Audiobooks end too quickly!

[TheMagicSword]

Does anyone else find that audiobooks end very very abruptly?

I always have thought this but today’s was ridiculous.

The book was building to a crescendo, imagine being dragged up and up a cliff path, seeing the top, knowing what’s coming, but just as you’re balancing and teetering on the edge, holding your breath, closing your eyes to avoid the inevitable you lose your footing and slip and AUDIBLE THANKS YOU FOR LISTENING. Like someone chucking a bucket of water over you just before orgasm. Can’t they allow a few seconds of silence for the reader?

If it was an actual book rather than a blog or one of their short articles then I suspect the audio book ends where the author ended their story. If it was a physical book it would have ended in the same place.

I agree @TheMagicSword It totally destroys the atmosphere the author has worked to create. The same happens with bbc sounds and some podcasts, as if they can't bear to have two seconds of silence to allow the listener to savour the moment or pause the device in order to reflect on what he or she has just heard.

I agree, although maybe wouldn't have gone for the same imagery I definitely hate the audible buzzkill man.

I guess with a book you can physically feel the end coming, whereas it does sometimes just slap you in the face out of nowhere with an audiobook.

I'm listening to one at the moment with all the end-of-chapter pauses about 3 times longer than expected. It's a very small thing but it's driving me mad.

I expect there'll be a looooonnnnnggg pause at the end.

The problem is, with a physical book you can see when you are down to the last few pages, so you expect the narrative to be concluded. With an audiobook, you probably aren't looking at what percentage of the book is left, so you are not mentally preparing for the ending.

The audible "voice" (not the story narrator) irritates the hell out of me. He just sounds so.... SMUG!!! Lol at the "Audible Buzzkill Man" :D

My other pet peeve is abridged books on audible. A precious credit spent on something that's over in a couple of hours. I spend a lot of time on the road and need to get my money's worth!

@BigFatLiar yes it ends on the same words, it’s just that the audible voice cuts in less than a second after the narrator has finished the last word.

Haha, maybe I need to listen to that one!

Yes, I do think they should have a few seconds of silence before the credits.

The thing that annoys me more is when music is played over the last few sentences of the audiobook. This used to happen a fair bit but I haven’t heard it recently (thank goodness). The last thing I want when reaching the poignant end of a novel is some random music drowning out the last words!

I did second guess myself on the imagery, but I figured it got the point across.

I’ll always think of him as “audible buzzkill man” now 😂

Yep. Same with TV, or films on TV. You've just watched, I dunno, a serious drama set during the Armenian genocide, or a documentary about a man whose wife has dementia that's been acclaimed as a haunting meditation on life and loss, or an examination of the immediate and lasting effects of the Hiroshima bombing, and…

as the last words are ringing in your ears and the carefully-selected credits music begins…

or the soundtrack fades to the silence the director has chosen to run over the first part of the credits, in order to allow you to absorb and sit with what you've learnt and experienced…

BAM

the credits are instantly squeezed into a tiny unreadable postage stamp in the corner of the screen, garish pictures of people you don't care about, either naked or covered in sequins, are plastered over the screen, and a continuity announcer yells at you that

NEXT ON CHANNEL SHITTY, CLINT'S SHAGGING MIA BUT RYAN DOESN'T KNOW! AND OVER ON SHITTY+2, IT'S TIME FOR I'M HAVING A CELEBRITY 400LB GYPSY WEDDING, GET ME OUT OF HERE ON ICE!

and you never get that moment to process everything you've seen, heard, thought and felt over the past hour or two, or to look at the names of the people who created the work you just appreciated.

IT'S PART OF THE FUCKING FILM. FUCK OFF.

So true.

Some have music, which helps a lot.

So long as the music isn't played over the last words, of course!