Behind the Mike Q&A with Stefan Rudnicki, October 15, 2010 

In the past 16 years, Stefan Rudnicki has produced, directed, and narrated over 2000 audiobooks, several of them Grammy and Audie Award winners. His deep, gravelly voice can be heard across a wide range of genres, though he is perhaps best known for his narration of sf titles. His latest recordings include Harry Sidebottom’s King of Kings (Oct. 1) and I.J. Singer’s The Brothers Ashkenazi (Oct. 19), both from Blackstone Audio.

How do you prepare for narrating a new book?
Because I average a book a week, there’s obviously no time to read every word prior to recording. In fact, I’ve found that on those occasions where I have studied the text fully, a kind of spontaneity is lost. [So] over the years I’ve developed a method of scanning a book for a few key types of data.

What kind of data?
I look for words and names I need to research for pronunciation, major characters who will need to be identified by voice or attitude, language or stylistic issues that may require decisions or coaching, a sense of the arc of the narrative, and, perhaps most elusive, I evaluate the tone the author evokes.

To what do you attribute your success as a narrator?
Whatever success I’ve had stems, I believe, from a commitment to each author’s style and intentions through the medium of story­telling. My hope is that by this process, every recording becomes an expression of a particular vision and a specific emotional truth, fundamentally different book by book and yet ultimately real and satisfying.

Anything you’d like to record that you haven’t yet gotten to?
Fredric Brown’s mysteries. He was a master of the pulp story and wrote dozens of fabulous mysteries in the 1940s and 1950s that have been overlooked and are mostly out of print. The narrator’s voice in these books, more so even than in his better-known sf stories, is always smart, arch, passionate, and witty—just great fun. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found an audiobook publisher I can convince to take a chance on sales, and there are genuine questions as to who currently owns the rights.

Which single production of yours would you like to see in every library?
Since Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (AudioGO from Macmillan Audio) is probably already in every library, I would then say Nelson Algren’s Never Come Morning (Blackstone Audio). It’s a profound study of the human condition, as evidenced in Chicago immigrant society. Brilliant book. Emotionally devastating. Needs to be heard.

What can we expect from you next?
Orson Scott Card’s new novel, Pathfinder (Brilliance Audio, Nov. 23); with me on this one are Scott Brick (see Behind the Mike, LJ 10/15/09), Kirby Heyborne, Don Leslie, and Kristoffer Tabori. Also, Günter Grass’s The Box (Blackstone Audio, Nov. 10) and Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory (Brilliance Audio, Dec. 21). On Audible, look for the seven key novels of the Dorsai/Childe series by Gordon R. Dickson—amazing military sf with conceptual leaps to challenge any listener.