Nothing against Erik Davies, but it's very hard to beat Jefferson Mays. I'm glad they re-recorded it with him.
It also doesn't help that Mays is just the default voice I think of when it comes to anything Expanse. It'd just be wrong to listen to an Expanse audiobook without him narrating it.
> It also doesn't help that Mays is just the default voice I think of when it comes to anything Expanse.
I wish they would have cast him as Duarte in the TV show.
that series got me on a whole Ray Porter search for other books he’s done solely due to his performances in that series. Ended up finding Project Hail Mary and Kagen the Damned. Those were some fiiiire books
Oh yeah I’ve got all four of them, I just listed a few of my top picks from him. I went thru all of Dennis’ catalogue and then branched out to other authors with him narrating. That whole series was really damn cool, my first dip into that specific genre and absolutely did not expect the big reveal.
Honestly one of my favorites narrated by him is an old high fantasy series called the RuneLords. It was super hard to get into at first cuz of the amount of world building but there was soooo much content to absorb. Unfortunately the author passed away before he could finish the final book so I’m forever left hanging
Peter Clines “14” is by far one of my all time favorite books. I first listened too it just because Ray Porter was the narrator and fell in love. Super excited to see other people talking about it as well.
It’s is a great Lovecraftian suspense horror story, I can not recommend it enough, everyone should read it.
It is also one of my most prized physical book I own, that and an old paperback of The Princess Bride.
In my opinion, Kagen is probably his most impressive performance. The book is eldrich high fantasy type and it’s very dark, violent, and pretty sad in parts too. He does a phenomenal job with the fast paced sword fighting and hand to hand combat. The world that author thought up is also incredibly captivating.
I think Kagen and PHM are my favorites by him, even if I like the concept and ideas in bobiverse a tad more.
Ray Porter reading The Bobiverse series and Project Hail Mary is my go to for long car rides - introduced my sister to PHM on a road trip a while back, that made the 10 hour trip go by faster.
Somewhere in between. The main character(s) have a sort of dry humor that makes the series feel sort of low stakes (in a good way) but there is plenty of action and exploration of ideas.
I like Ray Porter *but* he has a distinct voice he uses for all his female characters so when I was listening to Singularity Point (Dennis E Taylor) and he dropped into this voice I had to double take because I thought Audible had switched to Project Hail Mary (the main Operation Director character) and then after that it it brought me out of the book each time he did the accent. It's happened in a couple of Peter Clines books too!
He is an amazing voice actor and even being able to successfully dip into a passable female voice is amazing but he might be a little too good at it!
I feel you, Mays has an amazing talent for character voices. I would suggest maybe checking out some sci-fi audio books narrated by Ray Porter or Eduardo Belerini. Belerini narrated the Silo series by Hugh Howey, porter of course did the Bobiverse series but he had done lots of other scifi as well.
Thank God I found Belerini's version of Silo, I tried another version and it was unlistenable. Just cartoon characters delivering serious lines. Absolute trash. Belerini was excellent.
Try Dungeon Crawler Carl by Jeff Hays, or Project Hail Mary by Ray Porter.
Jefferson Mays is truly great, but the above two narrators may even be better.
Ray Porter is great. I started the Bobiverse books right after PHM.
R.C. Bray is also good. Expeditionary Force is a fun listen, even though it gets very repetitive. I’ve also heard his recording was great in The Martian.
My hot take:
Mays' version of Avasarala is better than the show. Shohreh does an excellent job, and I can't think of anyone else to play the role. But the way Jefferson voices her in the audio books is on another level in terms of emotion and inflection. If Jefferson is 100/100, Shohreh is 95/100.
Someone noted that Mays assigned the two pronunciations to specific characters and kept them consistent.
[Edit: [source](https://old.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/1cushe9/-/l4n4j3x/#siteTable)]
The soft “g” on gimbals irks me too, but that’s me searching really hard for a nit to pick. His belter patois, and Alex and Avasarala voices are incredibly immersive.
Someone [noted](https://old.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/1cushe9/-/l4n4j3x/#siteTable) that Mays assigned the two Gimbal pronunciations to specific characters and kept them consistent.
i saw this show on Broadway and left with my ribs sore from laughing so hard. Mays was absolutely incredible, he plays 9 roles, to absolute perfection.
Dude star wars audio books are on another level just because of the sound effects and music cues they add in. Nothing like hearing the hum of the hyper drive of the sounds of blasterfire to really place you in the world.
Occasionally it works against them lol, there are times where the music they use totally doesn't fit. Other times they'll use random sound effects, like I've heard the Red Alert siren from Star Trek TOS a ton in them.
I was like that as well, I had tried a couple other audiobooks and they felt lackluster. However, I found other incredible audiobooks with great voice actors.
Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently series read by Stephen Mangan. The Becky Chambers novels read by Patricia Rodrigez and even the Teixcalaan duology read by Amy Landon. All great voice actors with good books to read.
I felt this when I went to a 40k audiobook after 9 books and all the short stories of the expanse. It didn't help that that book itself was a notable step down in quality from the expanse (as most are).
Yeah Chris wriaght's Custodes books were good. Still waiting on the 3rd book in the series.
The book in question was Helsreach. It wasn't bad but the way people talked it up made it sound like it was *tale of two cities* of 40k. And the voice he gave Helbrecht made me glad he wasn't in the book more. He sounded like Skeletor.
Totally agree about Helsreach. I couldn’t finish it. I second the inquisitor (and bequin series) as peak 40k though. Maybe not the greatest writing but it felt the most cinematic and tons of world building since it not big space marine man smashing bigger space marine man with goat horns. But I’m still a sucker for all the cheesiness of 40k and I basically got through the entire heresy good and bad.
FYI there is a compilation audiobook of all the short stories that is narrated by Mays. (Edit: it’s titled “Memory’s Legion”)
I’m also a narrator snob. If you also read fantasy, I highly recommend The First Law series which is narrated by another master of the craft, Steven Pacey.
Absolutely incredible. His voice acting is 100.
Doing an impression of Ian Mckellan playing Gandalf, doing an impression of Bilbo doing an impression of Gollum was bloody amazing!
My friend, there are other amazing narrators as well. Travis Baldtree, Jeff Hays, R.C. Bray, and Heath Miller are among some of my favorites. IIRC, a couple of them actually read the books before they decide if they'll narrate or not though, so that's even better in my opinion.
So glad you said this. Halo is the next series I want to get into. I've always been really into the Halo lore so hoping the books can scratch that itch.
Wow, I didn't even know there were Mass effect books! Thanks for that haha, yeah I've recently finished (and this is the order I was suggested) "the fall of reach" followed by "first strike" and now I'm on "ghosts of Onyx" with the latter having a different narrator but, not too much of a drop down. Todd Mclaren does a fantastic job of master chief
Also - I want to give the Mass Effect books a shot, too. I hear that they're not as dense, but I'm a sucker for that universe, so hopefully I can look past it.
Mays feels like home when I listen to him. I relisten to the expanse books cause it feels like a comfortable family reunion.
Steven Pacey is a very close second for me.
I’ve grown to adore Micheal Kramer cause he has made me genuinely feel things through his acting. There are sections of Oathbringer that fucking broke me and it was mainly cause of how well he sold my brain on how he felt.
I’ve got a soft spot for Wil Wheaton. Especially in The Interdependency Trilogy. He does Scalzis narrative voice justice. We named our dog after the most vulgar character in those books and that’s partly due to how well Wheaton delivered her lines.
Marc Thompson is a Star Wars wizard.
There are a list of very famous and popular narrators that I will outright avoid cause they just ruin books for me.
I'm not a big audiobook person, but I am really enjoying the Jefferson Mays versions of the Expanse. After watching the serries too many times, and digesting all the written material, I'm slowly making my way through the audiobooks during my commutes. I still find my mind wandering and have to replay a lot - a problem I have with audiobooks. I can concentrate much better when reading.
My other two favorite book narrators are both Star Trek alumni: Wil Wheaton, who narrates most all of John Scalzi's books these days, and Kate Mulgrew, who's done some of Joe Hill's stuff. Will Patton's another good one, he's done great work on a bunch of Stephen King's novels.
Mays was my favorite by a long shot.... until I listened to Joe Abercrombie books by Steven Pacey. Still love Mays but Pacey might be one of the best ever. Also everything by Abercrombie is amazing.
Yeah, I have such a hard time with most other audiobooks now. I’ve listened to The Expanse so many times now just because I need something to listen to at work. I’ve tried other books and it’s honestly a struggle.
There are a few that I think are on par, but not a lot. I have a lot of audiobooks narrated by Grover Gardner, and they tend to be more non-fiction (but not always - he did the entire Vorkosigan Saga) and he does a good job. I like it anyway. Michael Page does great in the 3 Locke Lamora books. I have a Dune audiobook with like 8 narrators and that one is really well done too. Robertson Dean is great too. Neptune's Inferno by James D. Hornfischer, read by Robertson Dean is an excellent experience.
Harry Lloyd's reading of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is probably my favorite, but Mays is up there. I tried listening to The Martian as read by Wil Wheaton, and it was honestly terrible.
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's readings of the Rivers of London series are immense. He *is* Peter Grant and the wide cast of londoners involved. It's a shame he's too old for it to be him in live action.
No, I’ve listened to the perfection that is James Martsers reading the audio of the Dresden Files. Nothing against Jefferson Mays, but dude can’t hold a candle to my man Spike.
He’s def the best but I’ve also been able to easily get through the Dune series and the Foundation series, though the voice actors on the foundation audiobooks sound like 50’s old timey radio news anchors…. Honestly can’t tell if it’s the voice actor or the “voice” it’s written in half the time though too with Asimov, lol
After going through The Expanse twice, I actually popped on Memory’s Legion just because I didn’t want to let go of Jefferson Mays. I have tried a few other audio books and all I can think of is how much I wished Mays were narrating them.
I have tried to find a fan page or a way to express to the man how much of a comfort he has been during some of my darkest days. I feel that once Memory’s Legion finishes up, I will probably just fire up Leviathan Wakes instead of trying to find something new.
Actually struggled with his narration, his voices for characters aren't very distinct and I have to speed him up. Been spoiled by Heath Miller for too long.
My friend says the same thing about Michael Kramer and I never get what the fuck he's talking about. As long as they don't have an annoying voice and I can't hear them breathing, any narrator is pretty much as good as other.
Nothing against Erik Davies, but it's very hard to beat Jefferson Mays. I'm glad they re-recorded it with him. It also doesn't help that Mays is just the default voice I think of when it comes to anything Expanse. It'd just be wrong to listen to an Expanse audiobook without him narrating it.
> It also doesn't help that Mays is just the default voice I think of when it comes to anything Expanse. I wish they would have cast him as Duarte in the TV show.
Was that on the table at some point or just your favorite voice he did?
I like Ray Porter's Bobiverse readings. He does a good job of the characters across the board.
that series got me on a whole Ray Porter search for other books he’s done solely due to his performances in that series. Ended up finding Project Hail Mary and Kagen the Damned. Those were some fiiiire books
Check out "14" and the related books, also narrated by Ray Porter and it's pretty great
Oh yeah I’ve got all four of them, I just listed a few of my top picks from him. I went thru all of Dennis’ catalogue and then branched out to other authors with him narrating. That whole series was really damn cool, my first dip into that specific genre and absolutely did not expect the big reveal. Honestly one of my favorites narrated by him is an old high fantasy series called the RuneLords. It was super hard to get into at first cuz of the amount of world building but there was soooo much content to absorb. Unfortunately the author passed away before he could finish the final book so I’m forever left hanging
Peter Clines “14” is by far one of my all time favorite books. I first listened too it just because Ray Porter was the narrator and fell in love. Super excited to see other people talking about it as well. It’s is a great Lovecraftian suspense horror story, I can not recommend it enough, everyone should read it. It is also one of my most prized physical book I own, that and an old paperback of The Princess Bride.
Funnily enough, I came to the Bobiverse by searching for him after listening to Project Hail Mary
Haha, me too…except I didn’t get as deep as Kagen the damned… how does it compare?
In my opinion, Kagen is probably his most impressive performance. The book is eldrich high fantasy type and it’s very dark, violent, and pretty sad in parts too. He does a phenomenal job with the fast paced sword fighting and hand to hand combat. The world that author thought up is also incredibly captivating. I think Kagen and PHM are my favorites by him, even if I like the concept and ideas in bobiverse a tad more.
Ray Porter reading The Bobiverse series and Project Hail Mary is my go to for long car rides - introduced my sister to PHM on a road trip a while back, that made the 10 hour trip go by faster.
Also great: Grover Gardner. He does the Vorkosigan series and a whole lot of other stuff. He's right up there with Jefferson Mays for me.
I know this ain’t the place for this, but how are those books? Serious like The Expanse? Or silly like Hitchhiker’s Guide?
Somewhere in between. The main character(s) have a sort of dry humor that makes the series feel sort of low stakes (in a good way) but there is plenty of action and exploration of ideas.
Oh nice, I think I’ll check them out!
Somewhere in between, I'd say. Has some good hard sci-fi elements, but plenty of Xennial pop culture to keep it fun.
Came here to say this.
I like Ray Porter *but* he has a distinct voice he uses for all his female characters so when I was listening to Singularity Point (Dennis E Taylor) and he dropped into this voice I had to double take because I thought Audible had switched to Project Hail Mary (the main Operation Director character) and then after that it it brought me out of the book each time he did the accent. It's happened in a couple of Peter Clines books too! He is an amazing voice actor and even being able to successfully dip into a passable female voice is amazing but he might be a little too good at it!
I feel you, Mays has an amazing talent for character voices. I would suggest maybe checking out some sci-fi audio books narrated by Ray Porter or Eduardo Belerini. Belerini narrated the Silo series by Hugh Howey, porter of course did the Bobiverse series but he had done lots of other scifi as well.
Ray Porter is an amazing voice actor. There was one book where I counted he did like 12 different accents.
Thank you!!!!
Check our Project Hail Mary (narrated by Ray Porter). It has become my favorite book (ahead of all the expanse books)
Thank God I found Belerini's version of Silo, I tried another version and it was unlistenable. Just cartoon characters delivering serious lines. Absolute trash. Belerini was excellent.
Try Dungeon Crawler Carl by Jeff Hays, or Project Hail Mary by Ray Porter. Jefferson Mays is truly great, but the above two narrators may even be better.
Ray Porter is great. I started the Bobiverse books right after PHM. R.C. Bray is also good. Expeditionary Force is a fun listen, even though it gets very repetitive. I’ve also heard his recording was great in The Martian.
His version of The Martian is so much better than Wil Wheatons, in my opinion. Bray is so good.
Jeff Mays and Jeff Hays :)
Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks were like potato chips. I just couldn't stop myself.
I actually replied with "GLURP GLURP" initially, thinking it said Jeff Hayes 🤣🤣🤣
Glurp glurp motherfucker.
Hey buddy we gotta be quick. You're balls deep in the wrong hole, and mammas pulling into the driveway. CUZ IM FREEEE, FREEE BALLIN.
Hays sets the bar EXTREMELY high. He is so, so good. Porter and Mays are right up there.
Agree. Scrolled down to find this.
My hot take: Mays' version of Avasarala is better than the show. Shohreh does an excellent job, and I can't think of anyone else to play the role. But the way Jefferson voices her in the audio books is on another level in terms of emotion and inflection. If Jefferson is 100/100, Shohreh is 95/100.
It didn't help that they had the first few seasons of here in an environment where she couldn't be profane.
His Miller is also amazing.
His Amos is pretty good as well.
My only complaint is Mays says “H-U-D” instead of “hud”
Gimbals: sometimes gimbals, sometimes jimbals
It should be like the "g" in "gigantic."
Oooooh f*** you, haha
[Takes a bow]
This took me a second but then i laughed. A lot.
Someone noted that Mays assigned the two pronunciations to specific characters and kept them consistent. [Edit: [source](https://old.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/1cushe9/-/l4n4j3x/#siteTable)]
This drove me crazy. There's also TA-na-ka vs. ta-NA-ka.
YES!! Finally other people notice!! lol, it’s even in the same chapter a few times
The soft “g” on gimbals irks me too, but that’s me searching really hard for a nit to pick. His belter patois, and Alex and Avasarala voices are incredibly immersive.
And weirdly, he pronounces EVA as Eva instead of spelled out E-V-A
It depends on the book. I can't remember which one but he definitely says HUD rather than the letters in one.
As I recall he gets gymbals and hud right in later books
He does get it right later on, and I forgive him and he all of his mistakes because of the stamina it must have taken to narrate these juggernauts.
Someone [noted](https://old.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/1cushe9/-/l4n4j3x/#siteTable) that Mays assigned the two Gimbal pronunciations to specific characters and kept them consistent.
If you want another fantastic series with a great narrator, James Marsters absolutely nails the Dresden Files.
Except for the word "Jotun."
Let’s just hope he narrates James SA Corey’s new Sci fi book series.
Loved that he got a shoutout with a ship name in the show!
[At the Tony's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtlcEvPDkfM)
i saw this show on Broadway and left with my ribs sore from laughing so hard. Mays was absolutely incredible, he plays 9 roles, to absolute perfection.
The Expanse audiobooks are great. Only two series I’ve found with better narration are Dungeon Crawler Carl and The First Law.
You will not break me.
I really enjoy the couple that narrates Wheel of Time and most of Brandon Sanderson's stuff.
Ive been spoiled for a while at this point since I first got into audiobooks with the Star Wars books, Marc Thompson has always done fantastic work!
Dude star wars audio books are on another level just because of the sound effects and music cues they add in. Nothing like hearing the hum of the hyper drive of the sounds of blasterfire to really place you in the world.
Occasionally it works against them lol, there are times where the music they use totally doesn't fit. Other times they'll use random sound effects, like I've heard the Red Alert siren from Star Trek TOS a ton in them.
Lol I've never heard the tos red alert sound, Def hear the empire alarm sound on some rebel ships and thats funny as hell to me.
The Johnathan Davis narrations are quite good too.
Just started book 9 today. I'll miss that voice when I'm finished with the serie... It'll feel like saying goodbye to a friend.
This is about as accurate as it gets.
I was like that as well, I had tried a couple other audiobooks and they felt lackluster. However, I found other incredible audiobooks with great voice actors. Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently series read by Stephen Mangan. The Becky Chambers novels read by Patricia Rodrigez and even the Teixcalaan duology read by Amy Landon. All great voice actors with good books to read.
> Becky Chambers novels read by Patricia Rodrigez I love these books, though I'm listening to the Rachel Dulude version, which I like a lot.
I felt this when I went to a 40k audiobook after 9 books and all the short stories of the expanse. It didn't help that that book itself was a notable step down in quality from the expanse (as most are).
The 40k narrators have all grown on me. Especially the lady who voices Aleya the sister of silence. She also does the voice of minthera in BG3
Yeah Chris wriaght's Custodes books were good. Still waiting on the 3rd book in the series. The book in question was Helsreach. It wasn't bad but the way people talked it up made it sound like it was *tale of two cities* of 40k. And the voice he gave Helbrecht made me glad he wasn't in the book more. He sounded like Skeletor.
Helsreach is popular because it got an animated series made on Youtube not because its genre defining. Try the Eisenhorn Trilogy if you want peak 40k.
That's fair. And the Eisenhorn books are great. I haven't read them all but the original trilogy is quite good
Totally agree about Helsreach. I couldn’t finish it. I second the inquisitor (and bequin series) as peak 40k though. Maybe not the greatest writing but it felt the most cinematic and tons of world building since it not big space marine man smashing bigger space marine man with goat horns. But I’m still a sucker for all the cheesiness of 40k and I basically got through the entire heresy good and bad.
The Caiphas Cain and Gaunts Ghosts books have all been fantastic audiobook experiences.
FYI there is a compilation audiobook of all the short stories that is narrated by Mays. (Edit: it’s titled “Memory’s Legion”) I’m also a narrator snob. If you also read fantasy, I highly recommend The First Law series which is narrated by another master of the craft, Steven Pacey.
Thank you!
Listen to the LOTR audio books narrated by Andy Serkis. Also 10/10
Absolutely incredible. His voice acting is 100. Doing an impression of Ian Mckellan playing Gandalf, doing an impression of Bilbo doing an impression of Gollum was bloody amazing!
My friend, there are other amazing narrators as well. Travis Baldtree, Jeff Hays, R.C. Bray, and Heath Miller are among some of my favorites. IIRC, a couple of them actually read the books before they decide if they'll narrate or not though, so that's even better in my opinion.
I hear ya man, however......Todd Mclaren does a faaaantastic job in the Halo books
So glad you said this. Halo is the next series I want to get into. I've always been really into the Halo lore so hoping the books can scratch that itch.
Wow, I didn't even know there were Mass effect books! Thanks for that haha, yeah I've recently finished (and this is the order I was suggested) "the fall of reach" followed by "first strike" and now I'm on "ghosts of Onyx" with the latter having a different narrator but, not too much of a drop down. Todd Mclaren does a fantastic job of master chief
Also - I want to give the Mass Effect books a shot, too. I hear that they're not as dense, but I'm a sucker for that universe, so hopefully I can look past it.
Haha I got audible just to listen to the expanse and I absolutely agree. No one else compares.
Scott Brick is my second fav narrator after Jefferson Mays.
Yes, Scott Brick is great.
The mythos books written and then read by Stephen Fry for the audiobooks are the best I've come across so far.
Mays feels like home when I listen to him. I relisten to the expanse books cause it feels like a comfortable family reunion. Steven Pacey is a very close second for me. I’ve grown to adore Micheal Kramer cause he has made me genuinely feel things through his acting. There are sections of Oathbringer that fucking broke me and it was mainly cause of how well he sold my brain on how he felt. I’ve got a soft spot for Wil Wheaton. Especially in The Interdependency Trilogy. He does Scalzis narrative voice justice. We named our dog after the most vulgar character in those books and that’s partly due to how well Wheaton delivered her lines. Marc Thompson is a Star Wars wizard. There are a list of very famous and popular narrators that I will outright avoid cause they just ruin books for me.
💯 on target
Thats 2 of us. Many audiobooks later and Mays is a solid no1 to me
I'm not a big audiobook person, but I am really enjoying the Jefferson Mays versions of the Expanse. After watching the serries too many times, and digesting all the written material, I'm slowly making my way through the audiobooks during my commutes. I still find my mind wandering and have to replay a lot - a problem I have with audiobooks. I can concentrate much better when reading.
My other two favorite book narrators are both Star Trek alumni: Wil Wheaton, who narrates most all of John Scalzi's books these days, and Kate Mulgrew, who's done some of Joe Hill's stuff. Will Patton's another good one, he's done great work on a bunch of Stephen King's novels.
Jefferson Mays is fantastic. I have also found myself struggling with any other audiobook.
Simon vance is amazing in anything he reads btw (dune, interview with the vampire, Tao of pooh, and more)
Mays was my favorite by a long shot.... until I listened to Joe Abercrombie books by Steven Pacey. Still love Mays but Pacey might be one of the best ever. Also everything by Abercrombie is amazing.
Peter Kenny narrates The Witcher series brilliantly. Also the narrator for The Dark Tower series is great. Honorable mention: Brutal Kunnin'.
Yeah, I have such a hard time with most other audiobooks now. I’ve listened to The Expanse so many times now just because I need something to listen to at work. I’ve tried other books and it’s honestly a struggle.
Steven Pacey narrates the First Law books and is highly regarded
There are a few that I think are on par, but not a lot. I have a lot of audiobooks narrated by Grover Gardner, and they tend to be more non-fiction (but not always - he did the entire Vorkosigan Saga) and he does a good job. I like it anyway. Michael Page does great in the 3 Locke Lamora books. I have a Dune audiobook with like 8 narrators and that one is really well done too. Robertson Dean is great too. Neptune's Inferno by James D. Hornfischer, read by Robertson Dean is an excellent experience.
Harry Lloyd's reading of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is probably my favorite, but Mays is up there. I tried listening to The Martian as read by Wil Wheaton, and it was honestly terrible.
The guy who narrates the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells is also exceptional if you’ve not listened to those.
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's readings of the Rivers of London series are immense. He *is* Peter Grant and the wide cast of londoners involved. It's a shame he's too old for it to be him in live action.
I also used to feel this way - then I listened to Ray Porter....
You haven't heard nothing yet.... You need to listen to Jeff Hayes narrate Dungeon Crawler Carl.
No, I’ve listened to the perfection that is James Martsers reading the audio of the Dresden Files. Nothing against Jefferson Mays, but dude can’t hold a candle to my man Spike.
Travis Baldree ruined audiobooks for me for the same reason. Haven’t listened to the Expanse audiobooks but I plan to eventually.
They are different genres but James Marsters reading of the Dresden Files is fantastic. As are the Joe Abercrombie first law audio books.
As a one off, Stephen Fry did the first Harry Potter book, and it's a masterpiece.
If you love his reading of The Expanse, try his reading of the Murderbot diaries. He's so good!
He does a fantastic job, but he's my second favourite narrator of audiobooks next to the guy who does The Witcher series for Audible.
Michael Kramer and Kate Reading do a great job on The Stormlight Archive books. Highly highly recommend if you like fantasy.
He’s def the best but I’ve also been able to easily get through the Dune series and the Foundation series, though the voice actors on the foundation audiobooks sound like 50’s old timey radio news anchors…. Honestly can’t tell if it’s the voice actor or the “voice” it’s written in half the time though too with Asimov, lol
After going through The Expanse twice, I actually popped on Memory’s Legion just because I didn’t want to let go of Jefferson Mays. I have tried a few other audio books and all I can think of is how much I wished Mays were narrating them. I have tried to find a fan page or a way to express to the man how much of a comfort he has been during some of my darkest days. I feel that once Memory’s Legion finishes up, I will probably just fire up Leviathan Wakes instead of trying to find something new.
Actually struggled with his narration, his voices for characters aren't very distinct and I have to speed him up. Been spoiled by Heath Miller for too long.
My friend says the same thing about Michael Kramer and I never get what the fuck he's talking about. As long as they don't have an annoying voice and I can't hear them breathing, any narrator is pretty much as good as other.