Listen:// Sherlock Holmes - The Last Act

Buy From: Big Finish

It is 1916 and Sherlock Holmes has returned to his rooms in Baker Street after attending the funeral of his long time associate, Dr John H. Watson. Holmes reflects on the old days and comes to realise that not only was there so much that he had shared with Watson in his lifetime but also there was so much that he had not revealed to him: things he had kept hidden, including his deep affection for his friend. Imagining that Watson is present, Holmes addresses this failing and touches on aspects of past cases and the various characters he encountered during his investigations, including ‘The Woman’ Irene Adler and of course Professor Moriarty.

Holmes delves deeper into the darker aspects of his own history, revealing at last a shocking secret. Realising now how lonely and isolated he is without his old comrade, adrift in a new modern and war-ravaged age, he comes to wonder whether, like Watson, he too has come to the end of his time…

 Besides all the science fiction and fantasy I read, I count the Sherlock Holmes books among my all time favourites so I'll often digest anything I find set in that universe. Whilst I love the originals, I don't have any particular problem with people playing in that world. I know some people can get obsessed with canon, and keeping things true to the originals, but I think it's such a great character and setting it deserves to be reinterpreted, rebooted, and generally messed around with.

I'd vaguely heard of the stage play of The Last Act but I've never been able to make it, so I was pleasantly surprised when I spotted that the Big Finish Sherlock Holmes series would be kicking off with a audio production of that play. It's a single actor piece starring Roger Llewellyn as Sherlock Holmes performing a monologue to a deceased Watson. It's incredibly well written, and manages to squeeze a huge amount of detail from the original books in, indeed it would server as a great introduction to anyone who has not yet read the books. At the same time as the 'Sherlock for beginners' detail we are also getting an insight into the mind of the great detective who proves to be a little more flawed than he seems at first glance.

Roger Llewellyn is outstanding as Holmes, I really would love to see him in one of the original stories now I've heard this. He has that exacting tone, slightly dark, very funny in places, and full of emotion. It's a performance worth hearing. He also plays the other characters, or more precisely plays Holmes playing the other characters, and jumps between them seemingly with ease. I'm not so keen on some of the others voices, though it is supposed to be Holmes playing them so the fact that they tend towards the exaggerated probably makes sense.

I can't say much more without spoiling the plot, it's a relatively short listen at 2 hours and definitely worth it. I'll leave with a clip of the stage play...

Listen:// The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie

Published By: Orion Publishing

Buy From: Audible.co.uk

Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer, is trapped in a twisted and broken body - not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers.
Nobleman, dashing officer and would-be fencing champion Captain Jezal dan Luthar is living a life of ease by cheating his friends at cards. Vain and shallow, the biggest blot on his horizon is having to get out of bed in the morning to train with obsessive and boring old men.
And Logen Ninefingers, an infamous warrior with a bloody past, is about to wake up with plans to settle a blood feud with Bethod, the new King of the Northmen, once and for all - ideally by running away from it. But as he's discovering, old habits die hard . . .
. . . especially when Bayaz gets involved. An old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Glotka, Jezal and Logen a whole lot more difficult . . .
Striking debut novel with all the cynicism, realism and punch the fantasy genre has been missing. Read by Steven Pacey.

Been away for a bit but I did have a chance to listen to some more audio. Joe Abercrombie is one of those authors I've been meaning to catch up with but just haven't got around to. I have actually read this book but I never managed to catch the rest of the series or his newer books so I thought I'd start again at the beginning with the newly released audio.

There's probably not much more I can add to the reviews of the actual book, it was and is an impressive debut fantasy novel. If you like your fantasy gritty and full of flawed characters you'll probably like this. It's largely character driven and the characters are all your typical fantasy fare, with heroes, wizards, apprentices and so on yet the darkly humorous, noirish telling means it never slips over into the ridiculous epic fantasy parody that lazier examples of the genre have become.

As for the audio book, well, say one thing about Steven Pacey, say he's a bloody good narrator. The reader can make or break an audiobook and Steven Pacey does and outstanding job on this, creating clear voices and accents for each of the characters and switching between them with apparent ease without any of them being overdone.

One issue common in audiobooks is narration that doesn't tie up with the actual text, so the narrator will read a character line in a plain voice followed by "he hissed" or "he shouted angrily" and it'll be completely wrong and clearly nobody cares enough to edit it. Thankfully here through editing, careful reading or whatever means the delivery ties up really well with the text and took me by surprise in a couple of places. Pacey's lisping delivery of the almost toothless Glokta in particular is excellent and really suits the part, he's my favourite and possibly most flawed character and Pacey's delivery really suits some of those wonderfully sarcastic lines. There's much humour to be had from the book and throughout, Pacey's delivery and timing is excellent with a couple of real laugh out loud moments.

All in all highly recommended, I have the next one lined up for listening right after I get through the thirty something hours of Justin Cronin's The Passage....more on that one soon,

Listen:// UR - Stephen King

Published By: Simon & Schuster Audio

Buy From: Audible.co.uk

FIRST TIME ON AUDIO...
An Unabridged Novella Unavailable In Any Collection!

Tapping into our primal fears of modern technology that made Cell a #1 bestseller, Stephen King sets his sights on the latest high-tech gadget in UR, in which a mysterious e-book reader opens a disturbing window into other worlds.

Reeling from a painful break-up, English instructor and avid book lover Wesley Smith is haunted by his ex-girlfriend's parting shot: "Why can't you just read off the computer like everyone else?" He buys an e-book reader out of spite, but soon finds he can use the device to glimpse realities he had never before imagined, discovering literary riches beyond his wildest dreams...and all-too-human tragedies that surpass his most terrible nightmares.

A short novella reading at 2hr 20min, it's competently read and quite interesting if not exactly full of original ideas. It was original published as a Kindle exclusive and a Kindle is the major plot device, giving the new owner Wesley Smith the ability to read books that famous authors have published in parallel universes that were never published in his own. I started out thinking it was going to be a terrible plug for Kindles but it's actually a decent tale, reminded me of an old-school sci-fi short story but obviously written in King's style.

It's not all about reading books, and things take a different turn when he accesses information which affects his world. I can't say much more without spoiling the plot, it's more Twilight Zone than outright horror but I found it entertaining and I'm sure most King fans would.

Listen:// The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection - Neil Gaiman

Published by: Harper Children's Audio

Buy From: Amazon

I've been thoroughly enjoying reading Gaiman's "Crazy Hair" to my daughter Sophie so I picked up this audio collection containing four of his children's stories plus a short interview with his daughter asking the questions.

I've read all but one of these stories before and whilst I miss the art that goes with them, Gaiman is an excellent narrator and the stories stand by themselves as modern fairytales that make me wish I grew up with them. Funny, strange, even slightly dark in places; I grew up with Roald Dahl and his wonderfully twisted yet funny short stories, Gaiman is one of the few modern authors that manages to strike that same balance.

I just listened to this whilst watering the garden with a big grin on my face and I'm looking forward to sharing them with Sophie. I'm not sure she is ready for the Wolves In the Walls but I think she might just fancy swapping me for two goldfish.