Market Forces

"Yes! Vance is another of the greatest narrators that I can name. He is also a friend. And funnily enough, when I was starting out in audiobooks, I knew Simon only because I knew his wife through theatre, where I had worked with her. I don’t know why the penny didn’t drop, but I was talking to my friend’s husband, Simon, about getting into audiobooks, and I knew who Simon Vance was, and we were sat at a pub in Oregon where I was doing theatre… and at the table is when the penny dropped, that that was Simon Vance . Anyway, he’s since become a dear friend. I was helping him go through the rubble of his house as a result of the Altadena fires recently, and actually unearthed a few of his awards, Audie awards and things like that. So he’s rebuilding and continuing with books. And he’s one of the greatest narrators there is, along with Scott Brick. He started out as a reader for Radio 4, originally from Brighton, and is just a wonderful storyteller. I can’t say enough about him. We work in a wide variety of different genres. Obviously, this is focused on sci fi, but Simon has so many titles in other genres that are amazing, as does Scott; I have a few, although they’ve slotted me really heavily into sci fi and military history and thrillers and stuff like that. That’s just what happens. But if you are interested in a book by either Scott or Simon, you’re in great hands. The thing about sci fi is that you’re dealing with a heightened reality, a conceit. There’s a request that the reader, the listener, suspend their disbelief. I think of Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale : “It is required you do awake your faith.” Here are people conversing in English on a planet 10,000 years in the future: there’s got to be a suspension of disbelief. It calls for a commitment to the text when you’re narrating it, which I think is a little bit different than, say, a nonfiction title. Someone like Simon, someone like Scott, someone like some of the other narrators mentioned here are great choices for that because they’re willing to go there. You don’t catch a note of the narrator not necessarily believing what’s going on. They’re committed to the story. And it’s really important, especially with sci fi: you have to commit. Yes, you do. Sometimes there’ll be scientific pronunciations you need to absolutely double check, and then obviously there will be made-up things, and perhaps the author has a specific sound for that planet or that person or that thing in mind. And if you’re starting into a series that has already been established, where these books have fans and they’re finally being turned to audio, it’s a great idea to do some research on what the accepted pronunciation of this thing is; because listeners as an audience, I have found, are very, very outspoken. They have a real sense of ownership about what they listen to, and have no problem telling you when you have done something in error."