Colonization: Second Contact

A great title poorly presented

Having already read this the entire worldwar and colonization series some years back, I have really enjoyed listening to them again in audiobook form up to this point. The narrator of the worldwar tetralogy, Todd McLaren, was an excellent narrator who really brought the books to life. I was therefore bitterly disappointed when I was met with the lackluster narrating of Patrick Lawlor.
On the one hand I had gotten used to Todd McLaren, but sometimes narrators change and if they are good you can get used to them. This was certainly not the case here. Not only was the pronunciation different in many cases, but the narrator simply does not have the skill Todd McLaren possesses in speaking different dialects and making characters feel individual. More annoying still however is the way it feels as if he is forcing the words out, too slowly and too weighted. There is little dynamic and this is at times quite off-putting. It's as if he is trying to make everything sound important and dramatic when it rarely needs to be. I can with ease say I will avoid any books narrated by Patrick Lawlor in the future.

The story is still as interesting as I remember it, but with the narrator ruining much of the experience it technically doesn't even deserve 3 stars. Only my personal love of the book saves it from the left half of the scale.

My advice; read it instead.

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I was so excited

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I think I would recommend this only because you'll want to continue thru the story. I was so looking forward to a greater amount of new content. I have to say that I was disappointed by the lack of any "moving along". I felt just about like we left off about where we wound up at the end of the first series of books. I didn't hate it. I just felt a little cheated. I also didn't like the narration nearly as well as Todd McLaren's. When you pick up where another narrator leaves off you really ought to work on the pronunciations of the names of major characters. For instance if you were familiar with a lizard named Strayhaw you may need a couple of chapters to figure out that Strawhaw is the same lizard. Also the hissing speak the narrator added was less than necessary. I'll be continuing on with the series because 1. I'm dying of curiosity and 2. I've already purchased the rest of the books. Ha. I sure hope Harry doesn't let me down. He had all my confidence going in.

If you’ve listened to books by Harry Turtledove before, how does this one compare?

Usually the story get's told a little more completely than in this particular novel.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Patrick Lawlor?

Todd McLaren

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Decent overall story, but the narrator makes it unbearable.

I’ve read the print version of the book before and am a big Turtledove fan, but sadly the reader does such a bad job that I couldn’t finish the book.

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Narrator is not good

What’s with the narrative, did they get him from a Junior high school. I mean wth

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narrator ruined it

i listened to all the other worldwar series here on audible and starting to listen to the new narrator immediatly made me turn it off. terrible

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Narrator Makes a Difference

Great sequel to Worldwar but why did they have to change the narrator. Todd McLaren has a great range to his voice and brought to life the the characters from the various cultures, and the Race, quite well. Patrick Lawlor, on the other hand, makes it sound like Casey Kasem is narrating on American Top 40. Not able to engage the characters as well.

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The story continues to be interesting

Where does Colonization: Second Contact rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Got this primarily because I had read the previous titles. I like the story, this title is a bit slower than the others but not bad. The biggest problem is the performance, as stated in other reviews, would it be to much to ask a performer to go back and listen to the pronunciations of names from the previous performer? Some of them were so far off it took me a few minutes to figure out it wasn't a new character.

What did you like best about this story?

The continuation of the story

Would you be willing to try another one of Patrick Lawlor’s performances?

hopefully not, only if it is in a continued strory.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

don't know

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good story. bad narrator.

The story was great, but they should have been more consistent with the narrating. I didn't like his voices.

was good but actor needed to listen to world war.

i loved the book and the series before but i wished they had kept the actor from world war series or had this actor listin to how names were pronounced in world war by the old actor it kept takeing me out of the universe when i had to mentality reprounounce a few names like a few lizards and two of the humans the polish one and the old calvary officer.

The narrator ruins it

The story isn’t perfect and even doesn’t make sense in a few instances but the writing is still good. The narrator however is bad. He also pronounces everything different from the previous books narrator and its very distracting and frustrating.