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Audio books for ENTERPRISE? Likely ever?

^The book is The 34th Rule (i.e. "War is good for business"). As yet, the 39th Rule of Acquisition is unrevealed.
 
GHS said:
Steve Roby said:
The other thing to keep in mind, while on the subject of audio books, is that they're not done by the people who do the books. The editors of the books, IIRC what some of them said here, do not decide which books should become audio books, the people in the audio department do.
QUOTE]

Not sure that's right. The audio book is included in the author's contract to begin with.

When you look at how some of the most self-indulgent Ordover projects got the audio treatment, despite being 3 or 4 part mini-series, while Marco couldn't get Stitch in Time (written by an actor!) turned into an audio book tells me that Ordover projects had a lot of pull at S&S Audio.
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I sincerely doubt that was an Ordover vs. Palmieri thing. It was more like a "DS9 never sells as well as TNG" thing.

In my experience, Subrights and Marketing couldn't care less who the editor of a book is . . . .
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Christopher said:
^My point is that Shatner doesn't use all those pauses in his speech the way he's caricatured as doing, that the cliched "Shatner impression" doesn't sound that much like Shatner at all. But Bakula really does have a lot of long, random pauses in his speech, so ironically the bad Shatner impression is closer to Bakula.
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I can only think of one specific instance, that really made me stop and think "Is Scott actually doing a bad Shatner impression?". For anyone interested, that's in Season 1's Cold Front - where Archer has invited some Religious alien types aboard and says "Tell Chef to prepare --- something."

Isn't actually the bad Shatner impression most comedians do based as much on exaggeration... speeding up/slowing down the delivery and suddenly halting during the pauses? Scott Bakula on the other hand always seems pretty consistent. He has the slow drawl of a Cowboy... deliberately making sure there's not much chance of being misunderstood. Doing a bad John Wayne would probably be closer to the mark.

Count Zero said:
I'd love to hear Scott Bakula read something. I fancy his odd way of delivery. Jeffrey Combs would do a great job, too.
I must say I was quite surprised at the sparcity of Trek audio books, especially since audio books are so en vogue these days.
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Now, Jeffrey Combs is an especially good idea. He always struck me as having a facility for voices that aren't his own. Whereas listening to the priniciple trio of Enterprise (Scott, Jolene & Connor) would be unmistakably their own characters.
 
I never really noticed it, either. He sometimes does insert random pauses while slurring other words together but I never got the 'Shatner caricature' vibe from it.
 
ChristopherPike said:
I can only think of one specific instance, that really made me stop and think "Is Scott actually doing a bad Shatner impression?". For anyone interested, that's in Season 1's Cold Front - where Archer has invited some Religious alien types aboard and says "Tell Chef to prepare --- something."
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Okay, let me try to explain this again. I'm not saying that Scott Bakula's delivery actually sounds like a bad Shatner impression. I'm saying that they have one defining feature in common: the use of frequent, extended, random pauses in speech. That is generally used as the primary feature of a bad Shatner impression, and it's not something Shatner really does at all. But it is something Bakula does, though not in exactly the same way as a bad Shatner impression. That's why I said Bakula's delivery is closer to a bad Shatner impression than the real Shatner's delivery. "Closer" does not mean "identical." It just means "less different." Okay?
 
Doesn't bother me in the least. However my point is there's nothing random about the pauses in Archer's speech pattern... whether that's close to being a bad Shatner impersonation or not.
 
I only ever noticed Bakula's odd delivery on Enterprise. I don't recall him doing that on Quantum Leap or the movies I've seen him in.
 
^ditto. I always thought the way he spoke on Enterprise was an (albeit slight) homage to the way people always credit Shats with speaking. His...pauses...were never quite that bad though. All this talk of Enterprise makes me want to rewatch again (i've already re-watched the whole series once in 2009).
 
I've always found Bakula's delivery somewhat labored and odd -- more like reciting than just plain talking. But it was more pronounced on ENT.
 
^Exactly. This is why I always felt like Bakula was paying Shatner homage, as he sounded different in Enterprise than in anything else I can remember him in.
 
Therin of Andor said:
GHS said:
Not sure that's right. The audio book is included in the author's contract to begin with.
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If it's negotiated that way. The authors used to be offered first refusal, but audio deadlines became a problem, IIRC. The very early ST audios were not simultaneous releases. But it seems that once a few titles were abridged by George Truett, to be in shops at the same time as the book, and still sold as well as those abridged by the original authors, the process may have become more reliable to "let George do it".
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Mr. Truett's list of published works besides audio books (zilch) has me wondering whether they got one of the quickie novelization authors to do the abridging under a pseudonym, or actually let someone with no writing experience abridge the books for audio. I have to admit Truett usually did a better job of pacing than Vonda McIntyre did with her own stuff, though.

Well, by then the audio sales for DS9 had slipped way down. IIRC. S&S Audioworks were supposedly very disappointed with sales of the audio of "The 34th Rule" (and "Millennium" Vol 1, which - me speculating wildly here - probably would have had two more audio volumes if the first one had sold solidly?), and this made them very wary of later DS9 novels, including the eagerly-awaited hardcover, "Unity", the first Pocket hardcover in a looooooong line of ST hardcovers to miss out on an audio version.

"The 34th Rule" would have informed S&S Audio's marketing decisions re "A Stitch in Time", since both had DS9 actor participation as author (and narrator).
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I wouldn't be surprised if those two only sold moderately, but they didn't kill the whole audio line like Genisis Wave and the Vulcan's books did. And I have a hard time believing S&S Audiorom were looking at stellar sales numbers from the prior entries when they decided Vulcan's Soul and Genisis Wave IV would get the audio treatment.

I had an email discussion with John Ordover when the first "New Frontier" audio was announced. I wrote and suggested Suzie Plakson as narrator and he thought it was an excellent idea, but that he could only make suggestions to S&S Audioworks, and they didn't have to listen to him.

They ended up going with Joe Morton, who didn't even have a previous ST connection - the first time that happened, IIRC - and I was very disappointed with Morton's bizarre Calhoun delivery.
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I wholeheartedly agree that the lousy talent choices were all on S&S audio.
 
GHS said:
Mr. Truett's list of published works besides audio books (zilch) has me wondering whether they got one of the quickie novelization authors to do the abridging under a pseudonym, or actually let someone with no writing experience abridge the books for audio.
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"No writing experience"?

Most copy writers, technical writers and ghost writers beaver away for decades and never get official writing credits for the massive amounts of work they produce, usually to extremely tight deadlines. That does not mean they are any less skilled, less certificated, or less talented than a famous-name novelist just because they've never had a commercial success credited to their name. In fact, many uncredited writers have written many more published words than successful novelists.

(Isn't JM Dillard married to a George? I used to wonder if "George Truett" was Dillard or someone she knew, but I'm sure John Ordover once confirmed that George Truett did exist and was a S&S Audio employee.)

I wouldn't be surprised if those two only sold moderately, but they didn't kill the whole audio line like Genisis Wave and the Vulcan's books did. And I have a hard time believing S&S Audiorom were looking at stellar sales numbers from the prior entries when they decided Vulcan's Soul and Genisis Wave IV would get the audio treatment.
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At that point S&S Audio were committed to doing simultaneous audio releases of each new hardcover novel (perhaps contractually). And sales of the first two "Genesis Wave" hardcovers were incredibly good, leading to the next two installments. I would assume that books that sold well would be mirrored by the sales of their audio versions. I don't know how well the first two GW audios went, but we were also now entering an era where unabridged audios, made possible via then-recent download and CD technology, were replacing abridgements in commercial popularity.

Very definitely, the low sales on "DS9: The 34th Rule" (book and audio) quashed the chances of "DS9: A Stitch in Time" and "DS9: Unity" in audio. I recall John Ordover saying as much.

I wholeheartedly agree that the lousy talent choices were all on S&S audio.
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Joe Morton is not necessarily a "lousy talent choice", but I simply didn't care for his bizarre delivery for Calhoun. My main problem was that I started collecting ST audios many because they always used ST actors. But the ST talent must have been pricing themselves out of audio work, 'cos after Morton the mold was broken, and we suddenly got a number of non-ST narrators from S&S Audio's regular stable.
 
Therin of Andor said:
I had an email discussion with John Ordover when the first "New Frontier" audio was announced. I wrote and suggested Suzie Plakson as narrator and he thought it was an excellent idea, but that he could only make suggestions to S&S Audioworks, and they didn't have to listen to him.

They ended up going with Joe Morton, who didn't even have a previous ST connection - the first time that happened, IIRC - and I was very disappointed with Morton's bizarre Calhoun delivery.
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You know, I've always been curious about someday getting hold of that particular audiobook, as I'd been intrigued to hear what Morton would do with it. Sad to hear that it may not be worth the bother.
 
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