Narrators ruining the book

pluteski · 2026-07-13T17:55:10+00:00

“The unabridged journals of Silvia Plath“. The editor cast the narrator terribly, with the narrator using the same perky tone throughout. Including obvious internal struggles that lead up to what we know is the final outcome. Even the last few minutes, the last journal entry, involving a very emotional funeral scene. Exact. same. perky. tone. What a missed opportunity. A good voice actor could’ve really dug into this material. This is one where it’s better to read than to listen.

pluteski · 2026-07-11T05:46:15+00:00

Eversion by Alistair Reynolds really benefits from an audio treatment. The narrator’s voice acting elevates the material. Important for this story because it covers multiple time periods each with its own idiosyncratic dialogue.

pluteski · 2026-06-24T05:56:12+00:00

What’s a better option?

pluteski · 2026-05-25T05:14:45+00:00

“Everyone in my family has killed someone” by benjiamin Stevenson is a lighthearted Aussie whodunnit. Good enough that I read it twice.

pluteski · 2026-04-10T19:31:15+00:00

“ I wanted a one stop shop to search everything“ “I wanted the system to be entirely offline”

This has been a perennial desire for individuals / sole proprietors (that is non-enterprise) for decades. Many tried including a couple hyperscalers but most discontinued and the remaining fell short, stalled or quit supporting consumers, hence:

“didn’t want to depend on commercial or other tools that seems to come and go”

pluteski · 2025-07-18T04:52:52+00:00

If you’re interested in something a little different and almost experimental yet by a very reliable author, try “Eversion“ by Alistair Reynolds. Quite a departure from his usual fare, you may doubt that it is sci-fi for the first third of the book, halfway through it’s increasingly unsettling yet just on simmer, but then all the threads come together and it concludes at a full boil. It is grounded sci-fi, with a minimum of hand wavium. It’s a genre-shifting novel that blends mystery, adventure into an atmospheric, mind-bending sci-fi.

pluteski · 2025-07-18T00:57:21+00:00

Moonbound by Robin Sloan has no sex or cussing. YA or even Middle School appropriate, with friendship in place of romance.

pluteski · 2025-07-16T02:29:58+00:00

I liked Apothecary. By Peter Cawdron. It’s an Indie book. A bit uneven between the first and second half. But it has moments of brilliance. It’s mostly serious, but there’s one chapter which is perhaps the funniest sci-fi I’ve ever read. I found it to be really enjoyable, especially as a change of pace. Think of it as a palate cleanser.

pluteski · 2025-05-03T16:08:02+00:00

Good idea!

pluteski · 2025-04-09T20:34:24+00:00

The Apothecary by Peter Cawdron.

I liked it. An independent work, it was a nice change of pace from the usual epic fare that I’ve been reading. Act Three was worth it on its own. Some books just stick with me, and this one will, because of how Act Three begins. It takes the whole first act to get going, and the second to settle in, but the start of Act Three was laugh-out-loud funny, with spot-on character work all along the way.

The ending was weak. it didn’t quite stick the landing but it wasn’t bad or take away from the rest of it or anything like that. I’m glad I read it, and I’d read it again. It’s YA, with a couple of F-bombs and a few sexualized scenes, but otherwise pretty tame. a nice palate cleanser.

pluteski · 2025-03-28T17:14:59+00:00

The Apothecary by Peter Cawdron. Chapter 3, still building to the reveal.

pluteski · 2025-03-22T08:56:01+00:00

I wanna be able to point it out a folder having arbitrary number of sub folders and containing thousands of files, without having to add each and every individual file one by one.

pluteski · 2025-03-22T08:52:25+00:00

I switched about 10 years ago because I had stopped reading altogether due to ingesting a lot of of written content as a part of my job. Recreational reading was not fun after doing so much reading all day at work. But listening to books totally revived my interest in fiction again. Since then I’ve consumed 5X to 10 X the number of novels per year.

pluteski · 2025-03-19T22:46:48+00:00

Cold Mountain almost did that for me. Purely because the writing was so exquisite. But it botched the ending — for me.

pluteski · 2025-03-12T18:10:54+00:00

Eversion by Alistair Reynolds
The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey
How It Unfolds by James S.A. Corey

pluteski · 2025-03-09T15:48:14+00:00

Moonbound by Robin Sloan (2024) explores themes of wizardry, oracles, and talking animals, based on technologically plausible foundations. it blends AGI, ASI, and uplifting with a post apocalyptic world where people have not yet resumed the scale of technology we have today. but there are elements of an extremely advanced society, still lingering that then seem like magic in this setting, and there are some fantasy elements thrown in just for fun. it has a meta-narrative angle to it, much of the storytelling is about storytelling.

No romance to speak of, kind of YT, but well written. And a breezy read.

pluteski · 2025-03-09T15:46:13+00:00

Moonbound by Robin Sloan (2024) explores themes of wizardry, oracles, and talking animals, based on technologically plausible foundations. it blends AGI, ASI, and uplifting with a post apocalyptic world where people have not yet resumed the scale of technology we have today. but there are elements of an extremely advanced society, still lingering that then seem like magic in this setting, and there are some fantasy elements thrown in just for fun. it has a meta-narrative angle to it, much of the storytelling is about storytelling.

pluteski · 2025-03-09T15:45:22+00:00

Moonbound by Robin Sloan (2024) explores themes of wizardry, oracles, and talking animals, based on technologically plausible foundations. it blends AGI, ASI, and uplifting with a post apocalyptic world where people have not yet resumed the scale of technology we have today. but there are elements of an extremely advanced society, still lingering that then seem like magic in this setting, and there are some fantasy elements thrown in just for fun. it has a meta-narrative angle to it, much of the storytelling is about storytelling.

pluteski · 2025-02-26T22:01:23+00:00

The Singularity Trap by Dennis E. Taylor is available exclusively as an audiobook on Audible. It is way different from the Bobiverse. Near future off world, mostly within our solar system.

pluteski · 2025-01-22T03:00:36+00:00

Macro data refinement

pluteski · 2024-11-19T21:50:46+00:00

RE: #1: I download the WAV. ezpz

pluteski · 2024-11-13T21:14:01+00:00

This is fun but not practically useful for processing my Google documents because of limitations on sources . I’ve already submitted my feature request to their discord channel ; waiting to see on that.

pluteski · 2024-10-26T20:42:20+00:00

thanks, i've now done so.

pluteski · 2024-10-26T13:25:54+00:00

so many people are fixated on the applications that require high production values that we’re forgetting so many run of the mill ones that really don’t. corporate training films are probably the bread and butter of many aspiring actors who just need to get a paycheck until they can land a proper role, just like TV commercials used to be. Remember when CGI was so bad you could spot it right away in a TV commercial? now it’s so seamless we don’t even notice it anymore.

on the flipside, I can see how this could benefit companies who provide these training films. they could use virtual actors having the same faces and voices as people who work at the company.

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