You never forget your first time.
Posted on: September 30, 2013
I did many cool things this past weekend. One of them was listening to the audio of The Incrementalists. It’s narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal and Ray Porter. I live under a rock and didn’t know who Ray Porter was. Kowal was great (and she gets to read one of my favorite scenes), but this other guy, Porter?
This blog post is not a review of the audio.
You read my review of The Incrementalists and it doesn’t seem like your thing? Fine. I won’t hold that against you. Still, get something else Ray Porter narrated. Do it because you trust me. And do it because this man’s voice does something you to. Something that words and ink and turning pages can’t do.
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You never forget your first time.
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Ray Porter’s voice moves over you like a summer storm. Unstoppable, his voice contains the roiling tension of the incoming storm front, the thunder you feel through your feet before your ears know what it is, the shadow that falls as the clouds roll in, everything to that surreal moment when your breath catches in the silence and the stillness before the storm hits. And then the skies open up, and in his voice are the rhythms of the rain, from gentle caresses to a pounding need to being in every pore of the parched ground beneath; the tympani pulse of the thunder that resonates in your chest; the rain becoming an ocean and drowning feeling like heaven.
And as his voice fades, you are left with the shattered remains of the sated clouds that slowly lie down in repose, their edges set on fire by the glorious sunset.
The storm has passed. And all you can do is reach out with your quivering, cloudy fingers and whisper “you must come back. my ground is still thirsty for you”.
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Or I suppose you could just hit play again on the file.
Stay tuned, I have more cool stuff for you tomorrow and the next day. Photos! Links! the awesomess that was ConText! book reviews! you know, more of the cool stuff and less of these weird misguided attempts at prose-y things in which I tell all the rules of writing to fuck off because I’m having a moment.
2 Responses to "You never forget your first time."
October 2, 2013 at 2:23 pm
I remember the first time I started a Heinlein book, back in about 1956. It was The Rolling Stones. After that I went almost straight to Starship Troopers, and everything else by him juveniles and adult, along with Hal Clement (who remains a favorite to this day) and so many others.
I know you were posting about AUDIO books and hearing a great reader for the first time, but your title triggered this memory.
I also remember clearly my first reading encounter with Sherlock Holmes, it was “The Red Headed League” and I then gobbled up all of the Conan Doyle Holmes I could find.
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the Little Red Reviewer 
September 30, 2013 at 8:11 pm
Beautiful. And I agree with you.
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