I would listen to a thousand-page technical manual if it was read by Scott Brick. The man is my all-time favorite audiobook narrator. His voice conveys all the emotions, from gravity to levity, disgust to sex appeal, sarcasm to sincerity. And he does it in such an authentic way that you can really immerse yourself in the story.
I just had to share because I’ve listened to several audiobooks now that I wouldn’t have otherwise, because he narrated them. Probably my favorite is Moneyball, but he does justice to both fiction and nonfiction alike. Anyone else?
by you_fucking_donkey
23 Comments
He’s on my list of top 5! Him and Mark Bramhall top two male narrators for me.
Absolutely! I’ll definitely consider a book just because he’s the narrator.
Listened to an end-of-book interview with author Gregg Hurwitz. He has Brick narrate his books and even takes him on book tours. You can find videos of them together on YouTube.
Strangely, Scott Brick seems to split opinion: you either love him or hate him. I love him, and I honestly don’t get why some people hate him! My only guess is that, admittedly, he doesn’t have a lot of “range.” I mean, everything and everyone is read in his Scott Brick voice. Same tone, same cadence, same everything. Doesn’t bother me, though! Give me a spooky, ominous book read by Scott Brick and I’m happy.
Yeah I listen to Jurassic Park all the time. He’s great.
I love julia Whelan and others, but checking him out
He’s grown on me. I’ve listened to many Clive Cussler books he read, so I got used to him doing that tone of book and those characters. The I did one of the Lincoln & Child books recently and there he was. Very next boom was a Lee Child Jack Reacher novel and OMG it’s Scott Brick again. He did a great job on all.
From the title I thought this was going to be another hate thread so I came on here to defend him and then I read your post lol.
I have a hard time listening to audiobooks, I could listen to podcasts all day long but as soon as someone reads something out loud from a text my brain disassociates from my body and I have no idea where it goes. It wasn’t until I listened to a Scott Brick audiobook that all of a sudden I was able to focus and keep up with the words, it felt like he was telling me a story rather than reading off of something.
I can’t find a similar narrator that keeps my focus, and I wish he did more audiobooks because I don’t typically like the genres he narrates.
I recently listened to him in Sphere, Dune, JP, and Lost World. Love his work, will be listening to Dune Messiah soon.
I can absolutely never focus when I’m listening to audiobooks, but I’ll give one of his books a go! Do you have a fave?
Edit: Wait I realised you said Moneyball haha I’ll check it out 😄
I’m listening to him read ‘The Devil in the White City’ right now and am loving every minute of it.
He’s very good , also Steven Brand and my personal favorite Steven Pacey who’s the narrator for the first law series
The only audio book I’ve been able to listen to has Scott brick reading.
Thanks for sharing, I will check him out. My favorite is Jonathan Davis, he did Neil Stevenson’s Snow Crash. Actually coverted a few people who “hated reading” with his voice.
Thank-you for this post. It sent me down a rabbit hole that added many new books to my pile. The library, Amazon, and Audible…oh my! I’m excited to get to know his work and also the new authors I just discovered in that hole, LOL. My favorite narrator right now is Robert Petkoff, but I have room in my heart for more. 😉
First book I listened to where he was the narrator was “Spin” by Robert Charles Wilson. I think Brick has improved since then, because at the time I could not STAND his narration. I wasn’t alone, either. Here’s one example of a review of the audiobook:
>Spin is not only a great S-F novel, it’s a rarity in that field, with vivid characters who are interesting in their own right, aside from the startling originality of the plot and events they are caught up in.
>
>However, I find Scott Brick’s narcissistic ham-act so insufferable that I almost didn’t finish the audiobook, and (since there were no other narrators available) thought I’d trash it and buy the print version instead. But Wilson’s book was so good that I somehow gritted my teeth and weathered Brick’s narration, like getting used to a disagreeable odor. A narrator (or an actor) should always put their talent to the service of the text. Brick does the opposite: the text is a mere tool, serving his desire to display his talent. Another reviewer (Mary) finds him too sarcastic. It’s true that he often sounds sarcastic, but the problem is much deeper than that: no matter what he’s emoting, he’s always in-your-face, a relentless, repeated injection of puerile, inappropriate melodrama into the text every chance he gets. He seems incapable of simply letting the text guide the feeling of his voice — to the point that it’s sometimes hard to even understand what the author is saying, because Brick is in the throes of his need to display some strong emotion or other. There’s nothing wrong with a talented multi-dimensional narrative, and I’m not advocating dull neutrality, nor am I failing to see that Scott Brick does have considerable potential. But compare him with Simon Vance: a superb narrator who has an even greater range of voices and moods than Brick, yet NEVER allows it to get in the way of the text. Brick would do well to study this difference. His performance on Spin reminds me of nothing so much as the rantings of a Southern preacher, voice dripping with exaggerated softness at one moment, and searing with melodramatic ham-rage at another. Until I have evidence that he has fundamentally changed his approach to narration, I’ll avoid his books.
He HAS toned it down a bit, though. He does the Reacher books now and handles them pretty well.
He is a legend for sure. I know one of his friends who recommended his website that has TONS of resources about voice acting. Check it out fellow Voice actors!!
In around 2004/2005 I was living in the middle of nowhere and the only audiobooks I had on my Creative Zen Xtra MP3 player was the first four Dark Tower novels read by Frank Muller. I must have listened to them a dozen times. Got to the stage I couldn’t sleep without it.
Nice try Scott, nice try.
I’m not fond of his sound, personally.
This is so shocking to me, that you and other commenters affirmatively like him. I can’t stand him. If he’s the reader, I don’t care how much I want the book I won’t listen.
Not trying to argue about taste but for me he’s an overblown drama queen. If he did read that 1000-page technical manual, every word would be dripping with over-the-top phony emotional inflection—“This *manual!* was *published!!* in *2012*!!!!!”
I’m meh about him. I’ve listened to many by him and likely will many more in the future given how prolific he is but I do grow tired of him quickly. I won’t not listen to a book because of him like I do with some other narrators but if it’s an unknown author / book I’m less likely to give it a shot because of him.
love him as well – also RC Bray
Omg he is the WORST I’ve ever heard!! So fake, si forced, so over-dramatized. Listening to his version of Atlas Shrugged and it’s killing me.