My latest audio book listen was the abridged version of The Frumious Bandersnatch by Ed McBain, read by Ron McLarty...
I was disappointed in the book overall. I found it to be a relatively difficult listen with slow pacing and an unsatisfying ending. My appraisal of the book appears to be in fairly stark contrast to the reviews on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. This is my first Ed McBain book, so it could be that his style just doesn't work for me, it could be that his work doesn't abridge well, or it could be that this particular book just didn't resonate with me.
There were two highlights to the book.
The first was the use of the Fat Ollie character to provide a commentary on what I expect have been criticisms of McBain's work. What I found particularly amusing was that one of the items commented on was that "there are too many characters in his books," which exactly mirrored my feelings up to that point.
The second was Ron McLarty's performance. McLarty is the type of reader who, as AudioFile puts it so well: "voices [the characters] with enough joie de vivre for two readers. McLarty is one of those rare actors who can truly inhabit a voice and a character, which makes for real listening pleasure."
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Posted by David at April 24, 2005 10:24 AM