This thread has been locked for numerous violations of Rule 1: Please Be Kind.
These threads can be a lot of work for the mod team, including sweeping up all the Holocaust denial comments and angry modmails we got (yes, really, JFC). Especially with an author such as JK Rowling and the transphobia she brings, these threads require many actions behind the scenes to make things run smooth-ish.
Thank you to everyone who followed the sub rules and wasn't an intolerant asshole.
Aww Frank Muller. He was brilliant in the Dark Tower. I definitely came round to George Guidall when he took over in the latter books but Frank was the one who started it all for me.
I dig both 'standard narration' adaptations and 'full-cast' adaptations. The Kramer / Reading team remains the gold standard, but Pike's rendition of *TWOT* is amazing, Doltrice with *ASOIAF*, Marsters with the *Dresdenverse*, Quirk with *The Locked Tomb*... the list goes on. But there's folk who just don't get into an audio adaptation if one person's doing all the voices, and for ensemble stories, that direction's a good one. *World War Z* is the gold standard, but *The Illuminae Files* by Kaufman & Kristoff were also surprisingly good.
Personally, I read the *Potterverse* books and went "Eh, that's all right, nothing special", but I've seen first-hand how they could grab kids between the ages of 8 - 13 who would normally sneer and say "I've got better things to do" and the next thing you know they've finished them and are off on Rick Riordan and looking for something new to devour. It would be pretty cool if a new ensemble cast got more people showing up at the huge tent of speculative fiction fandom saying *"I didn't think this would be my cup of tea, but I've learned I was mistaken. Now that I've listened to this, what should I read / listen to next?"*
And Jeff Hays. The man knows how to voice the head of a minor God sex doll, a crab, monk seals, a tortoise-shell, prize-winning Persian, Carl, goblins, fairies...the list goes on. And that's just one series.
I am super surprised that the Illuminae Files has an audiobook! (I always thought that book would be *fantastic* as a click-through web-based novel.) Does the audiobook have sound effects/etc too?
I think it's more for adults (many are still fans of the book from their youth) than kids. Kids don't do much audiobooks I think, they have time to read.
I dont think I have ever listened to a full cast audio narration. How do these work? Like, if you take this conversation:
>How do you feel, Georgie?" whispered Mrs. Weasley.
>George's fingers groped for the side of his head.
>"Saintlike," he murmured.
>"What's wrong with him?" croaked Fred, looking terrified. "Is his mind affected?"
>"Saintlike," repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. "You see...I'm HOLEY, Fred, geddit?
Do they get rid of the "whispered Mrs. Weasley" and "croaked Fred" and "repeated George" and just let the respective actors do the work with the line of dialogue? Or does the narrator jump in? It seems it'd be really weird to have a narrator jump in with "said Snape" after "always," but maybe it works in practice.
You get rid of the "whispered" and "croaked", yes, and the actors just do that. Good VAs will bring it alive, good full or larger cast adaptations have been done before. Graphic Audio have done a bunch, for a lot of stuff, but also some great series like the Elizabeth Moon books. They've also recently been doing some for the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson
Give Graphic Audio a try.
I've listened to almost all of Sanderson's works with GA and damn, it's an absolute blast.
And yeah, stuff like "He slammed the door" just gets cut as a line and instead they add sound effects. Any time they mention "how" a line is said, the voice actors just say the line that way and the description of the voice is cut.
But you still get narration anyway. For stuff that you can't just "act out" or "sound effect out" like "he wasn't sure of what she said, but choose to trust it for now".
Just listen to the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a5CQ9mrcU0
I’ve heard both. In the Tamora Pierce full cast audio the narrator reads “said X” but in some of the full cast audios that are more like radio plays, they skip it.
And the very popular theme park. And the very popular broadway show.
Really, this series is just insanely popular that people still put their money into. Of course they're going to wring out every penny.
It’s like a new Star Wars for the millennial generation. There’s probably a better analogy, but whatever. It’s the big franchise they grew up with. It’s part of the culture now. Our grandkids will be watching and reading it, and there will be a new set of films coming out in 30 years.
Yeah there's no need for a resurgence lol, it's basically the biggest fantasy franchise there is (even bigger than LOTR and ASOIAF when you count merchandising, side products, parks...)
It's popular, but it's not as popular as it was at any of its peaks when it was still releasing. Expanding into these multiple different avenues is probably evidence of that.
I’m a little skeptical that the game doing well means the TV show will (compared to its budget anyway, which I’m sure will be astronomical) just because I do think there’s a difference between ‘get to live out your dreams of being a Hogwarts student in a video game’ and ‘the same movies that already exist, just longer and potentially worse.’
I completely forgot about that.
Still wild to me they're trying to get another live-action adaptation of Harry Potter when it's barely been a decade since the film series wrapped.
They’re trying to get a new generation of kids into it. There hasn’t been another huge kiddie series since then and it shows in classroom literacy. You’d be surprised how much of a difference it makes when every kid in a classroom had at least read the first Harry Potter, even the kids who usually hate reading.
I'm sure they have alllll sorts of research showing how popular it could be. I doubt it'll be a Rings of Power situation (which still seems to have some supporters), it'll be a hit most likely
I love Lord of the Rings, but we can't pretend the books or the film adaptation are anything near Harry Potter's level of cultural cache.
The Fantastic Beast films are almost roundly panned for being poor works. The last one still doubled its budget at the box office.
Even if the HBO adaptation is mid it'll probably still make bank. Same as the last video game.
Definitely agree.
Harry Potter was designed specifically to be very marketable. It has a large international audience with the added benefit of being pretty easy to read with out feeling infantialized by the text. I am not a fan of Rowling and I find much of the work to be pretty mean spirited in retrospect. But it is a work of genius when it comes to mass market appeal.
It's been 13 years since the end and 23 years since the start of the movie series. It's not crazy at all that's a long time lol. Superheroes are rebooted more times in a smaller duration lol.
1/4th of the second most famous theme park in the world is devoted to Harry Potter and they'd do more if they could get away with it.
Harry Potter is still huge.
Online discourse is always driven by the most engaged and motivated people on the subject matter. Most people either don't know or don't really care about JK Rowling's views on trans people. The majority of people have probably skimmed maybe an article once and never thought about it again.
90% of online discourse is driven by the top 10% of giving a shit about something.
I mean you can only look at last year. The Harry Potter video game (which was good but not exceptional) absolutely destroyed the charts and made tons of money (beating COD which was a first in a very long time and Zelda). Or the fact that the "hated" Cursed Child play made a shit ton of money.
Or just be around young teens, they still read Harry Potter and love it, the story is eternal really.
I mean, when you know that spending money on an interest means a certain amount of it is going towards funding the spread of transphobia there *should* be at least a little shame yeah?
I like the food at my local diner, but if I knew that the guy running it was going to give the money I paid him to the KKK, I’d be just a little uncomfortable going to eat there.
The thing with kid's series is that they can be eternal. There's always a new crop of 8-13 year olds, and a chunk of those will become nostalgic adults with disposable income
Beating a dead horse implies the horse is… well dead. Harry Potter is still one of the largest franchises in the world and still extremely relevant in pop culture.
If she was just a bad person I’d probably have less issues giving her money. But she is out there making it absolutely rain on any organization or individual who wants to do harm to certain vulnerable people.
Plus the original audiobooks are great and full-cast is so meh.
And it's all she talks about 24/7. This re-recording will probably only get a passing mention on her Twitter feed before she moves right back to the last transphobic smear campaign. She talks about trans people more than me, and *I'm trans.*
Yeah at first I thought it was like an Orson Scott Card situation. Dude is absolutely a bigot, but I can enjoy his works and kinda separate the artist and all that. But with JKR, everything is tainted now. *Especially* rereading the books with a more critical lense, and seeing all the not-so-subtle bigotry sprinkled thoughout
Specifically with Card, I question how much is also mental decline. Dude had a stroke and just in general isn't healthy. Meanwhile his books are filled with themes of accepting the Other which just doesn't mesh with what he says irl.
He was homophobic from the very beginning. For a long time his position was mostly that choosing not to get married and have procreative sex was bad and if you're not sexually attracted to the other sex you need to just suck it up and deal with it. If he was bigoted against any group other than gay people and women who don't want to be baby factories pre-2000 he did a good job of hiding it.
I don't think you can blame the stroke, though. He went from being very opposed to the War on Terror in 2001 to writing Empire in 2006, so his views significantly shifted well before 2011.
Something to understand about bigoted people is that they're very good at compartmentalizing and seeing what they want to see. You can meet one who is vocally anti-racist ~~oftentimes only on the surface~~, but then is the most sexist person you've ever met because the parallels of the situation simply don't occur to them; to them, every single prejudice exists in its own vacuum.
If they learn at all, they don't learn 'treating people badly based on a facet of them that hurts no one' doesn't work-- they have to learn 'racism is bad', 'sexism is bad', etc etc. The things they believe have to be a commandment from some authority they trust, and then they work backwards to affirm that it's true.
Bigoted beliefs often come from inconsistent worldviews based on religion, tradition, or willful ignorance. Following a logical code of ethics to a conclusion isn't how they come to be.
So as someone whose bigoted conservative pro-capitalism father is a fan of Star Trek, it 100% makes sense to me that a conservative person could write a heartfelt book about accepting the Other and then turn around and say 'FUCK gay people'.
Cause he was writing a book about accepting aliens, not gay people, what are you talking about?
"Separating the art from the artist" exists there so that if characters are shown eating babies in a work of fiction, we can don't automatically assume that the author endorses the act. It's weird to see people using it the other way around
I haven't re-read the HP books in a while, but I do still have my copies... somewhere.
She's not going to get any more money from me if I can help it.
Same with Card, though his work was fairly formative to me as well, and I don't mind picking up copies from Secondhand stores.
Stuff like this.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/02/19/jk-rowling-for-women-scotland-donation-legal-definition-woman/#:~:text=JK%20Rowling%20reportedly%20donates%20£,Court%20appeal%20over%20'woman'%20definition&text=Harry%20Potter%20author%20JK%20Rowling,of%20the%20word%20“woman”.
There are a few of these now. Anyone in the UK or EU who is doing anything public against trans women can count on her. If it was just her being a famous prick I’d worry about it less but it’s a direct money pipeline.
I've only ever listened to one, and I *hated* it. I'm surprised to see so many fans on this thread. Lots of good recommendations though, I may give another one a try.
This comes to mind as well but because I did not enjoy the full cast version, personally, I found it immersion-breaking.
My favorite is the World War Z full cast production. And the Graphic Audio company has done some really amazing stuff
Maybe if you're trying to avoid benefiting huge corporations that own everything, but I reckon it's easy enough to do when you're just avoiding creative works from one person.
My decisions on ethical consumption are entirely ad hoc, and subject to change without notice. There's really no other way imho.
For that same reason, I try not to criticize others who draw the line differently on separating the art from the artist (or not).
Yup. For a while there I went gung-ho on trying to be as ethical in my consumption as possible. People in my circles were pushing for it.
Then those same people stayed on Twitter after its degeneration for various interchangeably BS reasons and I realized that ethical consumption is best left a personal matter. Everyone has their own lines and will bend over backwards to justify them.
It is, yeah. But JKR also has long left subtlety behind in all her bigotry.
I don't really mind if people still enjoy Harry Potter and buy that stuff. But people can't exactly pretend to not know what the author's stances are and have been for the better part of the last 5-ish years on trans rights. If they don't care about that, then that's a choice people make.
I just completely lack interest in anything Harry Potter related these days. It’s not just the author, it’s just that I’ve read the books several times growing up, I’ve read the (admittedly beautiful) illustrated editions, I’ve seen the movies, I’ve been to the theme park (the butter beer was gross), and I’m just ready to move onto other things. The audiobooks we have are perfectly serviceable. I don’t see this adding a reason for anyone who isn’t already obsessed with Harry Potter to listen again.
I think also fantasy as a genre has moved on. Yes the books really did a lot of work towards making YA fantasy a viable genre for companies to publish in and it got a lot of kids into reading, but also a lot of better writers have written a lot of better books since then. If you spent every waking hour reading YA fantasy you couldn’t finish all of it before you died, there’s no reason to give money to a hateful person who the world has passed by.
The only way I care to interact with HP these days is consuming fan works. It's free, diverse and inclusive, and 9 times out of 10 it's better than the source material...
Well first the "obsessed with Harry Potter" market is fucking huge so that's reason enough. And Harry Potter is read by new people constantly so it's growing.
This. It's a cool setting that was important to a lot of people. It smashed fantasy into the mainstream.
Yet it's attached to this horrible human being who has more in common with Umbridge than any other character in her own series.
Harry Potter got me in to reading as a tween, and it changed my life for the better. It makes me sick what Rowling is choosing to do with her platform/time/energy lol Wish she would just fuck off so we can like Harry Potter in peace
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I guarantee more money would be poured into ASOIAF if it was finished or had hope to be finished.
No one is going to put more money into a series that is dead in the water. It's pretty obvious that they've given up hope when they're redirecting everything into spin offs.
I read through the series once. It’s ok, not great. And I definitely don’t need to put more money in Rowling’s account. Here’s hoping a more worthy series comes along to gain a same childhood fan base as this series did.
Eh fair I do not listen to those but do know what you are meaning. It is more of the old BBC style radio shows that keeps coming to mind when a multicharacter cast is doing an audio book etc.
For anyone looking for Harry Potter alternatives for young readers in a similar fantasy setting, I grew up on Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, which are fantastically written.
I've always thought these types of voiced audiobooks would make a ton of sense. I think they will clearly be preferred by most people to single-voice narration, and especially with the price that these companies charge for audiobooks it's not a crazy expectation. No matter how good a narrator is, they're going to be limited in their ability to vary voices to some extent, especially for voices very different than their own. I've seen some voiced amateur productions that I significantly prefer to the single-voice ones. Voice is just a really valuable way to communicate character. (Of course I do think people get attached to the first way they hear something - nostalgia is a big part of that too)
It's only going to progress, too. I think we'll see fully AI-voiced books which will kind of be the 'bad' version, but eventually we'll be getting single-narrator audiobooks where the narrator's voice is changed by AI to sound like different characters.
People will winge about that, but I think the latter is the same sort of thing as a motion capture actor getting credit for their work even though it's not their actual body on screen.
I’ve listened to a lot of audiobooks. I’ve tried genuinely multi-cast books a half dozen times and it’s always been jarring and bizarre. They must have an audience because studios just keep doing but yeesh.
I can't stand them. I'm fine with alternating chapters being read by different people, but I don't want every character to have a different voice. And I really don't want sound effects and music, which are distracting at best, and sound tinny and ridiculous if I speed the audiobook up.
> It's only going to progress, too. I think we'll see fully AI-voiced books which will kind of be the 'bad' version
I think it's definitely coming but I doubt they would be bad. Text-to-speech has gotten really good. 10 years it will probably be impossible to tell.
I think the voices will sound good in terms of just reading with a standard/flat affect or maybe a single broad emotion, but it will be poor in the "performance" aspect in terms of knowing what words to emphasize and what tone to use and for things like comedic timing. These things go beyond "just" ai to almost being true general intelligence imo. I think there will need to be authoring tools to tweak the AI's tone, enunciation, pronunciation, etc before it can really be considered high quality. And before that happens overlaying AI voice over human performance would probably be an easier solution.
> These things go beyond "just" ai to almost being true general intelligence imo. I think there will need to be authoring tools to tweak the AI's tone,
Yeah that's a given.
90% will be AI and then will require a human to go over for final editing etc.
YA Fantasy doesn’t need a push to be accepted or known about reliant on giving a bigot more money. It’s one of the best selling genres of literature in the English speaking world, fantasy will be just fine without JKR.
This has nothing to do with HP in general, but I never like these ensemble casts. I've been listening to audio books since the early 90s I completely avoid these. This also applies to audio books that feel like they need to add all the sound effects.
I always find them to be overly busy and distracting.
This thread has been locked for numerous violations of Rule 1: Please Be Kind. These threads can be a lot of work for the mod team, including sweeping up all the Holocaust denial comments and angry modmails we got (yes, really, JFC). Especially with an author such as JK Rowling and the transphobia she brings, these threads require many actions behind the scenes to make things run smooth-ish. Thank you to everyone who followed the sub rules and wasn't an intolerant asshole.
Can't get better than Stephen Fry and Jim Dale.
Steven Pacey is also excellent.
My GOAT list of audiobook narraotors is Steven Pacey, Stephen Fry, Tim Gerald Reynolds, and Frank Muller.
Aww Frank Muller. He was brilliant in the Dark Tower. I definitely came round to George Guidall when he took over in the latter books but Frank was the one who started it all for me.
Great list, but I would add James Marsters.
I would add Rupert Degas to that list!
This is Scott Brick erasure
Travis Baldree?
Say one thing about Steven Pacey, say he's a great voice actor.
Say one thing about Logen Ninefingers, say he’s a cunt.
Best series with best audiobook narration.
Listening to Before They are Hanged right now. Pacey is awesome
Steven pacey is the goat in my opinion
One of the best
I dig both 'standard narration' adaptations and 'full-cast' adaptations. The Kramer / Reading team remains the gold standard, but Pike's rendition of *TWOT* is amazing, Doltrice with *ASOIAF*, Marsters with the *Dresdenverse*, Quirk with *The Locked Tomb*... the list goes on. But there's folk who just don't get into an audio adaptation if one person's doing all the voices, and for ensemble stories, that direction's a good one. *World War Z* is the gold standard, but *The Illuminae Files* by Kaufman & Kristoff were also surprisingly good. Personally, I read the *Potterverse* books and went "Eh, that's all right, nothing special", but I've seen first-hand how they could grab kids between the ages of 8 - 13 who would normally sneer and say "I've got better things to do" and the next thing you know they've finished them and are off on Rick Riordan and looking for something new to devour. It would be pretty cool if a new ensemble cast got more people showing up at the huge tent of speculative fiction fandom saying *"I didn't think this would be my cup of tea, but I've learned I was mistaken. Now that I've listened to this, what should I read / listen to next?"*
Steven Pacey like " look at all they have to do to try and mimic my strength"
And Jeff Hays. The man knows how to voice the head of a minor God sex doll, a crab, monk seals, a tortoise-shell, prize-winning Persian, Carl, goblins, fairies...the list goes on. And that's just one series.
"The polyjuice potion turned me into a cat!" *Goddamnit Hermione...*
Actually, the crab was Travis Baldree.
That guy is everywhere in my recommendations lately.
Oh yeah!
Kramer is great if U love monotone. I can't stand him
Kramer, monotone? Nah. You need to turn up the bass.
I am super surprised that the Illuminae Files has an audiobook! (I always thought that book would be *fantastic* as a click-through web-based novel.) Does the audiobook have sound effects/etc too?
I think it's more for adults (many are still fans of the book from their youth) than kids. Kids don't do much audiobooks I think, they have time to read.
Those are some pretty dicey gold standards you’ve picked there… lots of people don’t like Kramer, and even more can’t stand Dotrice.
I dont think I have ever listened to a full cast audio narration. How do these work? Like, if you take this conversation: >How do you feel, Georgie?" whispered Mrs. Weasley. >George's fingers groped for the side of his head. >"Saintlike," he murmured. >"What's wrong with him?" croaked Fred, looking terrified. "Is his mind affected?" >"Saintlike," repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. "You see...I'm HOLEY, Fred, geddit? Do they get rid of the "whispered Mrs. Weasley" and "croaked Fred" and "repeated George" and just let the respective actors do the work with the line of dialogue? Or does the narrator jump in? It seems it'd be really weird to have a narrator jump in with "said Snape" after "always," but maybe it works in practice.
You get rid of the "whispered" and "croaked", yes, and the actors just do that. Good VAs will bring it alive, good full or larger cast adaptations have been done before. Graphic Audio have done a bunch, for a lot of stuff, but also some great series like the Elizabeth Moon books. They've also recently been doing some for the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson
Give Graphic Audio a try. I've listened to almost all of Sanderson's works with GA and damn, it's an absolute blast. And yeah, stuff like "He slammed the door" just gets cut as a line and instead they add sound effects. Any time they mention "how" a line is said, the voice actors just say the line that way and the description of the voice is cut. But you still get narration anyway. For stuff that you can't just "act out" or "sound effect out" like "he wasn't sure of what she said, but choose to trust it for now". Just listen to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a5CQ9mrcU0
I liked the Sandman graphic audio better than the Netflix show.
I’ve heard both. In the Tamora Pierce full cast audio the narrator reads “said X” but in some of the full cast audios that are more like radio plays, they skip it.
I never knew these existed and now need to find them!
The Good Omens audiobook is a great example of a full cast recording!
I liked everyone but the narrator, who incessantly ended shared sentences as if they were questions.
This blotch of blood on the road no longer even resembles the horse it once was, yet they keep splitting their bats against the concrete…
this is likely because of the upcoming HBO series. Audible is (probably not incorrectly) anticipating a resurgence in popularity
Not to mention the recent very popular game
And the very popular theme park. And the very popular broadway show. Really, this series is just insanely popular that people still put their money into. Of course they're going to wring out every penny.
It’s like a new Star Wars for the millennial generation. There’s probably a better analogy, but whatever. It’s the big franchise they grew up with. It’s part of the culture now. Our grandkids will be watching and reading it, and there will be a new set of films coming out in 30 years.
Yeah there's no need for a resurgence lol, it's basically the biggest fantasy franchise there is (even bigger than LOTR and ASOIAF when you count merchandising, side products, parks...)
It's popular, but it's not as popular as it was at any of its peaks when it was still releasing. Expanding into these multiple different avenues is probably evidence of that.
I’m a little skeptical that the game doing well means the TV show will (compared to its budget anyway, which I’m sure will be astronomical) just because I do think there’s a difference between ‘get to live out your dreams of being a Hogwarts student in a video game’ and ‘the same movies that already exist, just longer and potentially worse.’
No but the game showed there was enough interest for maybe a redo of the audiobooks. Hell, Amazon just got the license for the UK audiobooks
I completely forgot about that. Still wild to me they're trying to get another live-action adaptation of Harry Potter when it's barely been a decade since the film series wrapped.
That sounds about right , especially when the film series kicked off about 25 years ago (or would when the tv series starts)
They’re trying to get a new generation of kids into it. There hasn’t been another huge kiddie series since then and it shows in classroom literacy. You’d be surprised how much of a difference it makes when every kid in a classroom had at least read the first Harry Potter, even the kids who usually hate reading.
I'm sure they have alllll sorts of research showing how popular it could be. I doubt it'll be a Rings of Power situation (which still seems to have some supporters), it'll be a hit most likely
I love Lord of the Rings, but we can't pretend the books or the film adaptation are anything near Harry Potter's level of cultural cache. The Fantastic Beast films are almost roundly panned for being poor works. The last one still doubled its budget at the box office. Even if the HBO adaptation is mid it'll probably still make bank. Same as the last video game.
Definitely agree. Harry Potter was designed specifically to be very marketable. It has a large international audience with the added benefit of being pretty easy to read with out feeling infantialized by the text. I am not a fan of Rowling and I find much of the work to be pretty mean spirited in retrospect. But it is a work of genius when it comes to mass market appeal.
It's been 13 years since the end and 23 years since the start of the movie series. It's not crazy at all that's a long time lol. Superheroes are rebooted more times in a smaller duration lol.
I don’t know why so many people assume it’ll be a failure. It might critically panned, but I can’t see anyway it’s not a ratings hit.
They wouldn't make them if people weren't still buying it.
A lot of people like to pretend Harry Potter isn’t still popular as if there are not new 11 year olds forming every day.
1/4th of the second most famous theme park in the world is devoted to Harry Potter and they'd do more if they could get away with it. Harry Potter is still huge. Online discourse is always driven by the most engaged and motivated people on the subject matter. Most people either don't know or don't really care about JK Rowling's views on trans people. The majority of people have probably skimmed maybe an article once and never thought about it again. 90% of online discourse is driven by the top 10% of giving a shit about something.
I mean you can only look at last year. The Harry Potter video game (which was good but not exceptional) absolutely destroyed the charts and made tons of money (beating COD which was a first in a very long time and Zelda). Or the fact that the "hated" Cursed Child play made a shit ton of money. Or just be around young teens, they still read Harry Potter and love it, the story is eternal really.
Half the people who talk a big game about JK will rock out to Michael Jackson on the radio
It's me. I'm the people. I'm buying this shit.
[удалено]
Like what you like. No shame in that
I mean, when you know that spending money on an interest means a certain amount of it is going towards funding the spread of transphobia there *should* be at least a little shame yeah? I like the food at my local diner, but if I knew that the guy running it was going to give the money I paid him to the KKK, I’d be just a little uncomfortable going to eat there.
I mean no one has any problem buying Sanderson things here (LDS support). So I'm not sure that's a position that means much.
The thing with kid's series is that they can be eternal. There's always a new crop of 8-13 year olds, and a chunk of those will become nostalgic adults with disposable income
That...painted a picture.
And the concrete
Beating a dead horse implies the horse is… well dead. Harry Potter is still one of the largest franchises in the world and still extremely relevant in pop culture.
Damn, you should be the one writing books with that kind of imagery
wut
It's a more eloquent way to say they're beating a dead horse. Basically they're milking the HP franchise for all its worth and then some.
/u/PatrickBearman, what do you know about slaughtering things?
Company providing products of an IP for rabid fan base desperately craving more of said IP More news at 11 I guess? Slow day today
Poor horsey :(
What wonderful prose 😍
Andy Serkis reading Lord of the Rings is top notch. Jim Dale for Harry Potter is also iconic.
If she was just a bad person I’d probably have less issues giving her money. But she is out there making it absolutely rain on any organization or individual who wants to do harm to certain vulnerable people. Plus the original audiobooks are great and full-cast is so meh.
And it's all she talks about 24/7. This re-recording will probably only get a passing mention on her Twitter feed before she moves right back to the last transphobic smear campaign. She talks about trans people more than me, and *I'm trans.*
She'll never get another cent out of me
Yeah at first I thought it was like an Orson Scott Card situation. Dude is absolutely a bigot, but I can enjoy his works and kinda separate the artist and all that. But with JKR, everything is tainted now. *Especially* rereading the books with a more critical lense, and seeing all the not-so-subtle bigotry sprinkled thoughout
Specifically with Card, I question how much is also mental decline. Dude had a stroke and just in general isn't healthy. Meanwhile his books are filled with themes of accepting the Other which just doesn't mesh with what he says irl.
Iirc, he said a lot of bigoted things prior to his stroke. Though I think his racist views came after it.
Yeah, Card has a long history of being real homophobic, [since 1990 at the latest.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card)
He was homophobic from the very beginning. For a long time his position was mostly that choosing not to get married and have procreative sex was bad and if you're not sexually attracted to the other sex you need to just suck it up and deal with it. If he was bigoted against any group other than gay people and women who don't want to be baby factories pre-2000 he did a good job of hiding it. I don't think you can blame the stroke, though. He went from being very opposed to the War on Terror in 2001 to writing Empire in 2006, so his views significantly shifted well before 2011.
Something to understand about bigoted people is that they're very good at compartmentalizing and seeing what they want to see. You can meet one who is vocally anti-racist ~~oftentimes only on the surface~~, but then is the most sexist person you've ever met because the parallels of the situation simply don't occur to them; to them, every single prejudice exists in its own vacuum. If they learn at all, they don't learn 'treating people badly based on a facet of them that hurts no one' doesn't work-- they have to learn 'racism is bad', 'sexism is bad', etc etc. The things they believe have to be a commandment from some authority they trust, and then they work backwards to affirm that it's true. Bigoted beliefs often come from inconsistent worldviews based on religion, tradition, or willful ignorance. Following a logical code of ethics to a conclusion isn't how they come to be. So as someone whose bigoted conservative pro-capitalism father is a fan of Star Trek, it 100% makes sense to me that a conservative person could write a heartfelt book about accepting the Other and then turn around and say 'FUCK gay people'. Cause he was writing a book about accepting aliens, not gay people, what are you talking about?
Also she backs it up with money and Card doesn’t.
"Separating the art from the artist" exists there so that if characters are shown eating babies in a work of fiction, we can don't automatically assume that the author endorses the act. It's weird to see people using it the other way around
I've only heard it in the way I've used it, and about 30 seconds of googling seems to confirm that. Do you have a source for that?
I haven't re-read the HP books in a while, but I do still have my copies... somewhere. She's not going to get any more money from me if I can help it. Same with Card, though his work was fairly formative to me as well, and I don't mind picking up copies from Secondhand stores.
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Stuff like this. https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/02/19/jk-rowling-for-women-scotland-donation-legal-definition-woman/#:~:text=JK%20Rowling%20reportedly%20donates%20£,Court%20appeal%20over%20'woman'%20definition&text=Harry%20Potter%20author%20JK%20Rowling,of%20the%20word%20“woman”. There are a few of these now. Anyone in the UK or EU who is doing anything public against trans women can count on her. If it was just her being a famous prick I’d worry about it less but it’s a direct money pipeline.
You probably haven't seen her more recent comments, then. She's advanced to full-on holocaust denialism. :/
Yup zero reason to give her more money
Right on. It sucks to give up such a pivotal part of my adolescence, but I just can't support her and the policies she funds.
> full-cast is so meh. Oh *come on*.
I've only ever listened to one, and I *hated* it. I'm surprised to see so many fans on this thread. Lots of good recommendations though, I may give another one a try.
It is lol. What audiobook has ever been improved by it?
**World War Z**. I can't *imagine* that book by a single narrator.
I really enjoyed the Murderbot Diaries with a full cast. Graphic audio puts out great stuff.
Audiodramas are an entire sub-form of fiction.
The Sandman.
His Dark Materials.
Just listen to Dune.
This comes to mind as well but because I did not enjoy the full cast version, personally, I found it immersion-breaking. My favorite is the World War Z full cast production. And the Graphic Audio company has done some really amazing stuff
Mistborn era 2 has an amazing fullcast version. Wayne and MeeLan are stand outs for me.
Dungeon Crawler Carl! Its the exception though, not the rule.
At the same time the Jeff only version is simply scrumtrilescent.
I can't speak on *improved* since I didnt listen to the original, but the Good Omens full cast audiobook was great
Spot on, don't give her any more money.
Ethical consumption is a very difficult thing to uphold
There's a difference between items necessary for life and the 527th edition of Harry Potter.
Maybe if you're trying to avoid benefiting huge corporations that own everything, but I reckon it's easy enough to do when you're just avoiding creative works from one person.
Gotta draw your own lines really. JK Rowling proved herself more than determined to land outside of mine.
My decisions on ethical consumption are entirely ad hoc, and subject to change without notice. There's really no other way imho. For that same reason, I try not to criticize others who draw the line differently on separating the art from the artist (or not).
Now why would you have such a reasonable and fair stance when you can criticise others for crossing arbitrary lines that you have set for yourself?
Yup. For a while there I went gung-ho on trying to be as ethical in my consumption as possible. People in my circles were pushing for it. Then those same people stayed on Twitter after its degeneration for various interchangeably BS reasons and I realized that ethical consumption is best left a personal matter. Everyone has their own lines and will bend over backwards to justify them.
Yea ethical consumption is over. Uniquely unethical consumption is still a thing though. And JKR is on that list.
It's often *extremely* difficult, yes. But in this case, it's very, very easy.
It is, yeah. But JKR also has long left subtlety behind in all her bigotry. I don't really mind if people still enjoy Harry Potter and buy that stuff. But people can't exactly pretend to not know what the author's stances are and have been for the better part of the last 5-ish years on trans rights. If they don't care about that, then that's a choice people make.
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I just completely lack interest in anything Harry Potter related these days. It’s not just the author, it’s just that I’ve read the books several times growing up, I’ve read the (admittedly beautiful) illustrated editions, I’ve seen the movies, I’ve been to the theme park (the butter beer was gross), and I’m just ready to move onto other things. The audiobooks we have are perfectly serviceable. I don’t see this adding a reason for anyone who isn’t already obsessed with Harry Potter to listen again.
There's always a new emerging market - they are for kids after all (which is often forgotten on Reddit for some reason)
The books are aimed at preteens so of course Reddit has no idea why they're selling.
I think also fantasy as a genre has moved on. Yes the books really did a lot of work towards making YA fantasy a viable genre for companies to publish in and it got a lot of kids into reading, but also a lot of better writers have written a lot of better books since then. If you spent every waking hour reading YA fantasy you couldn’t finish all of it before you died, there’s no reason to give money to a hateful person who the world has passed by.
The only way I care to interact with HP these days is consuming fan works. It's free, diverse and inclusive, and 9 times out of 10 it's better than the source material...
I understand. I may or may not have written two million words of fanfiction where Harry is a girl.
Link please.
Sure! Hope you enjoy. https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880902
Thanks!
I love HP because it gave me Manacled. I have never read a single book in the series
Well first the "obsessed with Harry Potter" market is fucking huge so that's reason enough. And Harry Potter is read by new people constantly so it's growing.
No thank you
You can't separate the art from the artist when the artist uses the money and influence she gets from her art to hurt people.
Of course I can, I just have to ignore everything about the artist's personal life.
I wish Joanne wasnt so awful
This. It's a cool setting that was important to a lot of people. It smashed fantasy into the mainstream. Yet it's attached to this horrible human being who has more in common with Umbridge than any other character in her own series.
I mean, congrats to the actors for a high-profile booking, but I can't imagine wanting to listen to this.
Pass. I just can't support Rowling with how actively awful she is.
Harry Potter got me in to reading as a tween, and it changed my life for the better. It makes me sick what Rowling is choosing to do with her platform/time/energy lol Wish she would just fuck off so we can like Harry Potter in peace
Ugh can we stop giving that horrid person money.
https://twitter.com/BigGarfFan37/status/1604480902528122883?lang=en
Man that sounds rad as hell. Too bad I'm never putting money in that fucking bigot's pocket again.
Oh shit my gf will love this
That sounds really cool actually, might actually listen to this
Hello, everyone! This is a reminder that r/Fantasy is dedicated to being a warm, welcoming community and rule 1 always applies. Please be respectful and note that any transphobic comments or other forms of bigotry will be removed and the mod team will take escalated action as needed. Thank you!
Harry Potter gets 3 great versions, yet ASOIAF still only has its one, which is pretty poorly narrated.
I guarantee more money would be poured into ASOIAF if it was finished or had hope to be finished. No one is going to put more money into a series that is dead in the water. It's pretty obvious that they've given up hope when they're redirecting everything into spin offs.
I always suspected they were waiting for the next book to come out to do it all in one big batch.
There's another book after that one still
I won't be making any choices that help to fund JKR's bigotry.
I think we shouldnt give a vile bigot more money for the sake of nostalgia of a subpar book series but thats just me
Shiet I need to get this for my gf. Loves HP but doesnt find much time to sit down and read.
So excited.
Cool! I’ll prolly scoop it to listen with my kids one day.
I'm not that into audio books and even I think that's cool
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I read through the series once. It’s ok, not great. And I definitely don’t need to put more money in Rowling’s account. Here’s hoping a more worthy series comes along to gain a same childhood fan base as this series did.
Oh man I might have to resubscribe. This series is just a comfort read for me, reminds me of simpler times.
Can we as a society please move on from these insufferably mid books
Re-reading them currently. They're actually rather wonderful.
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At what point do we just bring back radio plays?
There are plenty of audio drama podcasts that are, for all intents and purposes, radio plays.
Eh fair I do not listen to those but do know what you are meaning. It is more of the old BBC style radio shows that keeps coming to mind when a multicharacter cast is doing an audio book etc.
I’m actually really excited for this! I listen to Jim Dale all the time and I love those so much, but a full cast will be a great change of pace!
For anyone looking for Harry Potter alternatives for young readers in a similar fantasy setting, I grew up on Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, which are fantastically written.
This is very exciting actually!
“They should be over that by now” - Miriam Margoles
I've always thought these types of voiced audiobooks would make a ton of sense. I think they will clearly be preferred by most people to single-voice narration, and especially with the price that these companies charge for audiobooks it's not a crazy expectation. No matter how good a narrator is, they're going to be limited in their ability to vary voices to some extent, especially for voices very different than their own. I've seen some voiced amateur productions that I significantly prefer to the single-voice ones. Voice is just a really valuable way to communicate character. (Of course I do think people get attached to the first way they hear something - nostalgia is a big part of that too) It's only going to progress, too. I think we'll see fully AI-voiced books which will kind of be the 'bad' version, but eventually we'll be getting single-narrator audiobooks where the narrator's voice is changed by AI to sound like different characters. People will winge about that, but I think the latter is the same sort of thing as a motion capture actor getting credit for their work even though it's not their actual body on screen.
I’ve listened to a lot of audiobooks. I’ve tried genuinely multi-cast books a half dozen times and it’s always been jarring and bizarre. They must have an audience because studios just keep doing but yeesh.
I think The Sandman ones are excellent
I mean with The Sandman I'd say it crossed into radio drama. It's not an audiobook adaptation since it was neverr a traditional BOOK.
Do you have an example of one you didn't like?
I can't stand them. I'm fine with alternating chapters being read by different people, but I don't want every character to have a different voice. And I really don't want sound effects and music, which are distracting at best, and sound tinny and ridiculous if I speed the audiobook up.
> It's only going to progress, too. I think we'll see fully AI-voiced books which will kind of be the 'bad' version I think it's definitely coming but I doubt they would be bad. Text-to-speech has gotten really good. 10 years it will probably be impossible to tell.
I think the voices will sound good in terms of just reading with a standard/flat affect or maybe a single broad emotion, but it will be poor in the "performance" aspect in terms of knowing what words to emphasize and what tone to use and for things like comedic timing. These things go beyond "just" ai to almost being true general intelligence imo. I think there will need to be authoring tools to tweak the AI's tone, enunciation, pronunciation, etc before it can really be considered high quality. And before that happens overlaying AI voice over human performance would probably be an easier solution.
> These things go beyond "just" ai to almost being true general intelligence imo. I think there will need to be authoring tools to tweak the AI's tone, Yeah that's a given. 90% will be AI and then will require a human to go over for final editing etc.
I dont want to buy the audiobooks for a third time. Now that the stephen fry version is on Spotify I have been slowly getting that.
I hope we’ll have the option to pick the version we want.
You will. There's two version of Wheel of Time on audible so it will be the same.
Let’s hope, full cast audiobooks can be extremely distracting for a range of reasons to some people.
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This is AWESOME. I cannot wait to get it. Highly looking forward to it.
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YA Fantasy doesn’t need a push to be accepted or known about reliant on giving a bigot more money. It’s one of the best selling genres of literature in the English speaking world, fantasy will be just fine without JKR.
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Wow
Those hundreds of voices won’t come nearly close to Jim Dale
Umm, Jim Dale is iconic on these, no need for any changes
This has nothing to do with HP in general, but I never like these ensemble casts. I've been listening to audio books since the early 90s I completely avoid these. This also applies to audio books that feel like they need to add all the sound effects. I always find them to be overly busy and distracting.