Interesting story, odd choice for narration

Nevill is a good writer and I enjoyed most of the story. It gets a little confused and messy towards the end but not enough to ruin the overall story. It's creepy, brutal and suitably dark. The issue I had was the choice of a male American narrator reading a very British folk horror story. The performance isn't bad, however the pronunciation of certain place names and specific English phrases were all over the place. It becomes pretty distracting at times. Also, the two main protagonists are women and I think some of the dialogue and emotion would have been conveyed better with a female narrator. It's a good story that could have been presented better.

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Ok.

The narrator is American and so confused by English place names such as Torquay. This is really off-putting, sadly.

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3 people found this helpful

A disturbing horror story hamstrung by a lazy VO

I was brought to awareness of Adam Nevill by the film adaptation of his story 'The Ritual', so decided to give 'The Reddening' a chance. The story itself is intriguing, building the tension well, and is suitably graphic and macabre in the way it handles violence. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone who likes creeping, small-town horror in the vein of Stephen King.

What I really struggled with was the voiceover artist's performance. It felt like a first read, with almost zero useful direction. At times I could hear the artist smacking his lips between chapters and the wild background noise would click on and off. These are things that should have been smoothed out in post.

More heinous however was the flagrant disrespect for place names or pronunciation throughout. 'The Reddening' is an English story, by an English author, set in England and yet almost every single town is mangled by the American VO artist: Torquay becomes 'Tore-Kay', Warwickshire is 'War-Wick-Shyer', Luton becomes 'Loo-TONN'. It smacks of poor research and is something easy to avoid.

Worse, some words that are shared on both sides of the pond were just mispronounced - yet more evidence that this was a first read-through, hastily cobbled together. 4x4 is pronounced 'four-ex-four', row (as in an argument) becomes row as in row-boat, recce is 'retch-ay.' It's really poor work and totally took me out of the story.

To cap it all off, when we start to meet to antagonists, the VO artist attempts some woefully pantomime accents. The characters are mostly people from Devon or else the Midlands, and yet everyone is given a uniform Dick van Dyke style mockney accent. Again, it makes everything seem rushed and robs the story of the authenticity that Mr Nevill has clearly spent time weaving into his prose.

Let's hope it gets a re-record from someone who takes it a bit more seriously.

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British book read by an American

would have benefitted from a British VO artist due to the dialect of Devonshire

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Great book, terrible narrator

When your story is based in England, with English characters of varying accents using English colloquialisms, the effect of this great story is lessened by an American narrator who can't pronounce half of the words and places properly, and who sounds weird saying "midday" and "bloody". Such a shame. Makes me wonder if this is an AI narrator or just a very strange one.

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pretty good story, pretty bad narrator

The story itself is pretty decent, albeit a little gratuitous in its usage of graphic violence and gore. I enjoyed it, but the performance of the narrator really brings the overall quality down a peg. He isn't doing a terrible job, mind you, but a male american doesn't really suit a story focusing on these female british characters in the south side of england. try saying "hiya, you good, love, yeah?" in an american accent. it doesn't really work, does it? now imagine that for 12 hours. Could be better.

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Absolutely brilliant

I totally loved this audio book. I have supported Nevill since his first novel Apartment 16, and this does not dissapoint. The best horror this year by far. Roll on the next novel!

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A brilliant eerie folk horror

Adam Nevill is always a master of bringing long forgotten myths and legends into terrifying settings. The Reddening is no exception and has a perfect unsettling atmosphere. my biggest problem was the narrators mispronunciation of so many words used in day to day conversation. otherwise a very good story.

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Mispronunciations..

Loved the book. Big fan of Adam Nevill, but I have to say the narrator mispronounced a fair amount of the text. Place names in particular, but also "lino" "midday" "wafted" and the big one "brazier", the last made me pause the book and wonder why they were burning their bras... till I realised what he'd attempted to say. It's a shame really as other than that he did a good job, surely someone should coach Americans to correctly pronounce British words and places, especially when the mispronunciation is obvious.

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13 people found this helpful

Great story, but oh my, the narration......

I generally enjoy Adam Neville and this story didn't disappoint. But the narration - who on earth decided an American narrator would be suitable for a story very firmly rooted in south Devon? The narrator was clearly unfamiliar with a great deal of stuff that may be considered 'British' (at a stretch). The most confusing (and amusing) was the pronunciation of 'brazier' as 'brassiere' - a number of times. So a couple of times characters 'burnt their brassieres', leaving me wondering how rampant feminism had come to be in the stury.

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2 people found this helpful