Audio Renaissance sent me a CD copy of the audiobook of Old Man’s War, and I experienced a moment that made me realize how much of a citizen of the digital age I am: I thought, eight discs? I’ve gonna have to rip all of these? What a hassle! Don’t worry, I smacked myself in the head right after.
I’ve been listening to the book a bit today, and I have to say the experience is, well… weird. To be clear, it’s very well done; I think William Dufris, who is reading it, is great at it. The thing is that he reads it differently than I read it, in my head, and, inasmuch as I’m the guy who wrote the thing, the differences in our respective execution make for a bit of cognitive dissonance. After hearing it in my head a particular way for the last six years, it takes a little getting used to.
(I didn’t have this happen with the audio version The Sagan Diary, partly because it was told from a woman’s point of view, and partly because I shipped it off to the various readers right after I finished it. That was a different experience entirely.)
It’s weird to say but I kind of like the cognitive dissonance I’m getting; without getting too hippy-trippy about it, it’s a reminder that there are other ways of approaching the book than the way I do in my own head, and these different approaches can put the book in a different light. It’s interesting to approach your own work a little like a stranger, basically.
The Blatherations of Others