The Chronicles of Pern

Good stories, poorly read.

A collection of short stories raking place in the early years of Pern, including the initial survey of the planet, First Fall is a good listen overall. Unfortunately, the reader, Meredith MacRae, is bland and lifeless. All of the stories feature multiple characters and MacRae's reading and lack of inflection or characterization makes it difficult to follow who's who. Likewise, it's very difficult to differentiate between male and female characters as MacRae fails to alter her vocal pitch at all.

The stories themselves are well written, but the actual reading makes for a difficult and distracting listen.

15 of 15 people found this review helpful

Poor reading ruins this

I couldn't even finish listening to part one. I only gave it one star because I believe the story has to be better than the reading. While a perfect and clear English speaker, the reader makes no effort to make any character voices whatsoever, and inflection is limited to basic grammar-based emphasis (like lilts for questions, and emphasis for exclamations). Grade wouldn't even be above a "D" for a public speaking class, let alone as a book narrator. She makes me drowsy. Choose a different reader, or a printed book over this disappointment!

11 of 11 people found this review helpful

I enjoy Dick Hill as narrator best.

The few women that have narrated just can't pull off the right tone.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Great history on How Pern was settled

This is great for those who want to know how it all started. MacRae is not a good narrator, though. It was very difficult to follow her as she read - she runs the sentences together so it is hard to tell when there is a new sentence starting. I only stuck with it to know the history.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Dreadful Narration!

What would have made The Chronicles of Pern better?

Having Dick Hill continue his narration from "Dragonsdawn" and the "Dragonriders" trilogy. I only rated this so low across the board to drive down the overall four star rating. I enjoyed the stories and Anne's writing is impeccable once again, this just could have been better if either Dick Hill or Mel Foster had read it.

Has The Chronicles of Pern turned you off from other books in this genre?

Not at all.

Would you be willing to try another one of Meredith MacRae’s performances?

Absolutely not!

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Great story and depth. Makes me love the characters.

Any additional comments?

Just want to reinforce that all my one stars were simply to drive down the overall average and emphasize that the narration ruined the audiobook as a whole.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

The narration wasn't as bad as some reviews state.

Each story nicely fills in a back story hole. Thanks narration, however could be better. The most difficult part was when she moves from one sentence to the next with barely a pause. It can also, sometimes, be difficult to tell when switching between characters in the dialog sections.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

It filled in some gaps but...

I know that the stories were cobbled together from Individual stories rather than being written is one book but it still seemed kind of clunky. The narrator was very uninspired and had very little voice differentiation for the most part and was boring to listen to. I am glad to have the information in the additional tidbits of back story but this entire presentation was not up to what I expect from Ann McCaffrey's work.

Great story, Poor reading

I loved the story but the narrator seems to struggle with some word pronunciations. I would recommend, though.

The narrator...!

I love this book for the little snippets of info it provides outside the bounds of the main books, but the narrator is just horrible!!! I tried to make it through, I really did, but she has a horribly grating voice that just sucks the life out everything. I liked Jim Tillek a lot, up until she was the voice of Jim Tillek. Really ruined the book, and the only reason I’m giving it two stars is for the story.

American english as a 2nd language

Ms MacRae did NOT do a decent reading of this wonderful book. I seriously wonder if she even read it to herself first. Waste of my money.