Fiction – Secret Thoughts

Harry Potter (Full-Cast Editions)

Audible had been continuously hawking the Harry Potter full-cast editions at me. I didn’t know what else to spend my credits on. Plus, I’d just listened to the AI-generated slop audiobook True Crime Stories You Won’t Believe: Omnibus Edition and needed to cancel it out with some decent narration. So I decided to give them a try.

They were so good! They’re like listening to unabridged Harry Potter movies with a music score and sound effects. Lines are delivered with perfect comedic timing and dramatic flair. Usually, full-cast audiobooks are more like radio plays where there’s no narrator, only character dialogue and sound effects, which sometimes gets confusing. These audiobooks, however, have a narrator. Everything in the books is in the audiobooks.

I’m of Kiera Knightly’s opinion that I don’t care what J.K. Rowling has said. How cool is it that seven 8- to 26-hour-long, full-cast, fully narrated audiobooks exist? Such things could only exist if someone has a lot of money and a large fanbase to support it.

The only parts of these audiobooks that lost me were the fight scenes. These tended to be heavy on action music and sound effects, sometimes threatening to drown out the narrator. Even without that, I lost track of what was happening. I don’t think my getting lost is specific to these audiobooks though. It’s often a problem I have with audiobooks in general. The problem was more pronounced when it happened with these books though because the rest of these books were so good.

Additionally, sometimes it sounded like one or two of the actors in a scene got the shitty microphone. They sounded inappropriately muffled or distant in comparison to everyone else. This happened most often in the first two or three books, however, where I was listening to them with one earpiece. For most of the rest of the books, I used two earpieces and didn’t notice the same problem. Perhaps it was an issue with the audio balance or my phone failing to recognize that I was only using one earpiece.

Besides those two minor issues, these books were great! So good! Below are some thoughts I had on each specific book.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

I wonder if the opening scene from Mr. Dursley’s perspective was added to this edition. Or the moment where all the houses sung a song in the Hogwarts’ great hall.

*looks it up in a physical copy of the book* Oh, they exist! The houses singing a song was pretty awkward, so it makes sense it was in the full-cast edition because it was in the book.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

I didn’t catch anything strange going on with Ginny except for in one scene. Listening to it a second time, I caught the hints better though. Maybe it was easier to read the hints in the first book because I remembered Professor Quirrell was the culprit.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Here are a couple quotes (perhaps paraphrased) that I thought were hilarious and well delivered:

“There is no Harry Potter here! Never call this number again! Stay away from my family!”

“Do something about your hair!”

I don’t remember Harry’s father being an Animagus. Then again, I also don’t remember Crookshanks.

The explanation for Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew seemed convoluted like the characters were saying the same thing in different ways repeatedly. I wonder how different the movie was from the book, specifically how many things it changed to make explaining Sirius concise.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

All the characters’ voices dropped at the same time, even Colin Creevy who isn’t even in Harry’s grade.

Hedwig looked EXTREMELY offended. A lot of people are extremely something in fact.

Harry doesn’t solve how to open the egg or how to swim underwater for an hour on his own. In fact, he has the answer spelled out for him or given to him. *continues listening* Oh, that was intentional!

Harry Potter’s voice actor can’t scream in pain to save his life.

Dumbledore mentions the room of requirement. Teasers for the Order of the Phoenix!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I remember Order of the Phoenix being my least favorite in the series to read, but for whatever reason, it’s my favorite of the full cast editions. The understandability of the ending fell apart a little, but otherwise, I loved this rendition and immediately wanted to listen to the whole thing again. Maybe it’s the level of misery Harry is subjected to. He may not be able to scream in pain, but Harry’s voice actor can play the hell out of an angsty teenager.

I wonder if there were hints in previous books that Aunt Petunia cares more about the wizarding world than she claims.

What qualifies someone to be a prefect or a best boy or best girl? Are they just Professor Dumbledor’s arbitrary favorites?

Kiera Knightly played Dolores Umbridge? I didn’t recognize her!

“Wotcher” means “What are you up to?” or “What cheer?”

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

I think Harry’s theories are wrong in every book except this one. In this one, he’s right about everything… about Snape and Malfoy at least.

Did Harry always have a relationship with Ginny in this book? *looks it up in a physical copy* He did! I always recall his marriage to Ginny coming out of left field, but reading this book again, it’s fitting. It’s probably just the movies where it doesn’t make sense.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

For how much Harry likes Quidditch, he never gets to play it for a full school year. In book 1, he was hospitalized after fighting Voldemort. In book 2, Quidditch was canceled because the monster from the Chamber of Secrets had petrified so many people that the school was locked down. In book 3, Harry was harassed into unconsciousness by dementors (although I think he actually did finish the season). In book 4, Quidditch was canceled to make way for the Triwizard Tournament. In book 5, Professor Umbridge bans Harry. In book 6, he gets detention for cursing Malfoy and misses the last Quidditch game. And in book 7, he doesn’t go to school. That sucks.

I imagine Harry’s voice actor had fun impersonating other characters for The Seven Harry’s chapter. The actors probably had fun impersonating main characters throughout the book actually.

Killing Fred, Tonks, and Lupin? That’s brutal.

There’s always a scene toward the end of a Harry Potter book where everything is explained. It seems like a comfort provided to the reader that everything will always make sense in the end. I’m sure people who get pissed off by explanatory scenes would be pissed off about it though.

Harry’s parents died in 1981, which means Harry was born in 1980… 80s nostalgia strikes again!!!

Hermione, Harry, and Ron’s voices dropped again as adults. Weird. Why would the audiobook creators decide to do that?

Eldest

Despite killing a major character and disappearing another within the first ten pages, Eldest by Christopher Paolini is much slower than its predecessor Eragon. No more do paragraphs summarize weeks worth of events. The book occasionally, however, forces odd topics into character conversations. I can almost hear Paolini saying, “I need these characters to talk about this thing now.”

Another enhancement is that Eldest has multiple narrators. Eragon and his adopted brother Roran are the primary narrators. Nasuada, the leader of the Varden resistance, also narrates a couple chapters, but it feels random, like she’s a narrator only because Paolini found no other way to introduce important characters and concepts. I also had the feeling that Roran was a narrator to slow the book down and prevent Eragon from plowing through the plot as he had in the first book, but overall, the pair of them swapping chapters as narrators feels fitting and intentional.

I believe Paolini also reveals himself as a fan of Weird Al Yankovic’s UHF when a side character exclaims, “Barges? Barges? We don’t want no stinking barges!” It sounds so out of place and suspiciously similar to a quote from UHF, that it has to be an allusion to, “Badgers? Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers!”

As my final random thought… I’ve read Eldest at least three times now. I’ve always accepted that it made sense for the elves to reject eating meat. It was an admirable lifestyle even. I’ve since been spoiled, however, with keto and lion diet ideology, fitness nutrition, and conservative talking points. How can the elves possibly get enough protein from plants to maintain their inhuman strength? They would need to have industrial-level production of soy and beans. Even Mark Boyle, who recounted his experience living off the land and rejecting modern technology in his autobiographical account The Way Home, conceded that he had to give up his vegetarian diet and eat meat to survive. He would no longer have access to all those canned beans and soy products from distant lands to supplement his vegetables. I suppose the elves have magical abilities that include speeding up and manipulating the growth of plants, but it’s still ridiculous. I’ll save most of my complaints about this point for the next book in the series Brisingr though, where Eragon’s choice to also abstain from eating meat makes even less sense.

Frankenstein

I listened to the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley on Audible. It was interesting.

After discovering the “epistolary novel” in Who Was Jane Austen? Sorting Fact from Fiction, I was eager to read one of the classics for an example of one. Frankenstein is told through the narrator Robert Walton, a sea captain on an Arctic expedition. The introduction of the novel is a series of letters Walton writes to his sister. The rest of the novel is a novel that Walton writes for his sister, relating the story Frankenstein tells him, the story Frankenstein’s monster tells him, and Walton’s own experiences of the two.

In some ways, Frankenstein seems like a deeply flawed novel, at least by modern standards. Arguably, Walton is discardable, and his presence negates the need for Frankenstein and his monster to ever interact or make peace with one another by telling each other their story. Walton serves as the link to reader in telling the two stories.

The melodramatic writing could also be seen as a problem. Today, melodramatic writing is mocked and discouraged, but Victor isn’t shy about telling the reader/Walton repeatedly how dearly he loves his dear friend Henry and his dear childhood friend Elizabeth and how wretched he is without them. His monster is equally verbose is recounting his wretchedness. Both of them go into detail about how pitiable they are, Victor suffering from mental breakdowns and the deaths of his closest friends and family and the monster lamenting what an outcast he is. While Frankenstein (2025) suggests that Victor is the asshole playing the victim, both of them put on quite the pity party for themselves in the book. Walton himself also tells his sister repeatedly how much he pities Victor and wants to help him. The book ends with Victor dying and the monster proclaiming he will burn himself to death on a pyre. It’s such a bleak book with such a bleak ending it’s laughable.

Perhaps its flaws are why Frankenstein has been adapted so many times and in so many different ways. When I think of “Frankenstein,” I think of the image of Victor screaming with maniacal enthusiasm, “It’s alive!” something I can’t imagine the Victor in the book ever doing. Mary Shelley never even says that electricity resurrected the monster, but that’s primarily how adaptations portray it. To name some other changes adaptations have made

Frankenstein is a mad scientist and the bad guy.
The monster is a mindless beast and the bad guy.
Frankenstein actually creates a bride for the monster.
The monster falls in love with Elizabeth.
Robert Walton is discarded as a narrator.
The monster is called Frankenstein.

It’s as if everyone who made an adaptation of Frankenstein saw the seed of a great idea but poorly executed and proceeded to bring what they saw to light. It’s kind of amazing how many different great ideas people imagined from the same source material.

Eragon

I reread Eragon by Christopher Paolini (for at least the third time since it was release in 2002) in preparation to read the latest novel related to the Inheritance Cycle Murtagh. Reading it more than 20 years later, the writing has qualities that feel rushed and amateurish. Dialogue and actions for multiple characters are sometimes crammed into single paragraphs for example. A lot of traveling, training, and other things can happen in a few paragraphs. Scenes can end and focus can change quite abruptly as well.

I don’t remember watching the Eragon movie multiple times, but for some reason, reading this book reminded me so much of it. Perhaps that’s only because of my ruthless mocking and criticism of it. I distinctly remember my brother screaming, “Murtagh, I’m on fire!” in response to a prison scene where a flaming Urgal (or was it just a person?) smashed through a flimsy wooden jail that was somehow sturdy enough to imprison Murtagh. I also remember how Saphira flew away as a baby and returned as a full grown dragon capable of fluent telepathic speech.

I suppose I don’t blame the movie’s creators for not emphasizing the injury Durza gives the protagonist Eragon at the end. This injury serves as a major obstacle for Eragon in the sequel Eldest, but Eragon does end rather abruptly, placing more emphasis on a memory/nightmare montage Eragon has than his grievous injury. Eragon doesn’t even see the end of the last battle.

Still, they screwed themselves, dooming the Eldest movie to never be created. Although, an Eragon TV series is in development for Disney+ now. We’ll see if it actually manifests (which would be neat), but that’s another reason to reread the Inheritance Cycle.

The Human Domestication Guide: Abscission

Abscission is a book-length story based in The Human Domestication Guide setting. I read this on the recommendation of a friend to see what the interest was because… Well, Abscission is basically a fan-fiction featuring dominate/subordinate and sadistic fetishes.

For someone with no interest in these fetishes, what is the draw? Abscission features a cast of characters with a variety of identities and disabilities. The transgender protagonist Autumn suffers from some sort of schizophrenia, severe anxiety, or paranoid delusions. Her lesbian girlfriend Dawn suffers from neurological disorders that impair her motor functions, memory, and consciousness. Autumn’s would-be murderer turned friend Qiru has autistic symptoms and identifies as a genderless robot rat. These characters have basically been adopted as pets by all-powerful plant aliens called the Affini, who have agreed to love them and take care of all their needs. The Affini have a directive to reduce suffering in the universe, and for humans that have proven to be a threat to themselves or others, adopting them as pets is required. The Affini use a lot of drugs to sooth their pets’ various fears and traumas but also genuinely love them. With their highly advanced technology, the Affini have produced an era of post-scarcity, meaning they and their pets often don’t need to worry about much but spending time with one another.

In other words, Abscission offers an escape for those who suffer from disabilities, mental disorders, or persecution for their identities. It contains a message that the reader doesn’t need to be more than themselves to be loved. The reader doesn’t need to fight through discomfort or disability to impress or prove their worth to anyone. The reader can dream of what it’s like to live in a world of post-scarcity and post-capitalism. Abscission also celebrates drugs not as tools to be used only as needed but as a method to become one’s true self and escape needless or unrealistic worries and despair. And there’s also a lot of dominate/subordinate fetishism for those who are into that sort of thing.

That said, Abscission is also an underdeveloped, minimally edited, and incomplete novel. Abscission is far from the worst such novel that I’ve read. Some manuscripts intended to become legitimate, published novels that I’ve beta read have bored or frustrated me into a rage, but Abscission held my interest by being equal parts entertaining, confusing, disgusting, and boring.

It does suffer from many common problems though. Plot holes are common. For having a directive to reduce suffering, the Affini do a lot of suffering on their own. Autumn’s Affini Solanum claims to have an important job but spends most of the book not doing it, leaving one to wonder who does any of the work around here, what compels them to do it, and how society doesn’t fall apart. Characters are inconsistent. Autumn is afraid of drugs and then wants all the drugs with little transition. Autumn is bored without Solanum to entertain her until she decides she has a history of studying alien languages. There is little conflict or problems for the characters to solve together. Most of the time, Autumn and her fellow pet friends have no life outside their Affini. Most of the book is indulgence in fetishes, drugs, alcohol, and trivial social gatherings. The writer often makes their own fantasies obvious with such nonsense as characters wearing a collar and cuffs by mandate; being casually tied up; experiencing sexual arousal through petting or submission to someone else’s will; or willingly undergoing surgery while awake. On one hand, Abscission tells the reader that they don’t need to be more than who they are to be loved, but on the other hand, it tells the reader to give up and let themselves be defined entirely by their illness, drug use, or niche identity.

Then again, Abscission perhaps couldn’t be the escape that it is if it didn’t contain some of these problems. A book lacking conflict isn’t commonly considered “good fiction.” A world of post-scarcity where everyone is accepted for who they are, problems can be efficiently solved, and people need not worry about who will care for them today or tomorrow, however, is the world that fans of Abscission, and The Human Domestication Guide in general, dream of.

There’s no excuse for the ending though (aside from it being self-indulgent fan fiction). The third to last chapter is mindless torture porn, which, really, the entire 155,000-word book had been building toward. The final two chapters, however, have nothing to do with each other nor anything to do with the rest of the book. In reaction to these final three chapters, I said out loud as I finished reading, “What? That’s insane!” Which might as well have been my reaction to the entire book. XD

Her Last Christmas

Similar to my thoughts on Silent Hill f–and really any story that features the protagonist’s loveless relationship with their significant other–Her Last Christmas by Claire McGowan made me wonder, “What is this lady even doing with this guy?” The protagonist Emma joins her boyfriend Michael and his fellow wealthy friends for Friendsmas in the Alps. Emma doesn’t know how to ski; Michael’s friends are unwelcoming, drunk, and high; and Michael, seeming to prefer his friends’ company, does little to nothing to help Emma feel comfortable.

In the end, I determined their relationship makes sense in a similar way that Hinako and Shu’s relationship makes sense in Silent Hill f. Her Last Christmas is told from Emma’s distorted, first-person perspective. She claims she doesn’t partake in excessive alcohol or drugs, she paints herself as a victim, and speaks somewhat demeaningly about the other characters’ relationships and careers. That is, she makes herself sound good to the reader, perhaps better than she is in reality. There must be a reason she attracted people like this, including Michael, into her life though. Indeed, the end of the book reveals that Emma is as willing to set her morals aside to protect her career as the other characters are to protect theirs. Emma choosing Michael, a popular politician, was likely motivated by her desire for status, wealth, and career advancement. While she decides to part ways with him, she still participates in covering up a murder.

A couple funny thoughts I had while reading…

Toward the end of the book, Emma runs into a snow storm without proper clothes in a fit of hysteria. She tells the reader repeatedly she knows this is a bad idea but doesn’t know what else to do. I thought to myself of the author, “I can hear you telling your beta readers that you know your protagonist is being an idiot.”

Emma: “[Michael’s] wife had accused him of domestic abuse, and women didn’t lie about that sort of thing.”
Me: Why did you give Ms. Heard muffins!?

Pride and Prejudice (Lulu Raczka Adaptation)

If Pride and Prejudice took place in the modern day, so much drama would happen through text messages instead of letters. The characters spend so much time writing and talking about letters.

Also, the protagonist’s love interest Mr. Darcy made me feel very old fashioned when he justified his behavior to Elizabeth by writing a long and thoughtful letter rather than sitting her down and having a conversation. I have done this multiple times through emails, long messages, and even physical letters to try to resolve a conflict, voice a complaint, or tell someone something important. I also appreciated that Elizabeth took the time to read it and understand him even though she was angry. It pisses me off when I write a long message to someone, and they don’t bother to understand it or they reject it.

Overall, Pride and Prejudice features my kind of communication! I’ve never read the book (although I would like to now), but this audiobook/radio play adaptation was much better than the 1984 adaptation at least.

1984 (Joe White Adaptation)

Big Brother would approve of this audiobook/radio play adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984. 75% of the words have been replaced with heavy breathing and lip smacking.

On the subject of what content is there though… In some ways, 1984‘s world still parallels common conservative criticisms of modern socialist and big governments. The fictitious totalitarian superstate Oceania restricting language and spreading propaganda as facts, for example, eerily parallels real governments’ tendencies to emphasize certain views and suppress others.

Some of George Orwell’s other predictions for the future, however, haven’t aged as well. For example, the citizens of Oceania are encouraged to have children for the good of the Party. Having sex out of love or for pleasure is forbidden. In today’s reality, conservatives are more likely to complain that sex for pleasure, devoid of its biological purpose of procreation, is celebrated and used by governments to distract the first-world population from their replacement by third-world immigrants.

Red Letter Media gave another example of 1984 showing its age in the course of a somewhat relevant discussion about AI and dystopian futures. George Orwell imagined that, in the future, the government would place cameras everywhere to watch everyone. As the future has actually unfolded, today, almost everyone has a camera almost at all times, built into their smart phones at their own request. Everyone is watching everyone else, ready to record inappropriate behavior and use those recordings incite public ridicule or other life-destroying consequences. We did it to ourselves! We are our own Big Brother!