Reasonable reading, poorly edited

Let's start with a summary review: I'm glad I listened to this, but I'm also glad this was a free book that I didn't have to pay for.

As someone interested in adventure story characters who became pop culture icons in their day, I've long intended to get round to reading Zorro's initial story. So when I saw The Mark of Zorro included in the free books Audible members could listen to I eagerly added it to my list. The story itself is enjoyable - it's an adventure romp, nothing too deep but fun nevertheless. John Rayburn is a decent enough narrator - he's not brilliant, and his ability to do different voices and accents isn't great, but once you get used to his cadence and delivery he doesn't detract from the story like some other narrators I've listened to have done. What is a negative though is the editing, which basically doesn't exist. There are multiple occasions where Rayburn flubs a line, pauses to gather himself, then goes back a few words and restarts the line. It's not all the time, nor overly frequent, but it does happen, and after the first incident, which had me wondering if I'd simply misheard it, the subsequent errors become increasingly noticeable. I certainly don't blame Rayburn - when you are reading a book aloud this is bound to happen from time to time. However, even a vaguely competent editor could have simply cut out these, given that Rayburn did make the effort to go back and restart the sentences in question. Given this was free to listen to, I ultimately decided I didn't care too much - I'm just happy to hear the story read - but if I had paid for this, I'd be less impressed.

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