Saturday, October 2, 2010

Listen to Harlan Ellison read Mars audiobook by Ben Bova

With creative genius, disgruntled Star Trek writer, man-with-the edge-in-his-voice, and ailing science fiction author Harlan Ellison seeking a final curtain call before the great gig in the sky, now is an opportune time to listen to him read a few passages from six-time Hugo Award-winning SF author Ben Bova’s impressive 1992 hard science novel Mars. The sample, archived on Audible.com, is from Ellison’s narration of the abridged Mars audiobook, produced by Phoenix Audio back in 1999. According to one fan who bought the audiobook but questions Ellison's voice acting skills:
  
I loved the text. Ellison's narration though... when he is doing the prose portions, he is spot on. Perfect. I got chills on the opening prose section. But when he does voices he goes off the deep-end. It isn't so much that he can't act. It's that he makes terrible choices for each voice. For example, one of the characters is introduced as having a *light* texas accent, but Harlan gives him a parody of a texas accent. And he makes the female astronauts sound like they are twelve-year olds dreaming of becoming ice princesses. But I have to say that I agree with the previous reviewer: yuo do get used to it. And the book is excellent. I just wish that someone had been directing Ellison.

Buy all 5+ hours of Mars for only $17.50 and decide for yourself!

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