audiobook nerdery

I beleive I have remarked thus in this space before but:  as much as I love audiobooks and the amount of additional reading they allow, a good reader will absolutely blow the pants off the experience, to the extent that I believe I fondly recall some books unduly much because of my pleasure in their reader's work (His Majesty's Dragon [Naomi Novik, read by Simon Vance], Lost on Planet China [Maarten Troost, also read by Simon Vance -- I note that I saw the actual author read from the book later, on Youtube at a google reading, and it was flat, uninspired, frankly mediocre compared to the commercial recording], A Game of Thrones [written by you-know-who, but read brilliantly by Roy Dotrice, also known for playing Leopold Mozart in Amadeus], and I would, and have, enthusiastically seek out books read by certain voices that I might not otherwise have read.  (In particular I would blissfully listen to Shelley Frasier [Pattern Recognition, Stiff] read extended sections of the U.S. Tax Code.  While she does not do that, as far as I know, there are apparently lots of other opportunities out there for me...)

On an initially unrelated note, I've had it on my list to read John Harrison's Viriconium, but couldn't find it at the library an.d have been trying not to buy books generally.  So, I forgot about it for a long time...until today.  When I found it being enthusiastically recommended...

...by Neil Gaiman...

...and produced by his "Neil Gaiman Presents" Audiobook series...

...and narrated by Simon Bloody Vance.

Dammit.