VarleyNews

© 2008 by John Varley; all rights reserved

Last week Audible.com began the recording of the books they bought from me. Titan, Wizard, and Demon will be read by Allyson Johnson.

I’ve talked to her twice now and she certainly has the main requirement for this assignment: A pleasant, listenable voice. She has also shown considerable concern for pronunciation. We talked for half an hour about how to pronounce the various Greek names in the book. To my chagrin, I had to admit that I’d never heard some of them pronounced myself. Mnemosyne I knew (ne-MOS-en-ne). Oceanus I didn’t. (The dictionary says oh-SEE-an-us, but we agreed we liked oh-she-AN-us better, and it’s easier to read it that way.) She’s halfway through the recording of Titan, halfway through her reading of Wizard, and will be calling me tonight concerning pronunciations for the second book.

My first novel, The Ophiuchi Hotline, is being read by a woman named Gabra Zackman.

I spoke with her a little while ago, and she also has a great voice and has done a lot of this sort of work before—mostly romance novels, but some science fiction. She also had a lot of questions, most of which I could answer. For the rest, we decided we could fake it.

So, the work has begun. Those of you who listen to audiobooks, or download them, or whatever (I’m not very knowledgeable about audio) will soon have something to listen to. Keep checking back here and we’ll keep you posted on progress!

July 2, 2008

Hollywood, California