Charles B.

Interesting Book ruined by a poor narrator

Revisado: 06-05-24

This is an interesting book written just post war by Admiral William F. Halsey and his ghost writer, the journalist and naval officer Joseph Bryan III. Published in 1947 its supposed to be an autobiographical look at Halsey from his birth to when he retired from active service post war. This is usually considered a primary source for most folks doing biographical research on his life and some of his actions or thinking during WW2. Even if he doesn't take to task others in any of the services, rather tells adventures with them and talks of other folks in nice terms; even if there might have been friction at the time. I remember reading this decades ago after discovering an old copy in a used book store and when I found it here, I thought it would be a fun listen while commuting to and from work.

However, the narrator for this book...OMG....as others have reported it feels like the author was totally unprepared for this book. I can sort of excuse the inability to pronounce some of the foreign locales like Manila, Yokohama, Singapore, and other various islands mentioned in passing as part of the war. However, I can't excuse the horrible application of "Which is witch" by the narrator. I am unsure if there is a small accent but when he reads about Halsey going through something as in traveling from a point to point; instead it sounds like Halsey was thorough in a traveling from point to point. Other times the author seems to discuss taking a ship into a shipyard for purposes of converting a ship from one time to another; instead the narrator read the sentence as if the author took a ship to a shipyard to have a talking with, since it sounds like conversation. There are even straight phonetically reading of words in the text that I had to rewind multiple times to understand such as a pronouncing a word such as austerity and it sounded nothing like it.

Then lets roll into the nautical terms that the narrator butchers hard. From things like Boatswains Mates sounding like Boats Wains or the front of a ship sounding like a ribbon someone can tie in your hair vs taking a bow at the end of a performance. It just goes on and on like that. I mean even if we accept that this was recorded prior to to having some early AI like readers on computers read text to you to know how to pronounce words. There is just that some of these words like bow are common place enough with the context clues to know you have mispronounced it.

Last bit that makes this a hard listen is that it really feels like the narrator is seeing this material for the first time and is recording it as if they are standing in front of the class having to give a presentation or read a page for the class. There is no steady rhythm like some of the more experienced narrators, this narrator speeds up and slows down at various times which without context again makes no sense. Going slow during dramatic parts while going fast through boring but detail important parts. There is background noise from the narrator flipping pages of the actual book. Then there is the narrator himself offering up unusual pauses, stumbles and re-reads of a sentence or paragraph. Which seems to say the narrator was trying to read this all in one setting and didn't even have some basic form of editing software where you could splice in better readings as part of what was submitted for publication. Finally, with this narrator; with the tempo off in reading, he seems to run out of breath fast. Again it feels like he is either reading this all in one sitting; doesn't know how to read in a professional setting or even in a personal setting (something that used to be taught at the most basic levels of education). Which also makes understanding the text and the intent of the author challenging if not outright difficult.

If anything this book deserves a new read by a new narrator and this version needs to be pulled from Audible's catalog until that is done.

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boring polemic on how cool a political movement is

Revisado: 03-30-23

This is a DNF, did not finish, for me.

I enjoyed Jack London adventure novels and usually read them every few years because they are that good. Heck, even a few of his later novels like The Scarlett Plague are decent for that era of writing. But this book, is huge miss in my view.

I made it about 25% of the way before I just bored of the constant soap box efforts of how unjust the world was in London's view. Even more telling was when you read about his later views on socialism of that early 20th century and he turns away due to a number of reasons.

As others have said you get more from this book with the Wikipedia article than the actual reading of it. It is just filled with polemic after polemic about how capitalism is some level of hell and that the way to salvation is via the revolutionary spirit and implementation of socialism. Whatever plot there is about the implementation of this "Iron Heel" and the eventual overthrow by socialists is lost by the paragraph of paragraph of how corrupt and evil society is and that all have blood on their hands.

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Meh! This isn't a standard comic book novelization

Revisado: 02-22-23

I wasn't expecting much from a young adult novelization of a comic book character. Most of the time that I have read these stories they usually are just lightly sanded versions of some comic book action shoved together in a fairly easy to read short chapter book. I have devoured most of these books over a weekend and are either left like a starving man at an empty buffet wanting more or I finish it and like eating a bag of chips during a tv show, left wanting something more. In this book, it was the second one and what made it harder was that although there was references to Miles Morales being Spider-Man; there wasn't anything but a couple of quick scenes, one in the middle of the book and once right near the end where the big bad guy was faced off against. Everything else that happens in this book is more or less Miles going to school, dealing with a few bullies, dealing with a potential love interest, dealing with family and his background. There just isn't any Spider-Man; no quips, no thwips, no even chasing common street crime for a while as a red herring to help clear Spidey's head. This book was just Miles dealing with being Miles Morales.
I am sure the author, whom everything I read has had a successful career as an author prior to this book; was meaning well and trying hard. Yet, it feels like he just strapped Miles Morales into another one of his novels about life as a kid growing up in some of the more challenging neighborhoods in a big city. So the whole thing appears to have fallen flat and I just wasn't super impressed with the tacking on the Spider-Man angle to what was a good story. Also the ending felt really rushed the whole fight right near the end and even then it wasn't well explained as to who the Big Bad Guy was, thought I have my beliefs based on some D-list Marvel Villains. It just felt "Meh!".

I mean strip out the Spider-man references and you have a kid named Miles Morales trying to deal with his family, his background, his school, and trying to not fall into the same issues his dad and uncle fell into; well you have a decent story and one that I think anyone could enjoy for those angles to a good story.

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Great book almost ruined by the narrator

Revisado: 12-31-22

Okay. So this was a great adventure store, heck I have yet to run across a R.L. Stevenson adventure that wasn't a great bit of exciting writing.

If you don't know what Kidnapped is about, it is a book about Jacobites, a 17yr old named David Balfour, Who is an orphan after his parents die, told by a lawyer to go to an uncle he never knew existed. Goes there and is almost killed by his uncle who appears to be a miser and thief. No one in town like the Uncle and spits in said Uncle's direction. His uncle then sets up David to be shanghaied by some sailors (or are they pirates) to be sold as a slave in the Americas. This being pre-Revolutionary war and probably just before the Seven Years War/French-Indian War. David runs across another captive who is found on a dingy later by the ship who is a Jacobite looking to free Scotland from the English. After defending themselves from the pirates on the ship. They end up wrecked upon shore and in short manner David finds additional adventures on the run from both the English Army, the Jacobites, and locals who want nothing to do with both. Some further adventures that I don't want to spoil leads to David ending up back at his "uncles" place for the grand finale.

So great book and deserving of 4 to 5 stars. So why the 3 star? Well the narrator here decides or is a natural using Scottish Accent. Like a poor version of Alan Young doing Scrooge McDuck. It just made it hard to listen to this book and know what was going on and even understand some of the locations. Since I was listening at times and trying to plot using google earth how the main characters were going around the various towns listed.
Let alone when describing certain things like the weapons used or the description of the ground the main character was on, was lost to me because of the accent. I am going to have to look around for another version of this book and purchase it again hopefully it won't have the Scottish Accent overly done by the narrator with all the exposition and just using an accent on the dialog portions of the book as intended.

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A great story marred by a horrible recording

Revisado: 11-03-22

This is such a good historical event and supposed to be the book about the topic compared to other things. However, this audiobook is horrible marred by such a bad recording of the narrator that it makes me wonder if any producer or anyone reviewed this for release.
This book needs to be redone by a more professional narrator.

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The narrator for this book is horrid

Revisado: 06-30-22

I am sorry, but the narrator for this book is horrid. Their voice is a deep bass, but it always sounds like they are out of breath as they speak. Which makes it hard to understand at times what is being read. I am about 3 hrs into this book and already just want to skip this and see if I can't find a kindle version of this book just to know what is going on.

I wanted to know the original source material for thr Philo Vance movies and radio shows. It appears it won't be this book by a long shot with this narrator.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Very Short and retread of things I have heard

Revisado: 12-10-21

This is a short book, about an hour and fifteen minutes without the forward and credits.
I thought it was going to be an elaboration on how to help GM tabletop RPGs with minimal work on my end. It does that, but uses a bunch of things that I have heard before. Just rephrased at points such as using the players to help describe the world or learning how to use the classic three stage story arc to help move things along. The author includes some of his anecdotal events, but doesn't really seem to elaborate on the errors and what he would do again by incorporating what he knows now or is trying to teach us. By the time it got to some new things to think about, the book was over and I had sort of tuned out the book.

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Dry but informative book

Revisado: 09-22-21

This is an informative book about the history of the US National Security Council. It really is more about the time period from 1962 till 2001. Talking about the major players like Bundy, Kissinger, Scrowcroft, and Rice. Major Events Iike Cuban Missiles, end of the Cold War, and 9/11.
However, this isn't really a book where the author composed their own ideas. Instead this feels like a text book, it is composed of others writings to give short segments of other articles or books or interview transcripts and only really snap shots of the players, the people, and the event. It is dense at parts and hard to listen to without putting you into the nodding and sleeping mode.

Still the only decent book I have found for this topic that stays about the NSC and what its advisors could or couldn't do.

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Great Story marred by the narrator.

Revisado: 07-17-21

This is a great story that goes along well with any of the Robert Louis Stevenson adventure books. A great book for any kid who is up to reading chapter books.

A story set during the War of the Roses in England in the 1600s. Filled with knights, damsels in distress, evil lords, and longbow archers in the woods.

The hard part with this audio book version is the Narrator. Not fully sure if he is from the UK or is trying to work an accent. However, there is an accent by this narrator and it only made it harder to hear as he shifted to some different voices for the different characters, as he was saying certain words or phrases.

Still isn't that bad of a book, just be prepared to rewind a few times to hear an page or two.

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Some radio shows

Revisado: 02-19-21

This is about eight shows 30 minutes long each. Feels like they cut a number of things from the shows, since Fibber McGee episode doesn't have the standard in show ad for Johnson Floor Wax, nor is there ads or intermissions in X minus one or the gangbusters episodes, as I have heard before in other collections of those episodes. So this is a good intro to golden age of radio, but there are much better collections that span the gambit of offerings.

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