Alan

Great Book, So-So Narration

Revisado: 01-05-25

Marc Cushman’s Star Trek books are my favorites. His writing style, research, and the way he’ll often weave contemporary events into the narrative really draws me in.

I liked how different people portrayed the different people mentioned in the book, but Vic Mingogna, like narrators in other books I’ve listened to, mispronounces some names. For example, he pronounces Herb Solow’s last name as “Sallow”, but the actual pronunciation is “Solo”. And he calls Rod Serling “Rod *Sterling*.” When narrating a book, it’s nice to put in the extra effort to learn how to pronounce people’s names. Also, while I appreciate his work as Kirk on Star Trek Continues, his William Shatner impression is a bit over the top.

These misgivings aside, this is an excellent audio book, and I wish they’d have been able to do the remaining volumes.

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Enjoyed It, But Was So Glad When It Ended

Revisado: 04-01-24

I realized at the end of this book that my feelings about it were the same as my feelings toward comic books had been: I enjoyed them at first, and then grew to dislike them as they went along. This is a good book with details I hadn't known before, but once it gets into that 1990s period, I enjoyed the book about as much as I enjoyed the comics from that era, and never changed my opinion. I enjoy the MCU these days, but other than that, comics are dead to me, and this book does a good job of explaining why.

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Well Written, But Could Use Some Fact Checking

Revisado: 02-12-24

This was one of those rare audiobooks that I started and finished in a short amount of time. It's well written, and has the same narrator as another Van Halen audiobook, "Runnin' with the Devil", where I also enjoyed his narration. It moves at a brisk pace and doesn't stay in any one area too long.

For the downsides, it's out-of-date, having been written before the release of "A Different Kind of Truth". At one point, the author mentions that Sammy Hagar "shunned the temptations of the road" (or something to that effect) which is absolutely untrue, as Hagar himself attests to in his autobiography. While mentioning soldering guitar components, the narrator pronounces it "soldier" (whether it was written this way or is the narrator's fault is unsure). The song "Humans Being" is referenced twice, the first time referred to as "Human Being". And there are some mispronunciations from the otherwise excellent narrator.

I enjoyed this one and recommend it, even considering the above downsides.

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Padded with Information Unrelated to the Special

Revisado: 12-28-23

I’ve been an Audible member for years, and during this time have only ever returned two books. This is one of them.

Aside from the intro, I made it to Chapter 5 with almost no mention or information about the Holiday Special. None of us who buy this need to know the history of how Star Wars was made. The book is simply padded with info about things other than the topic we all bought this for.

Additionally, the book sounds as though it were written by someone who simply read other books or articles as his source material for this one,

There’s also some factual errors. For example, the author mentions “DVD technology” being used to distribute the Holiday Special in the mid ‘90s, but DVD players were a *late* ‘90s product. He says that the Star Wars Early Bird Kit could be used to acquire 4 figures of your choice, when in fact it provided a *specific* 4 figures. Also, Jason Lenzi (look him up on IMDB) is described as an “action figure designer”. Not quite. He owns a toy company (among other things). Oh, and Charles Lippincott is not an unsung hero (“unmentioned” is the word the author uses). He’s mentioned in other books about Star Wars (which is how I’d guess the *author* heard of him).

Lastly, there’s the narrator. If it’s your job to read books, you should take the time to learn how to pronounce any names or words you’re unfamiliar with. It’s not the end of the world, but this narrator just winged it.

I was excited to find a book about the Star Wars Holiday Special. But apparently, this wasn’t it.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Interesting. A little amusing. A little pointless.

Revisado: 12-18-23

I found it funny at times, but also super depressing at moments, and by the end was left wondering “What was the point?” I also couldn’t keep track of which person speaking was Sugar and which was Booze.

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Fantastic!

Revisado: 07-17-23

This is one of those audiobooks I finished quickly because I couldn't stop listening to it. It's entertaining and provides a lot of background on the different actors and their major films, but also doesn't stay in any one place too long. In some ways it was a trip down memory lane as these were the movies being made when I grew up.

I have a few minor complaints about the book itself. One is that, even though these films are old, I haven't seen all of them, and the book really gets you interested in them -- so the spoilers as to how some of those movies *end* weren't a good thing. Also, the book's accuracy may not be great, as someone not extremely well versed in these films like myself was able to catch 2 errors: "Dream Warriors" was the 3rd "Nightmare on Elm Street" film, not the 4th as stated by the book; and Arnold Schwarzenegger appears in more than 2 Terminator films after T2 ("Rise of the Machines", "Genisys", and "Dark Fate" -- plus lends his likeness to "Salvation").

Sadly, my biggest complaint about the book is the narration. When I saw that Bronson Pinchot was going to narrate, I thought "Oh wow, that'll be cool.". I've always liked him. But his narration reminded me of being in school, when the teacher would have different students in the class each read a paragraph from whatever book we were reading. It sounds as if he's reading this for the first time while recording, and that the entire book was recorded without any retakes. He seems to ignore punctuation, and often a sentence would end and he'd just sort of continue in to the next one. It threw me off numerous times. Or, he'll read a quote, but you can't really tell where the quote ends by the inflection of his voice. The emphasis, or lack thereof, on certain words, made it confusing at times. Also, not uncommon for audiobooks, there are mispronunciations, the most humorous of them being when he refers to film critic Roger Ebert as "Rogert Ebert", THREE TIMES. The first time I heard it, I had to rewind to make sure I'd heard it correctly. There are times he'll pronounce his name correctly, but three times he mangles it into "Rogert". I can't believe they didn't correct this.

Overall it's a great audiobook, but I think the print or Kindle edition may be easier to understand at times.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Plenty of Sex and Drugs, But Not Much Ratt & Roll

Revisado: 03-27-23

Stephen Pearcy has had a bit of a reputation, and after finishing this audiobook, I understand why. I wish him all the best. I love the work he and Ratt did, and think it still holds up. But I gave up on hoping he'd be the hero about a quarter of the way through this one.

If you're interested in learning about Ratt's music, you won't find much about that here. As far as I can tell, the music was just a delivery system for the sex and the drugs.

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I Hope You Like Baseball

Revisado: 09-26-22

There's a lot of information in this book and a lot of things I didn't know about, but it felt longer than the 12 hours it was. Among these chapters, there are 3 devoted entirely to baseball, and if you're not a fan, these chapters can be very boring.

The narrator does a good enough job, though he's got such a distinctive voice that, by the end of the book, whenever he'd try to emulate someone else's voice, it would make my skin crawl. He does the world's worst impression of Mick Jagger. He also mispronounces some names and words, such as the name of attorney Melvin Belli, and the word "nuclear" (which he pronounces "nucular"). Nobody's prefect, but if you're a professional narrator, this is kind of your bread and butter.

I forced myself to finish one, and it's honestly a purchase I regret making.

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Down-to-Earth

Revisado: 09-04-22

This is a short, 44 minute audiobook, but I’m giving it 5 stars because of how down-to-Earth and endearing the author is. Ms. Douglass comes across not so much as an actress who’s appeared in numerous TV shows and movies, but rather as just any person you’d know. She’s very open about things, and the audiobook seems very genuine and honest.

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A Light, Fun Listen

Revisado: 08-26-22

I’ve listened to this one a few times and enjoy it quite a bit. Mr. Nimoy comes off as warm and personable. It is, unfortunately, an abridged version of the full book which is not available in Kindle format, but is still worth picking up. The only other negative I can think of is that Mr. Nimoy mispronounces Walter Koenig’s last name (which she should’ve known by then). Overall, I highly recommend it.

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