Simon Vance » 2006

2006 Audies – Best year to date

Simon — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 22:51:06 +0000

This is the last year when I recorded using the ‘Richard Matthews’ name that had been associated up till now with everything I had done for Books-on-Tape/Random House

Market Forces by Richard K.Morgan

Simon — Tue, 02 May 2006 01:36:21 +0000

From AudioFile Magazine:
In this bizarre tale of the near future, the world has devolved into a Mad Max horror show in which businessmen are required to kill their competition. Simon Vance could have taken this story line either too seriously or too lightly but instead performs the work with the perfect amount of flexibility to make the listener empathize with a cadre of corporate killers. And even root for them. Vance, a British actor, brings his stylish accent into play for descriptions of lovemaking, as well as play-by-play rundowns of vicious battles on the boulevards of Britain and its boardrooms, without making the novel drift into farce. There’s nothing funny here, and that’s good. M.S. 2006 Audie Award Winner © AudioFile 2006

This book can be found here:
Audible.com
Tantor Audio

Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson

Simon — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 01:35:54 +0000

From AudioFile Magazine:
For listeners who haven’t heard the classic Andersen fairly tales since their childhood, this collection from a new translation is a joy. All the famous stories are there, including “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling,” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” His later works also are included, such as “The Ice Maiden” and “The Wood Nymph.” But listeners, especially parents planning to play this for children, should be aware that some of the stories are a little violent. For example, an oafish farmer kills his grandmother because he thinks it will bring him great wealth. But the violence is not graphic and can be explained to young listeners. Narrators Kate Reading and Richard Matthews alternate stories, a strategy that provides nice variety. Both are solid and engaging. R.C.G. 2006 Audie Award Finalist © AudioFile 2005

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Simon — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 01:35:25 +0000

From AudioFile magazine:
The foppish English composer living abroad in the ’30s, the vanity publisher imprisoned in a Scottish nursing home, the flinty female journalist exposing corporate malfeasance–these are three story lines from the six tales Mitchell weaves together in a sequence of literary forms (journal, letters, testament, first-person narrative). Each performer reads a section, but the packaging gives no clue as to who does what. The tales are tenuously connected, and each but the last futuristic episode is interrupted, only to be continued later in reverse order. Confusing? Yes, but the narration is uniformly excellent, and somehow it all hangs together. There’s no going back; individual episodes are unidentified on the discs. The publisher gets kudos for bringing this fine, puzzling, and original novel to the audio format. J.B.G. 2006 Audie Award Finalist © AudioFile 2005