Inkspell

By: Cornelia Funke

Narrated by: Brendan Fraser

Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of Inkheart, the book whose characters came to life–and changed her life forever.

But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater brought into being from words, the need to return to the original tale has become desperate. When he finds a crooked storyteller with the magical ability to read him back, Dustfinger leaves behind his young apprentice Farid and plunges into the medieval inkscape once more.

Distraught, Farid goes in search of Meggie, and before long both are caught inside the book, too. There they meet Inkheart's author, Fenoglio, now living within his own story. But the tale is much changed, and threatening to evolve in ways none of them would have ever imagined. Will Meggie, Farid, and Fenoglio manage to write the wrongs of a charmed world? Or is their story on the brink of a very bad ending?©2005 Cornelia Funke; (P)2005 Random House, Inc., Listening Library, a division of Random House, Inc.

Brendan Fraser??

While my husband and I are enjoying the story and writing in Inkspell even more than the original Inkheart, the switch in readers from the very talented Lynn Redgrave to the very.... um... good-looking.... Brendan Fraser has made listening to this series a chore. We have several times been tempted to go purchase the actual book so we can finish the story without Fraser's horribly jarring narration, but having spent so much money on the audiobook here at Audible, we feel like we might as well try to finish it.

Our chief complaint is his decision to voice almost all young or female characters as shrill and screeching. We dread the chapters featuring Elenor, though Redgrave's portrayal of her in the first book made her one of our favorite characters. Also irritating is how almost every character is given a strong foreign accent based apparently on cultural stereotypes. Even though almost all of these characters are supposed to live in the same general region and speak the same language, romantic women have thick Tuscan accents, evil women have a strong Russian accent heavily reminiscent of Bullwinkle cartoons, uppity characters have French accents so thick you can barely make them out, criminals are Cockney, heroes are Irish, the only character actually described in the story as Italian sounds like a Jersey mob boss, and the only Black character, of course, sounds like he could have starred in Forrest Gump. Finally, Fraser's constant. over. enunci. ation. of. words. for. em. pha. sis is driving us nuts. This isn't Star Trek!

This is a very entertaining and well-written story, but if the quality of the narration is at all important to you, I recommend purchasing the actual book and reading it yourself.

Sample before downloading.

I understand the dismay of many listeners. Lynn Redgrave was impeccable. Brendan Fraser is anything but restrained. For some people, this was aggravating but lucky me, I enjoy his performance. While I'm disappointed in the director and producer for not taking the time to correct his missteps, I was able to recover my listening experience each time. In the end, must conclude the whole story would be better served by a full cast (as in GOLDEN COMPASS) vs. the punishing work of all those characters falling to one actor. Worth the listen, for me. And I would gladly hear other Brendan Fraser work. And I am saving up points to get the next volume, which reader sounds terrific too.

Narrator not as good

I loved the narrator of Inkheart, I couldn't get used to all of the voices and how they had changed. Cornelia Funke is an excellent writer and all of her work should be read (or listened to.)

Brendan Frasier?

I know he was in the horrible movie, but now he's completely ruined my ability to listen to the rest of this story. He's too loud and then too quiet, and everything feels over acted. I love this book, and this story, but I won't be finishing this audiobook. Waste of a credit.

Great story, Inconsistent narration

This story was wonderful, but the nicest thing I can say about the narration is that it was inconsistent. Fraser's reading was distracting and jarring throughout. The characters were given a variety of thick stereotypical accents from various regions, many of which made little to no sense with the storyline, and the female characters all screeched and squawked like crows. Eleanor and Mo were two of my favorite characters in InkHeart, but I didn't care for either of them in this reading. All of the characters were over-dramatized and the over-the-top accents weren't even sustained evenly throughout the narration. The speed and volume were wildly inconsistent as well. I've never had to toggle my volume button so much in a single novel! He read some parts just above a whisper and stretched out the narration in a Shatner-esque staccato where it made no sense to do so. When he wasn't whispering, he was squawking and shouting, racing through the text like an auctioneer -- sometimes this would make sense (as in an action scene), but other times a character would be in quiet contemplation, (considering possibilities) and he raced through it wildly. My son and I listened to this on a road trip and we both agreed to get the paper version of this novel when we get home so we can re-read it together.