FrankC

A bad Saturday Night Live parody

Revisado: 11-17-21

The narrator/host is difficult enough to tolerate (some other episodes of the podcast, with different readers, are good), but given such stupendously bad writing, he gets to a level that's hard to believe anyone could suffer for more than five minutes. If this were intended as a parody of awful horror fiction, it would work...for a 5-minute comedy sketch. The plot is pretty good, but the writing would be laughable if I didn't know that people are paying for this trash. And, again, the host is insufferably terrible--even when he isn't narrating the story, I have to fast-forward through his idiotic, clownish commentary.

Bottom line: It's worth picking through the episodes of this podcast for the few buried gems, but this episode isn't one of them.

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Irving Crane's writing's as bad as his pseudonym

Revisado: 11-13-21

It never ceases to amaze me how painfully bad these writers can be and still get their garbage published. Moreover, there seems to be a correlation between the cheesiness of the writer's pseudonym and the excruciating cringe-worthiness of their writing. The first story in this episode is a perfect example.

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About par for the course...

Revisado: 11-04-21

....in the field of contemporary best-selling literature--i.e., crap. Well, the "story", by which I mean plot, is pretty interesting. What else is interesting is that Audible let's you rate the "story" and the performance, but not the writing; I suspect that's because the writing is just so unbelievably bad. It wouldn't be fair for me to pick on this author in particular, because he or she is no worse than half of the fiction writers whose work I've read (mostly just tried to read but couldn't get past the first few chapters). So, I'll just say that 95% of those who have works of fiction published are terrible writers, disgusting hacks; and 99% of all published works of fiction is shameful garbage.

It's in this context that I rated this title right in the middle. The plot is good enough to pass my minimum standard. The writing is about average, which means it's cringe-worthy but no morr so than half of what's out there.

Regarding the "performance", in this case just one reader (which is not a bad thing), just barely surpasses average...or maybe not even. The point where I gave up (chapter 5, I think) was where the reader starts sounding like a parody of William Shatter.

Bottom line: If you're a sci-fi dork, you're probably used to bad writing and bad acting--in which case you probably would enjoy this title. Otherwise, you'd have to be bored out of your mind to waste your time on this junk.

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Couldn't get past the first few paragraphs

Revisado: 10-23-21

I gave this 3 stars only because I didn't listen to more than the first few minutes--but no novel with an opening as bad as this one's ever should see the light of day. An opening chapter as bad as this deserves -3 stars.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

Bad writing and bad reader

Revisado: 06-14-21

I don't know how any critics could have liked these stories--the writing is bad and the plots are pure 1960s pulp scifi. Still, I made myself listen through chapter four, until it was actually the unbearably bad reading that I couldn't take anymore. Don't buy this book%

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Like an old time radio soap opera

Revisado: 01-28-21

Rosalind Franklin's story is very interesting, and well-deserves dramatization, but like an old-time radio soap opera, this particular rendering of the story has a somewhat amateurish script and mediocre acting. Anna Chlumsky overplays the main character's stereotypical female-scientist coldness, and Assif Mandi portrays Crick as if he were a cartoonish prejudiced, middle-aged English butler. But also like an old-time radio play, it's fun to listen to if you're in the right mood.

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Just okay

Revisado: 01-28-21

The story (plot) isn't bad, but the writing isn't very good--half a step above Stephen King, perhaps. What makes it okay to listen to are 1) Mr. Harris is a good reader, 2) the story is short, and 3) it's included with the basic membership. If any of those had not been the case, I'd give this title an overall score of two stars (which, to me, means that my time would be better spent on something else).

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Fairly good book, terrible reader

Revisado: 01-18-21

This story is pretty good, and decently written, but the reader is horrible. I could listen to the narrated parts without being driven mad by his Philadelphia/Pennsylvania/Baltimore accent, but the combination of the accent and the utterly atrocious acting for the dialogue, was too much. He gives the characters silly voices, over-acts the parts like a dad reading a bedtime story to a three-year-old, and stresses words seemingly randomly. I had to give up after four chapters.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Both elegant and powerful

Revisado: 01-12-21

Absolutely brilliant! I had no idea what outstanding genius I was missing until listening to this excellent collection of incredibly good stories, read just perfectly, as if the author himself were telling the tales. Be aware, however, that they are full of uncomfortable truths, and the last story tells of a gut-wrenching horror that, sadly and shockingly, is all too real.

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Boldly written stories of people on the outside

Revisado: 01-07-21

A truly revealing landscape of life in poverty. Although set in a very different time and place, most of Orwell's insights into homelessness, unemployment, and economic hardship in general remain largely true today, if less overtly. Because the author is frank about many ideas and opinions that now are less pervasive, most people will find his matter-of-factness about them--racist stereotypes foremost among them--offensive, but must also bear in mind that these notions are still very much with us, often under the surface, with the only difference being the social stigma that today stops some people from saying what they really think. This is not to excuse prejudice and discrimination, only to try putting Orwell's writing in perspective. In any case, the writing and storytelling, per se, in Down and Out are excellent, and the narrator, though his upper-class English accent may take some getting used to, is an excellent voice actor and as good as any with regard to regional and class-variant accents (as well as pronunciation of words and phrases in languages other than English). I highly recommend the book and this particular recording.

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