Well the Sulu audiobooks are awesome, but don't buy Cacophony on CD. The entire story is on one single track. If you need to stop it for any reason, you'll have to put it on pause the entire time, because if you don't, you'll never find your place once you come back, so you pretty much have to listen to it all in one go.
Audiobooks note
- Thread starter Smitty
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^I think some CD players can remember your place on a disc when you turn them off, as long as you leave it in the player.
Cool, that will work, since I use an iPod for all my audiobook needs.
Given it's a download, like I said, I don't think this'll be an issue.
I bought my first one on cassette tape, as I had for all previous Star Trek audios, but a friend told me to try them on CD, with headphones. The CDs used an innovative "3-D" surround sound facility that was truly amazing for the time, but was just regular stereo for the cassette.
"Cacophony", the second story, is a bit of a mess. I think the writer tried to anticipate the cleverness of the 3-D sound. Interestingly, this original-to-audio adventure was credited to a "J.J. Molloy", but was originally promoted as being a Peter David story. Dave Stern's ("Transformations") and LA Graf's ("Envoy") efforts are more successful.
My understanding is that "Molloy" is simply a pseudonym Peter used on the audiobook for some reason.
It's not a typical PAD story, so I wonder if it got changed in editing and he was unhappy with it? As I mentioned, I thought the overlapping voices were not as effective as they might have sounded on paper. The audio did get lots of anticipatory publicity as an upcoming PAD project.
I listened to them back to back recently. None of them are classics - they're more multi voiced audiobooks than full cast dramas - one was a most odd experience, it focuses on another character with Takei/Sulu intervening every 10mins with a captain's [mono]log[ue] and another features Sulu properly.
Can't recall the third!
Can't recall the third!
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IIRC, John Ordover explained that S&S Audioworks did not have the license to do fully-dramatized audios; this was compromise. (Neither had any other publisher bought the license, but it was there to be had. It may have been further complicated in that the main Trek literature license was "exclusive" to Simon & Schuster, so the full-drama option was never taken up by anyone.)
I wonder if that lead to the audio adaptation of the "Borg" (and "Klingon"?) full-motion video games. I'm only familiar with "Borg," but in that case, they took the audio from the game, and added in narration and dialog in place of the game's silent protagonist, making a pretty convincing audio drama (aside from one moment that didn't quite play without the visual cue that went along with it). Could be some sort of loophole, where you get what's effectively a full-cast audio drama, but it skates by because there was only one actor in the production combined with assets they'd recorded for the game.
Yes, again, both "Klingon" and "Borg" were technically not fully interactive adventures. The "Klingon" audio is of the game itself, not the novelization of the game, IIRC. "Borg" didn't get a novelization, "Starfleet Academy" got a novelization but no audio, and "Klingon Academy" got neither.
I looked into getting Trek audiobooks for the daily commute recently but wasn't impressed by the range. Hopefully this will change as audiobooks seem to be building in popularity.
Wouldn't mind an audiobook version of 'The Autobiography of James T. Kirk'. Imagine it read by Shatner too!
Wouldn't mind an audiobook version of 'The Autobiography of James T. Kirk'. Imagine it read by Shatner too!
Ha! Really? I'll have to watch that later.
Massive opportunity missed here
They really need to give Big Finish the Trek license for audio dramas. I'd love some Trek audio dramas in the vein of the Doctor Who ones.
It's not S&S or CBS giving the license, so much as it would be Big Finish proposing what they would do, and what they were willing to pay to get such a license.
Good point!
I've only heard Cacophony of those, and I found the story a disappointment. Low on suspense, and a pretty perfunctory resolution to the story, which stringed together a bunch of Sulu monologues, and delivered nothing on the premise of the story. Not inclined to continue with the others, tbh
The Doctor Who ones work well because you only have a cast of 2-3 regulars to accommodate, plus guest stars. A Star Trek show would have to pare down the cast significantly, which would result in a very different kind of story than we're used to. (Even the Stargate audios couldn't manage to include a complete team of four.)
