Shadow Blade: Audio book brings characters to life

Audiobooks. They are the latest digital form of literature, quickly rising in popularity with readers on the go. And why not? What a great way to multitask. Instead of having to find a quiet time to sit and read the printed word, you can listen to the story while getting multiple things accomplished. I listened to Shadowblade, by Chris Barili, narrated by Marc Swezczyk while ironing, while cleaning the bathroom, while driving, and while sitting at the campfire. It was kind of cool to do chores when I’d rather be reading, and actually be able to do both.

As my first experience with audio books, I found it to be a convenient form of literature. I received my copy via my Kindle Fire, through Amazon. Like digital books through Amazon, it downloaded to my Fire automatically. It was time saving, in that I could listen to it at times that normally would be uproductive to my writing. It reminded me of the old radio serials, but you can start and stop whenever it is convenient, and don’t have to wait a week to find out what happens next. I think I could have gotten through the book a lot quicker in overall time spent reading, had I read it myself, just because I read faster than the pace of narration, but by allowing me to listen at times when I normally wouldn’t be able to read, it was helpful with my very busy schedule.

Marc Swezczyk was a good choice for a narrator on this story, in that his dialects and difficult name pronunciations sounded quite natural. His voice changed slightly for each character switch, making dialog easy to follow, as well. However, outside of the dialog, his narration falters with an unvaried pace and lack of inflection. This causes the some of the pain stakingly crafted action scenes to fall flat and the narrative seems to drone on in places. Having previously reviewed Shadowblade, I honestly didn’t feel as though Swezcyyk made this story shine as brightly as it could have.

Shadowblade is a great fantasy story, and Marc Swezczyk’s narration brings the interesting and diverse characters to life in the audio version, however he was unable to draw me into the scenes, which does not do this superbly written story justice. I give Shadowblade audio four quills.

I see the audio book being the future of literature, so I wonder how it is from the author’s side of things. If you are an author who has tested the waters in the audio realm, please comment to share your experiences with audio books. Is it easy to publish audio? Was it difficult to find a narrator? Is it expensive? We here at Writing to be Read want to know.

Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.