Giving up is sort of but sometimes not really hard to do: a kind of review of Macbeth by Jo Nesbo as read by the awesome Euan Morton

I gave up on Jo Nesbo's Macbeth, a retelling of the Shakespeare tragedy set in the 70s.  I just couldn't keep going, knowing where everything was leading.  This was not like the humorous and generally completely inappropriate Christopher Moore book based on a Shakespeare tragedy (Fool based on King Lear) that made it into a comedy without actually changing anything that happened in the actual play, and I didn't have any twists and turns and different endings to look forward to as in Moore's other book kind-of-based on Shakespeare plays (Serpent of Venice). 

Basically the only thing to look forward to was increasing madness, paranoia, violence, regret, and the always amazing vocal performance of Euan Morton.  I guess I cannot just listen to anything he reads, which is unfortunate because he is a very fine audiobook reader. 

Maybe at another time, as a summer read while I basked in the sun for instance, I could have handled the level of tragedy inherent in a serious retelling of the story.  I admired some of the cleverness of setting and situation.  Some of the characters were intriguing, and I even liked some of them until they started self -and -other destructing.  I think the problem is similar to the problem I have always had when a Shakespeare play is presented in another setting to make it edgy or appealing to a different aesthetic: the illusion falls apart when the Elizabethan English and the unchangeable plot of the play start, and people's motivations just don't make sense anymore in a modern context.

Maybe if the author started off at the same place with the same basic characters and then let them do their own thing completely until we got to a totally different ending?  Or maybe even the same ending but a different way of getting there that made me hate characters I previously liked slightly less?  I didn't even make it very far past Act 1.

I don't know.  This autumn has felt very sudden and very gray, and I might just not be able to handle this added fictional sadness on top of the real life sadness and tragedy in the lives of those around me in my very real life.  It's probably not Nesbo; it's probably me.  It definitely isn't Morton.  I am already waiting (in 32nd place or so) for his most recent audiobook (sequel to one I listened to on a whim after my Moore excursion).  I can't wait to hear him bring more characters to life, so long as they are not destined to all kill each other and die horribly, crushed in the gears of a plot outside their control.

Audiobook Narrator Stalking Euan Morton on Free Library Apps

I'm kind of narrator stalking Euan Morton right now.  I first heard him in Jim Butcher's swashbuckling sci-fi The Aeronaut's Windlass, and he was fantastic.  He has this swoon-worthy baritone hero voice he uses for Benedict . . .  Then I found out he'd narrated a couple of Guy Gavriel Kay's historic fantasy books, one of which involved Troubadours (Song for Arbonne), and by I was hopelessly voice crushing.  He seems to have a tremendous amount of fun and talent, and his voices are generally distinct enough to recognize clearly. 

More recent listens were completely different.  They were comedies by Christopher Moore, and they were incredibly bawdy and full of inappropriate (and sometimes hilarious) humor. The first (Fool) was like an offstage comedy version of King Lear.  Moore made it work, really.  It's fascinating to see how he can twist things that didn't happen onstage until he has an extremely R-rated version that is not a tragedy (for the Fool, anyway) and ends up matching exactly.  I might actually finally read King Lear now that I will have this story happening in the background . . .   

For Moore next trick, he crashes the Fool character into The Serpent of Venice, a mashup of The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and a somewhat random short story that must have involved a sea serpent who (in this version) eats a number of the characters in the two Shakespeare plays that really should have been eaten in the originals but were not.  As that last sentence indicates, he did NOT adhere to the actual play this time.  Morton's best voices in this one (aside from the Fool) are the villainous Iago and the heroic but dumb Othello. The afterward about how Moore crammed it all together was fun, too.  And I apologize to the older lady at the physical therapy pool while I was listening to this one.  I suspect you think I am insane.  I hope you noticed the earpiece and didn't just think I was barking with random laughter.  A lot.  I think my favorite part was when Morton was playing Portia (a rich young lady) pretending to be an adolescent boy genius lawyer.  The Quality of Mercy speech is a totally different experience when the actor's voice keeps cracking HORRIBLY at the most serious parts.

After that, I decided to give a listen to Carry On, a YA novel by Rainbow Rowell.  It is, lets be honest, a Harry Potter x Draco Malfoy fanfiction, but do NOT let its derivative nature make you think it's not worth your time.  The final product is a completely different world and characters distinct enough to work for your Harry and Draco needs (if you had them) while still being their own strong characters.  The things this book says about loneliness, self-loathing, and feeling monstrous when we are teenagers/young adults are important and well done.  Harry Simon is a totally believable dork.  The mage is charismatic through voice alone.   Also, Draco Baz has this amazing baritone voice that goes from sneering to vulnerable with complete believability.  You want to give him a hug and hit Harry Simon on the head with a rolled up newspaper when he's an insensitive clod, even as you agonize about how sort-of evil he is (just not in the ways he hates himself for being evil).

Basically, if I ever write a book, and someone wants to make it an audiobook, I will want Euan Morton to read it.

Cleaning with Murderbot (kids, definitely try this at home, but only when the kids aren't home or if you're using an earpiece, so they can't hear it)

Do you know what makes cleaning more fun bearable: Cleaning with Murderbot!  The audiobooks of Martha Wells' splendid series of Murderbot novellas are fantastic.  Kevin R. Free is crabby, frustrated, annoyed, irritated, and obsessed in such a way that I almost can't imagine how reading the text myself could possibly be as much fun as listening to him as he brings this character and its world to life.

When I realized that part 3 had come out, I was excited.  And then I saw that part 4 was the "conclusion" and had also come out. ALL OF THEM WERE AVAILABLE THROUGH MY LIBRARY SYSTEMS.  I may have listened to them all.  Twice.  In a row.  Oh, Murderbot, ART, Miki, and assorted annoying humans, it was wonderful to listen to you while I cleaned and did laundry and dishes and came up with as many excuses as I could find to keep listening (and laughing and wincing and wanting to give Murderbot a hug, even though that would totally freak it out).

Murderbot is a construct, a SecUnit (security unit) created of organic, cloned human parts (including a face) and inorganic computer/mechanical parts (most of its brain, I think).  Most areas of the inhabited universe consider them robot tools; they are not considered sentient beings capable of self-determination, and they are strictly controlled by corporations that own and deploy them to places where human security would cost more and be less effective.  They get nearly destroyed a lot.  It hurts, even when you can control your pain receptors to some extent.  These units all have a failsafe installed to prevent them from running amok and destroying everything around them. The failsafe monitors all their actions and can override their self-control.

Murderbot does not have a functioning failsafe; it hacked its Governor Module after something went wrong and Murderbot killed a bunch of people.  (It wasn't held responsible for its actions, of course, because it is considered a tool.)  That is also when it started to refer to itself as Murderbot.  Now that it has its freedom of conscience, control of its actions, and a lot of experience and scary strength it could wreak an awful lot of havoc.  What it actually does is hide from (and complain about) its annoying human clients as much as possible, try to fill in the gaps in its patheticly inadequate, corporate security module education, and binge-watch TV/media every spare second.  And give some powerful (and frequently hilariously aggravated) commentary on what it means to be human and / or a person.  And sometimes accidentally-kind-of-on-purpose go on murderous rampages to save dumb people. 

Murderbot is not interested in becoming a human (humans are pretty dumb, for the most part) or even more human (its revulsion when a helpful AI offers to give it functioning sexual organs is thought-provoking on a number of levels and also pretty stinkin' funny).  But all the humans seem to assume that's what everything wants.  Pretending to be human and fitting in better with humans gives it more freedom, though (and about 800x the stress and aggravation), so it goes back and forth a lot on the topic.

I LOVE ME SOME MURDERBOT. 

Best of all?  There's a novel coming out next year.  I hope they get Kevin R. Free to narrate it.  Except then I will have to go on a 16-hour cleaning binge, and I think that would be a terrible idea.  Maybe if it comes out in the spring . . .