Tag: Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

My Favorite Audiobooks of 2021

My Favorite Audiobooks of 2021
Last year I kicked off my Year-End Retrospective with a look at my favorite audiobooks, I might as well repeat that this year. How do I keep this from being just a rehash of my other year-end lists? By focusing on the audiobook experience over the content. What was it like to listen to it? How engaging was it, how did the narrator do? Was it a good match in terms of tone, content, and performance? All of these books are/were good—but the audiobooks are a bit better because of the narrator and the rest of the people involved in the production.

(in alphabetical order by author)

The Hum and the ShiverThe Hum and the Shiver

by Alex Bledsoe, Emily Janice Card(Narrator), Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator)

This was my third or fourth trip through this book (maybe, fifth, but I don’t think so). I’m not sure if that means it was easy for me to be impressed—or maybe it was really hard because I had high expectations. Regardless, Rudnicki and Card took me to Cloud County and the land of the Tufa. I could believe that these people lived, breathed, and walked around in this world—and yet were otherworldly, as they ought to be. I knew Rudnicki could make me believe in a Fantasy world—it turns out that he can make me believe in this one, too. Card was right there with him.

4 Stars

Finlay Donovan Is Killing ItFinlay Donovan Is Killing It

by Elle Cosimano, Angela Dawe (Narration)

My original post
This is on the list because of Dawe’s narration. The text was entertaining enough, sure, but her narration is what made sure I remembered the book during the list-making time. The novel was a tricky balancing act between the various tones and characters, and Dawe makes you believe it. She captured the comedic sense of the novel along with the tension and emotional moments. There were a few accents involved and she did a believable job with them, too.

3.5 Stars

A Christmas Carol: A Signature Performance by Tim CurryA Christmas Carol: A Signature Performance by Tim Curry

by Charles Dickens, Tim Curry (Narrator)

My original post
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: all you need to know about this is: Tim Curry. This wasn’t the performance I expected—I figured I was in for something near to over-the-top, with Curry going to town with the text. Instead, we’re treated to a respectful, restrained performance giving Dickens’ classic just the right emotional weight, sentimentality, personality, and life.

5 Stars

This Bright FutureIn This Bright Future

by Peter Grainger, Gildart Jackson (Narrator)

My original post
Grainger and Jackson together have made this one of my Top 3 audiobook series, period. So my only question was how many of the books would end up on this list. I ended up limiting myself to one, and therefore it had to be this one—we get so little of our typical characters and settings, but Jackson is able to make Belfast as warm and homey as King’s Lake. There are elevated dangers and emotions in this book that we don’t typically get with D.C. Smith, but Jackson doesn’t miss a beat. Grainger puts D.C. through his paces, too. Both are at the top of their game—making D.C. at the top of his, too.

4 Stars

Ink & SigilInk & Sigil

by Kevin Hearne, Luke Daniels (Narrator)

Even though a pro like Luke Daniels is constantly doing voices/accents for his characters and the narration is almost never his “natural” voice (assuming he even has one anymore), I have to think that maintaining a Glaswegian accent for as long as he did for this book (ten hours and change, I think) has to be an added level of difficulty. Not that you can tell from listening to this. I thought the novel was a rollicking good time and just the way you should introduce a new series. The audiobook version just cemented that.

4 1/2 Stars

The Unkindest TideThe Unkindest Tide

by Seanan McGuire, Mary Robinette Kowal (Narrator)

This novel was the payoff (as far as we know so far, I wouldn’t put it past McGuire to turn it upside down later) to a storyline that had been lingering and building for years, I remember being stunned when reading it—just that aspect of The Unkindest Tide brought a great combination of anticipation, grief, suspense, and surprise. The story of the novel—the trip to the Duchy of Ships, the intrigue around Dianda, etc. was as solid as it gets, too. I remembered all this going in, so it was all teed up for Kowal—and she nailed it, it almost felt like I hadn’t read the book before and was discovering it fresh. A narrator who can do that is tops in my book.

4 1/2 Stars

We Had a Little Real Estate ProblemWe Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy

by Kliph Nesteroff

My original post
As I was trimming down the list of audiobooks I listened to last year for this list, I didn’t expect that this would stay on the list. A history of Native Americans in Comedy, really? But I kept not deleting it…so I started thinking of it—there’s a social history, an entertainment history, with individual profiles mixed it—it has it all. What’s more, despite a pretty dry (but never boring) narration, and not using clips of original performances, the comedy of these individuals comes through. In the midst of hardship, suffering, prejudice, and hard breaks, there are some solid laughs. It’s hard not to keep thinking about that.

4 Stars

Percy Jackson's Greek GodsPercy Jackson’s Greek Gods

by Rick Riordan, Jesse Bernstein (Narrator)

I started working on a post last year about contemporary myth retellings (and I intend on finishing it before my unconceived grandkids are ready to read it), and listened to this as part of that. In many ways, the book and the information didn’t fare well compared to things like Gaiman and Fry have recently produced. But this is here and they’re not—because as an audiobook this is a great experience. Bernstein is Percy Jackson here, and it felt like something ol’ Percy was sitting down and relating to future Camp Halfblood residents. It inspired me to listen to the original Percy Jackson series again just so I can listen to Bernstein perform this character.

3 Stars

You'll Never Believe What Happened to LaceyYou’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism

by Amber Ruffin, Lacey Lamar

My original post
I’m still telling people about this audiobook/book nine months later. I can’t think of a book that made me angrier, sadder, or made me laugh as much in 2021 (or a few years before it, either). This did all three. Ruffin’s narration, Lamar’s stories, their hurt, and their optimism make this a must-listen.

4 1/2 Stars

The Salvage CrewThe Salvage Crew

by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Nathan Fillion (Narrator)

My original post
This is a very strange SF story about a sentient AI (based on the memories and personality of an engineer). I think I’d have enjoyed the story had I read the novel, but it’s Nathan Fillion that brought it to life. That same charm that makes you like Caleb, Mal, Castle, and Nolan shines forth and makes you believe in this malfunctioning (at least eccentrically-functioning) AI and get invested in the AI’s survival and that of his ragtag crew.

4 Stars

The Salvage Crew (Audiobook) by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Nathan Fillion: A Unusual Tale of Artificial Intelligence, Cascading Failure, and Poetry

The Salvage Crew

The Salvage Crew

by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Nathan Fillion (Narrator)

Unabridged Audiobook, 8 hrs., 21 min.
Podium Audio, 2020

Read: January 20-22, 2020

Red Dwarf Remix?

I’m not suggesting for a second that Wijeratne’s mind worked this way (at least I don’t mean to), but this is the impression I got as this started.

The Red Dwarf TV Show/Novels had a couple of great ideas at the beginning—an AI that ran the ship, that had a strange personality, an odd sense of humor, and wasn’t entirely reliable. The second was that the ship generated a holographic officer based on the memories and personality of one of a dead member of the crew (whoever was highest ranking/most needed among the dead). A long time ago, it had been determined that AI with memories and real emotions actually perform better than those not based on actual humans.

Our main protagonist and narrator in this novel is an AI, made from the memories and personality of an engineer who served his whole professional life in space (after leaving his family’s farm). He’s now in charge of a small salvage crew for the company Planetary Crusade Service, sent to a tiny planet Urmahon Beta to recover as much as they can from an old colony ship that presumably crashed there.

His role is Overseer, and his crew nicknames him OC. This is OC’s first command, if it goes well—and a few others—he can move up to a larger, better body/command. In a few decades or so, he could work is his up to a large ship, overseeing a major operation. Again, that’s if everything goes well.

Everything Doesn’t Go Well

OC is promised an “A-Team” of a crew for his first command. He doesn’t get one. They’re not a B-Team either. There are not enough letters to describe how far this trio is from an A-Team. For that matter, I’m not sure OC is A-Team material either—they land far off-course (turbulence during descent, we’re told).

Almost instantly, the crew starts falling apart, ignoring orders and protocol. They begin to build a base to work from, but get distracted by things like indigenous flora and fauna, personality conflicts, and evidence that suggests they may not be the only salvage crew on the planet (there’s a rival company with bionic operators with aggressive tendencies).

From a rough start, it gets worse, and the next few weeks are a spiral of cascading failure, disease, injuries, strife, crop failure, questionable vodka distillation, bargain-basement tech, and…well, I can’t keep going. It gets messy, and what starts off as a quirky, comedic version of The Martian with a side of Red Dwarf turns into something tense, taut, dark, and suspense-filled. It doesn’t stay that way, depending on how you want to count things, ends up taking one or two other overall flavors, while never completing shedding the offbeat humor that characterized the book since the opening paragraph.

Poetry and Other Quirks

I’m going to focus on OC, rather than the rest of the crew (and they are all worth writing about) to keep this short (and because you really need to get into spoilers to do a proper job of talking about the humans). He is funny. There’s a snarky, offbeat humor to his narration and dialogue throughout.

He’s also a poet. I’m not saying he’s a good one, but he is one. Frequently in Fantasy novels (particularly older ones that wear their Tolkien-influence on their sleeves), you get a lot of poetry/songs/etc., but that’s rarely a feature of Science Fiction novels. The Salvage Crew is the exception to this rule. OC writes it, recites it to his crew to encourage them, he quotes and ruminates on other’s poetry…he’s the most poetic AI I think I’ve ever encountered in a novel. He’s also a Buddhist, and will often apply that to his situation.

He also has the best curses. He’s frequently letting off steam by cursing his crew, PCS executives, or local fauna to a horrible future reincarnation. I could have listened to some of those for a solid hour.

Fillion’s Narration

It’s tough to say for certain, but I think that Fillion raised this about a star in my book (maybe just a half). It’s his voice, his charm that hooks you in and gets you to like, believe in and root for OC. That said, at some point, I stopped thinking of this as Fillion, and just let OC tell me a good story.

It’s not the best narration I’ve ever heard, but it’s really good and it made me hope that Fillion does more audiobooks.

Co-written by AI?

So, there was apparently actual AI software involved in the writing of this. I learned about this when I started writing this post, and I’m not sure I understood everything I skimmed (I didn’t want to take the time to read carefully instead of just posting this). I’m intrigued by this notion, but am relieved to see that the software only “helped” with portions of the book and that Wijeratne was the final word.

So, what did I think about The Salvage Crew?

Roughly the first half of the book* is about what I expected—an amusing SF adventure—and was a lot of fun to listen to. The rest of the book isn’t what I expected from the premise in terms of story or tone. And I was riveted. There are portions of the book that get into more philosophical territories, and while I wasn’t as interested in them as I think the novel wanted me to be, they were really well constructed and told.

* This is an estimate, I didn’t jot down notes about when the tenor of the plot/novel changes)

I’m really glad I took a chance on this book, I’ll definitely listen to future audiobooks by Fillion (assuming any are produced) and am probably going to be trying some of Wijeratne’s other novels. I heartily recommend it to SF readers/listeners.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Podium Audio via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.


4 Stars

2021 Audiobook Challenge

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