Fangirl Friday: Harry Dresden and James Marsters!

You know, it's been a rough week. Regardless of where you live and who you are, it's been a rough week. That often makes it very difficult for me to turn my brain off enough to get into a good book. Or a bad book, or even some fluffy PWP fanfic that should make things better. I let my writing go far too late, and now I'm paying the price for it. Oops.

What better way, though, to close out a craptastical week than in thinking about something that makes me happy?

And so, here I am. I'm now 14 books deep in The Dresden Files, and I'm still having a grand time of it. I've, traditionally, made it about four chapters into the books then wound up setting them aside for a month. Every time. Until recently. The last two Dresden Files books I've read (Ghost Story and Cold Days), I've read much differently than the prior 12, and I've blown through both books in as little time as I've been able to manage. So, what's changed? Audiobooks. Specifically, listening to the audiobooks as read by James Marsters.

Image via jim-butcher.com

Yes, James Marsters. Yes, *that* James Marsters. He reads the Dresden Files audio, and has from book 1 (Storm Front). He is, as one would expect, a fantastic narrator, providing distinctive sounds and feels for each character he's reading. It's been so very easy to fall into these books and not look back, to hear the story and see it unfolding around you. The narration is smooth and easy, no between-chapter chop, no characters that suddenly feel odd, or voices that grate. Nothing that sounds vastly different than what you hear in your head - even after a dozen books hearing those voices only in my own mind. It's amazing. He does such a spectacular job that Audible has not only kept him on for all this time, but for the book he was unavailable to narrate, they had him re-record it later, and then promptly released it as soon as it was available (even giving folks who'd bought the other narration their choice of versions, free!).

He does such a fantastic job reading, and you can tell he actually enjoys being the narrator, and it's just so much *fun* it deserved its own space on a Fangirl Friday. Thank you, James Marsters for being an epic Harry Dresden Narrator!