No machine can ever put the love and dedication into narrating an audiobook like Moira Quirk and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (my 2 favorites).

And Mary Robinette Kowal, Robin Miles, and...

And Emily Woo Zeller, and Xe Sands. And there's still no one for a complicated classic like George Guidall.

Simon Vance gives fab British narration. Rosalyn Landor & Marguerite Gavin & Lorelei King pretty much anchor the iconic urban fantasy and romance series. And. And. And.

Exactly! And while Jonathan Cecil isn't with us anymore, he's always going to be the voice of Wodehouse to me. I can hear some of the books you and Rook are thinking of just from reading the narrators' names!

The original narrator of the Inspector Gamache series, Ralph Cosham died, it was such a big deal to find someone comparable. Robert Bathurst from Downton Abbey, does a solid job. I can't imagine listening to an AI version of Cosham continuing the series.

I keep trying to imagine what people who think AI can do this work read themselves, and all I can come up with are "nothing" and "grindset productivity books." Because none of the fiction or non-fiction I read would be even remotely enjoyable with machine nareation.

A fav series, the Hollows, couldn't get Marguerite Gavin for a book, or didn't want to pay for her, and the publisher had a newbie narrator do the audio. It's hideous. Beyond. Ruined the entire audiobook. I doubt when the contract limit is up they'll finally have Gavin do it. But I can dream.

Oof, that's rough. And if a bad narrator can ruin a book, imagine what one that doesn't even understand what it's reciting will do. I'm trying to picture an AI attempting comic timing or reading a sex scene, and nope.

(making an appalled face) right there with you. I tried audiobooks by checking out 1st book in fav series (like autobuy hardcovers, go to author signings level of fav) lucked out, Marguerite Gavin narrates them. Her skills brought different details, nuances to my attn = fell in love again w/series

My first was a Seanan McGuire book narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal. I am very grateful that she was the first narrator I tried, because it was right after I stopped drinking and had to learn how to sleep like a normal person again, and audiobooks genuinely might have saves my life.