The Nine by C.G. Harris - Audio Book Tour
Author: C.G. Harris
Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
Series: The Judas Files, Book 1
Length: 6 hours 53 minutes
Publisher: Hot Chocolate Press
Released: Oct. 15, 2019
Genre: Urban Fantasy
In the Inferno, Dante almost got it right...Nine circles of hell, each one worse than the last. For Gabe, all of hell is level nine, where the real baddies endure subzero climates and have their nether regions cradled in cryogenic underwear.Gabe has carved out his own safe niche in this Arctic afterlife with his successful black-market business. When Judas Iscariot makes him an offer he doesn't dare refuse, Gabe must leave behind his contraband Twinkies and Dr. Pepper to become a double agent for the most dangerous organization the world has never heard of and save humanity before it's too late...
C.G. Harris is an award winning science-fiction and fantasy author from Colorado who draws inspiration from favorites, Jim Butcher, Richard Kadrey and Brandon Sanderson. For nearly a decade, Harris has escaped the humdrum of the real world by creating fictional characters and made-up realities. When not writing, Harris enjoys sipping scotch while watching the twisted humor of Drunk History. Seeing our past through the bottom of a whisky glass is more entertaining than reading a dusty textbook. C.G. Harris is the pen name and combined persona created by authors, Chuck Harrelson and Kerrie Flanagan. Together they have published, The Judas Files, a gritty urban fantasy series and The Rax, an apocalyptic science fiction series.
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MacLeod Andrews is a multiple Audie, Earphone, and SOVAS award winning audiobook narrator, as well as an award winning film actor and producer. He's perhaps most recognized in audio for narrating the Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey and The Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson. His films They Look Like People and The Siren have played festivals all around the world and are available for streaming on major platforms domestically and abroad. He has a cat named Luna, a well known affinity for chocolate chip cookies, and rations his social media fix to twitter.
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- How did you wind up narrating audiobooks? Was it always your goal
or was it something you stumbled into by chance?
I would say I stumbled into the opportunity by chance,
but at the time I landed my first audiobook I had been actively pursuing voice
over work. Admittedly audiobooks were
not something I had even been aware of as a possibility. I had the good fortune of being put in touch
with the inimitable Laura Grafton at Brilliance Audio when I was mostly doing
theater in NYC and she gave me a crack at a middle grade book called Crows and
Cards by Joseph Helgerson. I auditioned
for her twice to get the gig, flew to Michigan to record, took a little longer
than expected to finish, but soldiered through.
It turned out well and garnered some awards (all credit to that
wonderfully entertaining and original book) and so it led to more books, which
led to more clients, and ultimately a career in and of itself.
- How do you manage to avoid burn-out? What do you do to maintain
your enthusiasm for narrating?
That’s a very good question. It’s not always easy as you move from one
book to another so fast that you rarely get to relish work you’re proud of, or
rest from an especially hard fought narration, or savor a really rewarding
read. Generally what keeps my spirits up are listeners. Hearing from people who enjoy listening and
knowing that your effort has made someone’s day better takes the edge off the
grind. And then of course the material you’re narrating has a huge impact on
how you feel throughout the day.
- What would you say are your strongest narration abilities?
Putting myself into the narration whenever possible and
recognizing a sentence as a thought that needs proper expression as opposed to
words on a page that need to be read in a nice voice. I still think of myself as an actor when I
approach a book and try to give my narrations a point of view, even if it’s a
piece that requires a more removed narrator I try to think of that narrator as
a character.
- Has anyone ever recognized you from your voice?
Ha, not in person.
Though it’s hard for me to get a pseudonym past audiobook fans.
- If you had the power to time travel, would you use it? If yes,
when and where would you go?
Hellz yeah I’d use it.
I don’t think I’d be able to resist poking my head into the future for a
bit. I also loved ancient greece growing
up and Egypt. Wouldn’t mind cruising the
library at Alexandria or drinking some old style wine in Athens.
- How does audiobook narration differ from other types of voiceover
work you've done?
It’s way way way way longer. I’ve done commercial spots where you stand
there pulling apart a sentence syllable by syllable for an hour. “Cool, MacLeod, ummm, Could you slow down ‘of
the’? And then rise your inflection on ‘bear’s’ and then give us a little mini
pause before ‘dens’? But all still faster?” With a book, unless it’s really
important to the story that you impart a particular nuance on a specific
moment, or you just completely whiffed the rhythm or meaning of a sentence, you
gotta keep powering through or you’ll be in the studio for weeks. There’s also a bit broader suspension of
disbelief with books. You can get away
with broader approximations of characters than you could in other mediums since
listeners are generally accepting of and sometimes specifically attracted to
the conceit that a single person is going to be the filament for this whole
massive story.
- Do you read reviews for your audiobooks?
Yep.
- If so, which ones stand out to you most, positive or negative?
Negative. We’re
all wired that way.
- What type of the review comments do you find most constructive?
I’ve never ever ever read someone complaining that the
narration was too fast. So when I can
keep my focus sharp I try to remind myself to keep the pace up at the speed of
speech at least, if not thought. That
then hopefully buys me some time to slow down when I really want to luxuriate
in a powerful moment, or take a pause for comedic effect. I also try to pay attention to comments about
whether accents felt false or character portrayals too extreme. On the other hand some folks will jump on you
for not distinguishing your characters enough so… there’re many many types of
listener, it’s an intensely personal experience listening to an audiobook and
it’s impossible to please everyone.
Which is TOTALLY fine. Some
people love a straight read where the reader gets as far out of the way as
possible to better mimic the experience of reading, where the audience is
responsible for painting the picture, and some people love to be taken on a
journey by the narrator, to have an almost cinematic experience. I tend towards the latter but when the text
calls for it I’ll flatten things out at times.
I start by trying to please myself, to tell whatever story is in front
of me in a way that I enjoy and then hope I’m in line with most of the
listeners.
- What do you say to those who view listening to audiobooks as
“cheating” or as inferior to “real reading”?
It’s been proven incorrect. It’s just a different means of gathering
information. And just like there are speed readers I know people who can devour
an audiobook at 3x speed if not faster.
Active listening is as much of a skill and requires as much
concentration as reading. I’m just as
likely to lose focus listening to a podcast as I am reading an article.
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Plugging you into the audio community since 2016.
0 Comments
Please try not to spam posts with the same comments over and over again. Authors like seeing thoughtful comments about their books, not the same old, "I like the cover" or "sounds good" comments. While that is nice, putting some real thought and effort in is appreciated. Thank you.