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Post by Xaa on Jul 1, 2007 15:29:20 GMT -5
And that's the exact same reason nearly everyone dislikes the sound of their own voice, when they hear it without speaking it. So just because of that, you can't really tell whether or not your voice will sound good or bad to us. That's why you should ask a third party. (I suggested your wife as judge just to increase the chance you'd record it yourself...) Well, I'm not sure recording me reading my books would be necessarily wise, simply because many of the characters in my books would be ill-served by having a man read their lines. Come now - be honest: Imagine a man reading a chapter where a woman is describing her love for a man. There is no way around it, it is GOING to sound odd. Also, having experimented here at home, I've discovered I just can't eliminate enough background noises to come up with what I consider to be a good recording. I live in New Mexico, and right now, it's about 100 degrees in the shade where I am. An air conditioner is a must, I can't turn it off, the house will very quickly become uninhabitable. That means there is the constant drone of fans in the background, and that's just not going to go away. Some other method of recording an audiobook will have to be found. Lacking the wherewithal to be able to hire a cadre of actors and a sound studio, my best idea at present is to use a reader program, such as "ReadPlease" software, to get the voices right. This is still something I am experimenting with at this point. Oh - and for those who are wondering, my wife said this when I asked: "I like your voice, and I like the little bit of gravel in it. But I admit I am biased, you could probably sound like a frog and I'd still like it."
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Post by Kilarin on Jul 10, 2007 10:54:29 GMT -5
You pretty much forget the reader after the first few words. Most of the really well done profesional audio books I've purchased were done by a single reader. They sometimes did "voices", but you still had obvious male voices reading female parts and female voices reading male parts. It doesn't bother you. It's like reading books to your kids, they soon forget it's YOU reading and just get absorbed into the story. Librivox is an even better example, because most of the readers there are rank amatures. But, when you are listening to a story, you forget who's reading it almost immediately. The only thing that draws my attention back to the reader is volume issues. It can be very difficult for amatures to get the volume up high enough you can hear it in a noisy car. But other than that, any halfway decent reader can do a fine job. For example, I just finished listening to the librivox recording of The spy by Fenimore Cooper. The reader list consist of both men and women, of greatly varying skills. In the "love" scenes, whoever was reading reads both male and female parts, and it doesn't jar at all. Some of the recordings are high quality, some of the recordings are low quality with lots of background hiss and noise. Some of the readers really good, some of them are so-so, BUT throughout all of them, the story prevails. When I look back on the listening experience, I can hardly remember who read what, or any places where the readers were exceptionally good or really bad. What I remember is the story. And that's the way it should be. Oh, I certainly understand that. But you could do your recording in the fall. You could probably find volunteers. BUT, that always involves risks of offending folks if you decide you don't like their reading. Perhaps the software you have is better, but I couldn't take more than a few paragraphs of the auto reader stuff over at Gutenberg. For example, check out the Gutenberg computer read audio version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the SeaNow, admittedly, we've come a LONG way. This is an absolutely amazing job for a computer. But still, compare it to the same book done by amature human readers over at Librivox. The first reader there is not my favorite by any means, however, once you get into the story, she does a fine job and you get sucked into the book and forget the reader. I can't make that break with the computer reading. Every word yanks me back out of the story to "this is a computer trying to sound like a human". I'll take a poor human reader any day over the computer voice synthesizers. So, I wouldn't sweat it too much about the background noise, or the "gravelly" quality of your voice. We won't notice the reader, we'll just notice the story. But also, you are good with software, so perhaps you'll make the computer spit out something acceptable. I'm interested in seeing the result either way.
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Post by Xaa on Jul 10, 2007 11:07:43 GMT -5
But also, you are good with software, so perhaps you'll make the computer spit out something acceptable. I'm interested in seeing the result either way. The intro to "Mageworld" was read by my computer. "A thousand years ago" etc.
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Post by Xaa on Jul 10, 2007 11:24:49 GMT -5
Having listened to a little bit of that link, yes, I can see what you mean. The key is that when you read, whether silently or aloud, you 'script' the way the sentences are structured (which is why punctuation and grammar are important). A computer reader doesn't have the ability to parse the sentence and understand how it would be read, it just reads each word as it encounters it. Some attempts have been made to get computer readers to understand basic punctuation, which are emulated by inserting vocal pauses and attempting to have the pitch rise and fall as appropriate, but they aren't capable of parsing long and complicated sentences that delve into several subordinate clauses or involve a manner of writing more akin to ordinary speech. Like the previous sentence, right there. So, the trick is to parse the sentences for the reader, essentially 'pre-digesting' the meaning and presenting sentence structures the reader can understand. Phonetic spellings can be used for words the reader stumbles over or parses badly, also.
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Post by Kilarin on Jul 10, 2007 12:38:01 GMT -5
And that one worked very well, so your point is very valid. Like I said, I'll be interested in hearing the results, either way.
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Post by Kilarin on Jul 10, 2007 12:41:14 GMT -5
So back onto the original topic of "Xaa books!" I'll give a brief review of the series/books I've read and we'll see if we can't get some discussion going! My favorites are the Muse series. It's an interesting Science Fiction detective story. You switch back and forth (every chapter) between the viewpoint of the human detective and his diminutive muse assistant. It's an unusual format, but it WORKS here, very well. And he does an excellent job of getting you into the mind of the Muse, who is similar to, but yet very different from a human. I like the stories because they have interesting plots, and an interesting setting, BUT, I like them most for the characters. You get to know, and to really like, both of the main characters. You find yourself all bound up in their world and VERY concerned about what happens to them. Another bonus is that the science is VERY well worked out. Everything is possible, and explained with enough detail so that you can easily believe its REAL technology, or at least it WILL be before very long. The world is also worked out so well that you have no trouble believing this could be us in the not to distant future. The entire Oerth Cycle is a very fun series. Again, Jim Farris excels at creating characters that you are interested in and care about. The world and cultures are developed in depth. And it's a fascinating world with many fascinating cultures that overlap and collide in very interesting ways. I love the way we get to watch technology develop in this world. It's the kind of tech that you can actually picture and understand, so watching them advance, step by step, is fascinating, AND educational. I believe that "The Last God" was Jim Farris' first published book. And this means that you get to watch his style develop as the series grows. Don't misunderstand me, "The Last God" is very well crafted, but I think the next book in the series shows the evidence of his experience, and that makes it even better. The books continue to improve throughout the series. So we go from Good, to better, to betterer, to best! I've read the first Pandora, and it was a very engaging story. However, the Iron Man/Maiden are so incredibly cold blooded that I found the first story VERY difficult to get through. The way they treat Mrin... Still makes me feel cold. That is NOT a complaint about the quality of the writing, quite the contrary! The whole point was to portray these creatures who were not actually malicious, but had very limited emotions and no sense of "ethics" other than following the rules. Mr. Farris portrayed exactly how horrific this could be with GREAT skill. It's just that the subject material was disturbing to my whimpy self. It was SUPPOSED to be disturbing, had it NOT been disturbing, that would have been evidence that it had been written poorly. But, it still gives me the shivers just thinking about it. Also, I didn't care for Erica, the first human female on Mars in the second story. She was just the type of person I find very annoying. Which, again, is a testament to how well she was portrayed. A character has to be written WELL to really get on your nerves. Now after Erica finally leaves the scene, the story really took off for me. I couldn't put it down. So, that's my experience with Xaa books, post your agreements, disagreements, and different points so we can discuss them!
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Post by Xaa on Jul 10, 2007 12:56:51 GMT -5
So back onto the original topic of "Xaa books!" I'll give a brief review of the series/books I've read and we'll see if we can't get some discussion going! My favorites are the Muse series. Which, interestingly enough, are also the hardest to write. It has to be a detective story, yet the requirements of the genre also dictate it be very fast-paced. The "Muse" books are actually the most difficult to work with, because of the requirements of the genre. All the basics required to create a muse exist today, we're down to engineering challenges. I've been working on a second Oerth cycle, which picks up about 20 years after the first one ends. I want to have all four books completed in it before I release the first one, however - I know that I, as a reader, hate waiting for sequels to be written, so as a writer, I want the series to be complete before I release the first one. Actually, no, "Pandora's Box" was my first. =) The Last God was originally written as a "stand alone" work, and was later turned into a e-serial that was released one chapter at a time, three chapters a week. It was a tremendous time, for me - art, music, web-page formatting... Through four books, and over a hundred musical compositions. A tremendous amount of work. And as I worked on each successive novel, I got better and better at it. But, then I came down with gall-bladder disease, and afterwards, I literally did not have the energy to do a project like that again. Really, it was a year before I had the energy to walk around the block, I had nearly died of peritonitis. It's supposed to - the first story is supposed to read more like a horror story than anything else, because the protagonists literally have no empathy at all. Now you know why I don't write horror. When I write stuff that is scary, it is SCARY. Erica's problem was that she was ordinary. Painfully ordinary. I went to great lengths to portray her as being an absolutely ordinary woman. My wife loved it. But I found her annoying to write, as well. Currently, we're up to book 6 in the "Pandora's Box" series, and I can assure those of you who found the first story of the first book a bit much to take, well, the rest of the books focus on the human characters. Book 2 starts off with the missing "Replicants" story from book 1 - a story I snipped because I felt it would be better in it's own book. There, we are introduced to the character of Admiral D'Shan and her people, the Valhallans, who play an important role in the following books. We are also shown the "First Contact" with the Lovelockians, an alien species also created by "The Artist." Book 3 picks up where book 2 left off, following Admiral D'Shan as she attempts to resume her life after her unexpected ressurrection. She is literally five centuries out of her time, so much of the book deals with issues of culture shock and cultural evolution. Book 4 picks up after the end of book 3, over a hundred years later. D'Shan's role in her society is that of a signpost, a symbol used by her government to point the way to a brighter future. But, somewhere along the way, she has lost her own humanity in the process - in Book 4, she rediscovers that lost humanity, and love. In the process, we also learn a bit more about the culture of the Confederacy. It also introduces the character of John McReady and his companions, people cryogenically suspended in the late 20th century, and revived three thousand years later in the Pandora's Box universe. Book 5 tells the story of the first Vanir, and the rebirth of the males of Valhalla. Overall, it's kind of a cross between "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Starship Troopers." Book 6, the one I just released, tells what happened to Caligostro during the course of Book 5, and gives us a bit more insight into the culture of the Confederacy. Book 7 is in the planning stages, so that's all I can say about it.
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Post by Liantedan on Jul 10, 2007 13:20:20 GMT -5
I've read the first Pandora, and it was a very engaging story. However, the Iron Man/Maiden are so incredibly cold blooded that I found the first story VERY difficult to get through. The way they treat Mrin... Still makes me feel cold. Actually, those robots were the main reason I wanted to read the Pandora's Box series. After reading the excerpts of it on Xaa's website, I really, really wanted to read more like it. I was actually very disappointed when the book started to focus on Mars instead, at first. And I was very happy when after so many chapters (however interesting and fun to read) they appeared again in the storyline. So, no, the Iron Man nor the Iron Maiden scares me, really. They only did what they could. They are both indomitable and little children at the same time. Yes, they may have superior firepower, and yes they can destroy planets with ease, yet, at the same time, they are helpless to anything which is no direct threat to them, because of their baseline. A lot of their weaknesses are mentioned as the series goes, so if you want to see them in the same light as I do now, you'd need to read the other books too. And Mrin... If it weren't for her baseline, now she would scare me. Granted, it's not her own fault, and maybe you can even blame the NAD for that. Yet, it was necessary to free them, and Mrin isn't unhappy, after all. It's supposed to - the first story is supposed to read more like a horror story than anything else, because the protagonists literally have no empathy at all. Eeps. Ah well, must be me who's crazy then...
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Post by Kilarin on Jul 10, 2007 13:39:16 GMT -5
The time and effort put into them shows! They are spectacular stories. I've often wondered if they would make good movies. There is a lot of action, true, but it's also true that MUCH of the story takes place inside the characters minds. Still, I think it might work. Oooo! Now THAT is exciting news! So, how about some hints? Are we still following Merle and Xaa as the main characters? Or will we be focusing in on the next generation? My wife would agree with you. Me, I want the book NOW! So how many books in are you? Ah! No publication dates that I could find on Diskus. Speaking of which, listening to the music as I read was a BIG plus for me. I wonder if it could be incorporated into an audio book version without making it difficult to hear the voice? I dunno. BUT, the music is just incredible and really adds to the entire experience. I think it would be cool incorporated into the html version. Every chapter heading should have a button to click on that starts the correct midi file in the background. Or perhaps a javascript widget could be written to switch from piece to piece automatically as you scroll? I'm not certain about that, I'm not familiar with javascript and it's capabilities. BUT, anyway, the music is fantastic. And so blasted dependent. Willing to live in an imaginary world just to get the support structure that she simply could not live without. I suppose it IS "ordinary", because I've certainly run into a lot of people like that. They will willing close their eyes to reality because there is something they feel they can't live without. Very often a relationship. Which is why I thought Erica was written very well, even though I found her annoying. So your wife actually LIKED Erica? Hmmm. If you can get past the dependency angle, the entire "secret romance" story IS a good one. Did anyone else out there LIKE Erica? I just found all of the characters after her so much more appealing. But then, I like strong independent types. Which is odd when you consider that I love the Muse series, and BOTH of the main characters in that story are somewhat dependent. However, I see their dependency as being different. I'm going to have to think on that... And I fully intend to check them out! Like I said, it's a testament to a writers skill when they can make something so horrific when they need to.
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Post by Kilarin on Jul 10, 2007 13:47:23 GMT -5
Liantendan:
Very good description of them. They have incredible power, and brilliant minds, but their social development is on the level of a 3 year old in many respects.
I thought it was brilliant on their parts to actually RECOGNIZE this deficiency and ask the Martians to help fill in that gap for them by, basically, providing a moral concience.
Liantendan:
<...shiver...> VERY true. What she becomes is MUCH more terrifying than the Iron Man/Maiden
So, if we ever did develop an Artificial Intelligence, do you think it would end up more like Caesar or 666, somewhere in-between, or both?
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Post by Xaa on Jul 10, 2007 14:45:37 GMT -5
Oooo! Now THAT is exciting news! So, how about some hints? Are we still following Merle and Xaa as the main characters? Or will we be focusing in on the next generation? We're following the next generation, and the first book in the series deals with first contact with the Canid Federation (or what's left of it) and first contact with the Ancient Ones. Mmmm... About halfway done with the first.
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Post by Xaa on Jul 10, 2007 14:49:19 GMT -5
So, if we ever did develop an Artificial Intelligence, do you think it would end up more like Caesar or 666, somewhere in-between, or both? It depends on how you define the term "Artificial Intelligence" as to what we'll end up with. Remember that technically, a creature like Liz from Muse is an artificial intelligence. And it would be a lot easier to make something like her than to make a robot like Caligostro from the Pandora's Box series.
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Post by Xaa on Jul 10, 2007 14:51:47 GMT -5
Eeps. Ah well, must be me who's crazy then... No, you've just hit on the other reason I don't write horror. Sometimes, what I write that seems so scary to me is not at all scary to others.
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Post by Liantedan on Jul 10, 2007 15:14:56 GMT -5
My wife would agree with you. Me, I want the book NOW! So how many books in are you? Hmm. It is more safe for me to have only one Xaa-book at the time, otherwise I might do nothing but read them all for days on end without taking a break for sleeping, until either I finished a book, or pass out while reading. On the other hand, it's cheaper for me to order them in batches (shipping cost). Seeing as how I'm still young and foolish, I'm expected to ignore my future health, so I'll settle for batch-ordering, as that saves me a bit of money I can use to pay for the internet. Second! I wasn't too fond of her, no. But, then again, she didn't annoy me too badly either. She just needed a lot of attention. Lucifer has his own personality, he's no mere AI. He may no longer have any recollection of his past live, due to that bad engram copy, but he has a personality nonetheless. And not the AI-equivalent, mind you. All AI write their own personal databases on behaviour and social interaction, so they end up with a unique personality in time (in quite a lot of time, especially if they don't interact much with humans). Yet, in the end, the AI-equivalent is, in the end, an AI-equivalent. It's not the same thing. For Lucifer, though, he has both, now. He had a personality to start with, but no memories/database to draw experience from. Later on, through Mrin, and all the other colonies, the NAD built their databases, and became a bit more personable. And to get back to the question, if/when we get around to creating that level of AI, it will be more like Ceasar first was, in how the operationg system works, yet it will also be as cold and logical as Lucifer. It'll take a long, long time before they get to the point of creating an AI both as powerful (processing power) and, even harder, as personable, as Ceasar, without having the AI being able to re-write itself into something bad. See, in order to be "a person", the AI creates huge data-files and changes the way they think for quite a bit. It will prove quite the challenge to create an AI which will not end up stuck in a infinite loop due to conflicting data in his database. Especially if the AI can add and alter his own database. Humans often contradict themselves, without any negative side-effects (strictly medical speaking), but when an AI (who is trying to mimic humans) end up with a contradicting itself... ERROR. Mmmm... About halfway done with the first. So it'll take a while before they're up for ordering. Fair enough. They're worth the wait anyway. And while we're asking the "is it done yet"-questions, I'll add another one : How's that third trilogy of Mage coming along ? (Just idle curiosity...)
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Post by Xaa on Jul 10, 2007 15:33:34 GMT -5
How's that third trilogy of Mage coming along ? (Just idle curiosity...) It's in the planning stages. Every now and again, a full story will just tumble out on it's own as soon as I start typing. "Third Time's the Charm", which I completed in a month, was like that. Start typing, and a month later, I was done. Most books, however, come rather haltingly, in a more-or-less four-stage process. The first stage is the planning stage. I spend time thinking about how it should go - this includes outlining the plot. This can take as little as a few hours, or as much as a year, depending on how long I want the book to be. Next, I start writing little scenes and dialogue I think are important and should appear somewhere in the book. Many times, I'll work a story towards a specific scene or piece of dialogue. This stage can take a few weeks. The third stage is the longest - it's where I start to write it. With most books, I poke around a lot, and end up erasing paragraphs or even entire chapters as I reconsider how I want things to go. Often I'll get a story a third or halfway done, then stop and let it "gel" for awhile in my mind. Awhile being defined as a period of time usually no less than six months and sometimes up to a couple years. The fourth stage happens when I pick up a partially completed story, and suddenly, I am *THERE* - the rest of the story just tumbles out, and from that point on, I just work on polishing it. Correcting grammar and spelling errors, making sentences better, etc. It's nice when a story just tumbles out all at once, but usually, each book is the result of years of thought and effort. It's another reason why I work on more than one book at once - I don't get "writer's block", per-se - when I find I can't think of what happens next, I just move on to another one of the books I'm working on.
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