Alfred Sanchez

Player Orchestra!

Revisado: 01-17-24

Rereading this early Vonnegut novel today is at once a joy and a terror. It’s amazing to see how prescient the author was writing this book 72 years ago! First time I read it in 1979, I was interested, but felt like it was science fiction. Today, it’s apparent that, rather than slowing our progress toward artificial intelligence, we humans have sprinted towards it. And perhaps it’s reality not fiction at all that we humans are destined to be nothing but “ghosts” in the machine.

The story, of course, is fantastic. But what really stands out about this Audible book is Christian Rummel’s virtuoso performance. The sheer volume of characters he is able to give individual voices to is just mind-boggling! It’s one thing to have such a deep repertoire of different accents, inflections, etc. It’s quite another to be able to switch flawlessly from one to the others in rapid succession narrating the dialogue. This wasn’t a piano solo; it was an orchestra! Bravo, Mr. Christian.

Do yourself a favor and listen to his performance.

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Listen.

Revisado: 11-10-23

Listen.

For Vonnegut lovers, this book is fantastically enlightening. Ms. Strand’s impeccable research and entertaining style weaves a 3 dimensional picture of the influences, historical, political, scientific, industrial, and personal that heavily influenced if not directly dictated Kurt Vonnegut’s impactful writing. It contextualizes the stories we fans have come to love, yes. But far more than that, it allows us familiar with the writer’s work to look backward through the worm of time to see Billy Pilgrim before he becomes unstuck, before the aliens, Ice-9, and the bombings, when he was just a boy swimming on a lake trying to impress his siblings.

Sean Runnette’s performance enhances the experience, delivering the story flawlessly without ever getting in the way.

If you’re truly a fan, listen! You already have.

So it goes

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Herculean Labor

Revisado: 10-19-23

John Lee’s performance was fantastic. He is obviously Shakespeare trained, and does a wonderful job suggesting the different voices of characters without having that performance overshadow the work he’s reading. If it weren’t for him, I would have driven my car off a cliff! And I live in Florida!!! Homeric style is maddening to modern readers. I found myself constantly shouting “GET TO THE POINT!” The only reason I suffered through this Herculean labor of tedium was in preparation for reading Ulysses. Hopefully, that flower will have more bloom!

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A Wonderful Book with Less than Stellar Performance

Revisado: 03-21-19

These Truths is an extremely well written and riveting history of the United States. Ms Lepore‘s re-counting of the founding of America from Christopher Columbus into the future is compelling and enlightening. Her writing style thoroughly enjoyable. At times almost poetic her writing adds a wonderful dimension to the experience.

However, Ms. Lepore’s vocal performance is sorely lacking. Her intonations many times are grating and almost intolerable. It isn’t that Ms. Lepore doesn’t possess a pleasant enough voice, quite the contrary, but her speech is much too quick and her diction at times slurred. Additionally, her histrionics when quoting subjects truly take away from the enjoyment of her story telling. What’s more, the sound quality of the overall recording is mediocre, often spiking and shrill in the upper register.

Despite all the issues with sound and performance, the book is extremely worthwhile, and I would still highly recommend it. I would implore Ms. Lepore to either re-record the book with better quality equipment, or have a professional do the reading.

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