I actually just tested this out with a snippet from Small Gods. It still sounds very robotic and, in my opinion, is nowhere near good enough for these books.
The timing between sentences and paragraphs is inconsistent, the intonation for sentences with ellipses is completely wrong, hyphenated sentences are treated as continuous strings, and it can’t get names of characters or places remotely close to their intended pronunciation.
It might be fine for reading a news article, but it is nowhere near ready to perform an audiobook.
I’ve never listened to the originals, but I love that 41 books (I think, I’m on eleven now) have been read by the same actors (including Bill Neighy) throughout. Gives a great feeling of continuity. Every time Death speaks without the book hinting I think, “Oh something bad is happening to somebody.”
Love all works narrated by Kramer, also all the newest Discworld recordings (absolute masterpieces)
I actually just tested this out with a snippet from Small Gods. It still sounds very robotic and, in my opinion, is nowhere near good enough for these books.
The timing between sentences and paragraphs is inconsistent, the intonation for sentences with ellipses is completely wrong, hyphenated sentences are treated as continuous strings, and it can’t get names of characters or places remotely close to their intended pronunciation.
It might be fine for reading a news article, but it is nowhere near ready to perform an audiobook.
I never thought there was anything wrong with the first narrations. I hope those aren’t gone for good.
I’ve never listened to the originals, but I love that 41 books (I think, I’m on eleven now) have been read by the same actors (including Bill Neighy) throughout. Gives a great feeling of continuity. Every time Death speaks without the book hinting I think, “Oh something bad is happening to somebody.”