM. There must surely be a way to stop lenders from distributing these electronic versions? By the way I really don’t agree with the sentiment of the image displayed, there surely needs to be some controls?

I really support public libraries, I think they do an amazing job. Without them I am sure the amount of books I read would be a lot less and lot less adventurous – after all why spend £7-10 on a book if you don’t know if you’re going to like it or not?