From the vault: SIMON VANCE is an audiobook narrator and actor, Audible Hall of Fame member, and winner of 14 Audie awards and 67 Earphones Awards. As an Audiofile “Golden Voice” and Booklist Magazine “Voice of Choice,” he has recorded titles in all genres for many publishers, reading authors from Alan Moore to Sherlock Holmes. From Lily King’s “Euphoria” to “Bring Up the Bodies” by Hilary Mantel. Stieg Larsson to Frank Herbert? Yes. He has done horror, too. Clive Barker, Brian Lumley, and Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.“ Add “Paul is Dead” by Alan Goldsher to the list (the Beatles as zombies.) The “Master and Commander” series by Patrick O’Brien. The Biography of Rod Stewart. That list of over 750 titles includes “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell, one of my personal favorites (as a writer,) made into the remarkable movie starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. The only thing we can’t say about Simon is that he has never narrated (nor is he related to) Hugo winning Scifi author Jack Vance, whose novel “To Live Forever” was acquired by Blackstone Audio’s Grover Gardner due to my suggestion, narrated by Kevin Kenerly. Simon has also had parts in movies and TV series, and lives in Brighton, UK.
Jonathan Lowe) It's an honor to host the Audie Awards. What surprised you most about that?
Simon Vance) What surprised me most was being asked in the first place. I knew they were having difficulties finding a high profile host this year but Michele seemed to have everything in hand and was quite confident, as she told me at Katy Kellgren’s memorial just the week before she called me, that she’d be able to find someone from amongst the many ‘performers’ there already were amongst the narrators, should it come to that. Little did I know it would be me. Many years ago Bob Deyan had told me that he’d put me forward as a potential host, which shocked me at the time. But when Michele did call I just felt ready.
Lowe) But you were ready, having attended so many events over the years?
Vance) Over the past decade or so I’ve only missed one. So I knew how things worked, and was ready.
Lowe) Anecdotes to share? Favorite moments?
Vance) Favorite moments? Well, certainly the moment when the whole thing was over and I’d made it through relatively unscathed! Otherwise there are moments of satisfaction, in that I could say to myself “I handled that.” Back in 2006, I think, when Grover Gardner was the host I went up to accept my first Audie and while giving my acceptance speech. Every winner did back then. The event lasted hours. But I messed up the position of his notes and it took him some moments while he sorted them out and found his place again! I’ve always felt so guilty about that. Fast forward to this year and something similar happened to me…someone told me afterwards that they thought they’d moved my script and it was their fault that I started in on the wrong introduction. But I think I had confused the order of the pages myself…I’d call that karma. But I “handled it,” as I think I did in the moment things got awkward, when the audio/visuals didn’t behave and I filled the embarrassing silence with a little soft-shoe shuffle across the stage…which linked back nicely to my referencing the desire to do a song and dance number for the opening.
Lowe) Do you have any friends who prefer print books, which may go the way of cassettes and even CDs, as in Fahrenheit 451?
Vance) It’s not something I go around asking my friends! But I don’t see print books as being in the same category as cassettes and CDs by any stretch. Despite some people’s doom-laden prognostications, I believe there will always be print. Clearly it’s more expensive to create a hard cover book than it is to distribute data, but just look at the market for vinyl, which is also a relatively modern invention and again not really comparable to print. I think there will always be a desire to read words on paper and to collect libraries…I mean, the money isn’t there, so it’s never going to be as big as it was but this is not an art form that will vanish any time soon.
Lowe) What's next for you?
Vance) More of the same! I’m back in the studio already booked solidly for the next 6 weeks with an exciting roster of books from new and returning authors to look forward to in the fall.
Lowe) Thank you. And check out Vance reading David Copperfield, which is included in the original movie Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury as a book that must be learned and spoken aloud to be saved from the fire.
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Saw how ANNIHILATION compared to the audiobook (which is actually a trilogy), I can report that the movie was definitely worth the price of admission, whether of not you’ve read or listened to the books. (Available free on some cable outlets.) Still, it’s a different animal, and there are plenty of strange creatures populating both movie and “audio movies.” Natalie Portman starred with several of director Alex Garland’s Ex Machina actors, particularly Oscar Isaac, who was fantastic. Mood is everything, and although there are elements of horror, the movie does keep close to the tone of Jeff VanderMeer’s 2014 science fiction Southern Reach novel, which won a Nebula award. An opening shot of a meteor striking a lighthouse in the swamps of a park on the coast of northern Florida is followed by jigsaw scene pieces that move back and forth in time, like Pulp Fiction. The book is told through the biologist’s field journal into an expedition of Area X, which shimmers with inexplicable power. Others have died, going in, either (it is believed) by attack or by turning on themselves. Whereas the film takes a women with weapons direction, the book is more about induced visions and journals, with a “Crawler” writing cryptic messages on the walls of a tower that need to be de-cyphered. (Special effects and shooting sports being more important than reading or language, these daze.) Both concern biology and change being forced upon humanity. Why doesn’t the Army just roll in with tanks, or nuke it? Because the scientists want to understand it, as in Avatar. And this is not something that bullets can stop, anyway. It’s DNA, a subtle invasion and evolution of all species. Since change is scary, too, a few are in denial it’s happening…but giant hybrid creatures about to eat you (before transforming you) are difficult to deny, and so even the Army is freaking out…as they did in Arrival (based on the 2002 book “Stories of Your Life and Others” by Ted Chiang, which may have influenced VanderMeer, since it is also about understanding alien language, and also includes a tower.) As for Alex Garland, he wrote THE BEACH as a novel, which became the Leonardo DiCaprio film. (Alex also wrote The Tesseract, scripts for Halo, Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Dredd, Never Let Me Go, Big Game, Annihilation, and Ex Machina.) On audio, Annihilation is narrated by Carolyn McCormick. And speaking of wild horror creatures, there is THE SLENDERMAN MYSTERIES by Nick Redfern, narrated by Shaun Grindell. (Footnote: In the movie Annihilation, look for a Slenderman effect! Intentional or just optical illusion? Near the end, in the lighthouse, for about two seconds of special effects.)
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