In the last few months, I decided to start listening to audiobooks. I’ve downloaded books from http://librivox.org/ (Jack London Call of the Wild, Whitefang, few others), joined Audible.com, which has new books, but an annoying DRM combined with Columbia House subscription agreement you have to dodge.

Some of these books are decent performances - and either way, I appreciate all of the performances, but some readers don’t really understand they’re not just reading a book aloud: they’re performing.

A friend of mine gave me their copies of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, read by James Marsters of Buffy and Smallville fame. I’d read the books before and thought, why not?

After the first couple minutes of Storm Front, I realized I was in for a treat. James Marsters performs all voices and characterizations with such commitment, at times you can’t tell it’s by the same voice. When I started to look around on the net for similar performances, no one seems to be committing to their audiobooks with the same drive. End to end, Butcher’s tales are excellent by themselves, but when Marsters is added, the result is far above and beyond what I’d become used to.

Nuanced and well-paced, these stories are multi-hour now one-person plays, with lots of subtlety and have made me laugh, raised goosebumps, and have been just as enticing as any best selling page turner.

And it’s ruined it for me - I now expect performances from other books. I’ve been hunting for more and if you find any, please drop me a line.

If you’re interested, Audible.com has some samples, here’s Storm Front. You can buy the CDs over at Buzzy Multimedia. I found a digital copy of Walter Jon Williams “This is Not a Game”, which was well done, but I don’t know the performer.