She is going to the ice in the spring of the year
I feel at this point that I am disappointing everyone by reporting that I had yet another sleepless night thanks to a body full of pain and another sleepless day thanks to a street full of jackhammers, but I really appreciate that my father finished listening to the BBC Radio 4 production of Michelle Paver's Dark Matter (2010) and thought immediately that I would like to hear an Arctic ghost story set in 1937. I am far less designed by nature for any form of audiobook than for just reading the book myself, but I became tragically fond of Lee Ingleby based entirely on his Jonah-role in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) and may sleeplessly give this programme a try.

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*hugs*
I am still having trouble believing in the daily construction. The farthest the jackhammers got from us this time was directly across the street, leaving a raw trail of new asphalt that looks sloppily temporary. How can it take this long to lay a new gas main? Are they battling dinosaurs in a lost world every time they break ground? Why haven't I been imprinted on by velociraptors if so?
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I'm so sorry about the continued lack of sleep. I'm sorry to report that due to physical pain last night I tried sleeping in bed, on the couch, on the loveseat, on the floor, on the couch again, and ended up grabbing a few hours on the orthopedic dog bed on the floor. I am simultaneously embarrassed and intrigued that I may have discovered an entrepreneurial opportunity for pain-afflicted dog owners.
But mostly embarrassed.
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Thank you!
But mostly embarrassed.
If it works, displace that dog and sleep! Mostly I hope that your physical pain is lessened and you can at least land a nap on the loveseat.
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We're not disappointed in you. WE ARE DISAPPOINTED IN THIS CRUMMY TIMELINE.
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We were talking about it with the upstairs people. They can't stand it, either. At least one of them works from home and can't work through the racket. The pictures vibrate on the walls.
We're not disappointed in you. WE ARE DISAPPOINTED IN THIS CRUMMY TIMELINE.
*HUGS*
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An Arctic ghost story set in 1937 would be great.
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*hugs*
An Arctic ghost story set in 1937 would be great.
I've just listened to the first half and it is great. The narrator thinks he's dealing with a residual haunting: I'm pretty sure it's a draugr, an aptrganga. (He's also dealing with isolation and polar night, which I'm sure can only help the situation.) Unless it fails totally to stick the landing, and I feel my father would have warned me if it did, I'll want to get hold of the novel, too. It was up for a Shirley Jackson Award in 2011, which was the year I tried durian for the first time at Readercon, and somehow I completely missed it.
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There was. I still bought books that year, though, and would have taken this one home from the dealers' room if anyone had given me cause to!
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I would love it if you could.
*hugs*
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Thank you! It's just become surreal.
*hugs*
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As everyone else says, you're not disappointing us. We are disappointed if currently unsurprised by the things being thrown at you constantly and very unfairly, but always very happy to have an update of whatever kind you find able to make. ♥
thought immediately that I would like to hear an Arctic ghost story set in 1937.
I can't IMAGINE why, heh. Good luck in discovering whether or not you can make an exception for a ghostly audiobook reading, but, hey, maybe if not they might still do a full-cast one some time. <3
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*hugs*
Good luck in discovering whether or not you can make an exception for a ghostly audiobook reading, but, hey, maybe if not they might still do a full-cast one some time.
I actually don't find full-cast dramatizations easier than audiobooks, I just make exceptions when necessary. This one falls between the two: it's a first-person narrative with the epistolary conceit of a journal, so having one person read all the voices is diegetically appropriate. (I am also entertained that I know Lee Ingleby from so little other film or TV that his starring in this story produces a reaction of dude, you went to sea again! Of course things are cursed! What were you thinking?)
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Oh, sorry; I suppose I only knew of full-cast exceptions you had made, so had thought that was a little easier than audiobooks for you, too (it is for me - I cannot do single voiced things at all as a rule). I'm glad it's proving to be one of the exceptions, anyway. <3
Talking of doomed souls, and things, here's another bit of David Collings from tumblr. :-)
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I find it easier by orders of magnitude to read anything than listen to it. Except for music, I am not a primarily auditory learner. I can fail to hear a conversation because I am reading at the time. Audio dramas are worth the effort of concentration because they are an art form that can't be reproduced by reading the script, but audiobooks have always just felt pointless. As it happens, I am really enjoying this production, but I think the fact that it is essentially a two-hour dramatic monologue makes it possible. I've never been able to hack an audiobook in the third person even for voices I like. (Differentiated yet again from an author giving a reading of their own work, which for all I know my brain interprets more like theater. I don't collect recordings of readings, but I miss attending them at conventions and local bookstores. I also miss giving them.) See also why I do not listen to podcasts no matter how highly recommended and wish that DVDs with audio commentaries came with transcripts. The current trend of everything being video is actively rough on me.
Talking of doomed souls, and things, here's another bit of David Collings from tumblr.
That's a great picture. (I would like to have a hobby of living by the sea.)
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(I have a hard block on any single spoken voice format (with the very odd exception for specific voices, like those David Collings cds I sent), but I also have quite a painfully low tolerance for sound generally, so in theory I am okay with music, multiple voice commentaries & full cast drama (provided I listen to it on earphones not out loud), but not spoken word, single-voice commentaries or podcasts etc, but in practice, due to the CFS, I have to save sound tolerance for general noise, speaking to people, watching TV/film in carefully timed segments, so I listen to v little & v specific music from time to time while on the PC and radio drama in small doses on my mp3 player at very specific times & an occasionally commentary if it has actors on it in my TV watching time, but they're always bad for me!! (You just sometimes gotta to do the thing anyway, ahem.) I would probably have never got back into audio after the relapse, but I had all these Big Finish CDs with beloved characters unavailable elsewhere, and then David Collings turned out to be in more of them and in the BBC LotR. The latter was a revelation and basically ever since then I have been the annoying full cast drama devotee you have to put up with today. Everything since being ill is always Mr Collings's fault, lol, although in that category, Mr Jarvis has certainly aided and abetted quite to an unnecessary degree!)
That's a great picture. (I would like to have a hobby of living by the sea.)
<3 It is, isn't it?
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There's my parents' house, although ironically they are having a house built next door to them at the minute. Legitimately fewer jackhammers, though.
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That is one of the most beautiful recorded interactions of nature with technology.
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Behold, sequential full-color photography.
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Bears would be pretty funny, too.
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I am definitely feeling somewhere out beyond the end of the rope.
*hugs*
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I read Dark Matter recently and oddly enough I found the reading more effective... Maybe that's something to do with the tradition of oral ghost stories.
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*hugs*
I have to say I'm not thrilled about it myself.
I read Dark Matter recently and oddly enough I found the reading more effective... Maybe that's something to do with the tradition of oral ghost stories.
Interesting! It is a very good choice for a ghost story told in the dark.
(I'm still going to want the novel. I really am print-oriented in this regard.)
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I'd also recommend Will Maclean's The Apparition Phase if you've not read it.
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I've never even heard of it! Speak to me.
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You're welcome! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I'll look into Thin Air; I need to get hold of the novel of Dark Matter.