Robotic reading

The content of this book was valuable! But the stiff robotic reading aloud of the words was HORRIBLE!! Did a computer or a person read this? Many words were mispronounced like dressage. Phrasing of sentences was non existent. I almost couldn't stand to listen to this recording! Unacceptable!!!!! 😩😥

18 people found this helpful

Wonderful book - horrible narrator!!

What made the experience of listening to Horses Never Lie, 2nd Edition the most enjoyable?

I've never written a review for Audible but felt I had to because I'm so disgusted with their choice of narrators for thus book. First off, I absolutely LOVE this book and this author. I'd never heard of Mark Rashid until purchasing this book and after only a couple chapters I liked his writing and his message so much that I immediately bought his other books. I'm a huge fan of Parelli but now I think I might like MR better. Everything he says about horses is spot on in my book, as well as what he says about most "professional trainers". I recently adopted a rescue horse that was starved and abused by her former owners and I think MR books will be invaluable in helping me with her.

But as to the narration, is is the most awful narration I've ever listened to in my life, and I listen to a lot of audiobooks. It sounds like the narrator is trying to be "over the top proper" but it comes off SOO irritating!! Every "a" and "the" and every other syllable is pronounced "perfectly" and he speaks SOOOO SLOOOWLY - which is enough to drive me batty! No one really talks like that! No one, and certainly not an old "cowboy" horse trainer, so it's even more ridiculous considering the book he's reading! And this guy obviously has never even been around horses because he REALLY butchers any horse- related vocabulary. If you're going to narrate a book you could at least become familiar with the subject matter and vocabulary!

In fact, it sounds like this guy isn't even really familiar with ENGLISH. It sounds like he studied English through a phonics program, but never actually listened to any real live Americans speaking it. As a result he comes off sounding more like a computer generated voice than a real person. It's so bad that I finally had to stop listening to the narration and just read the book myself. His narration was actually distracting me so much I couldn't pay attention to the book, and it's too good a book to miss. Adding narration to the book was a total waste of money, however. I will definitely be more careful in the future and review the narration before I buy it and I will NEVER buy a book narrated by this guy again! He needs to find a new career - one that doesn't involve speaking.

PS It's not that I have a problem with "proper English" at all - I'm usually a stickler for it, and my favorite narrators are British, who speak a lot more properly than most American narrators. But this guy is an American who seems to have no grasp of how his fellow Americans speak, and it comes off sounding ridiculous, condescending and annoying.

How could the performance have been better?

Get a different narrator - one who knows how real Americans actually speak. This one was the most ridiculous narrator I've ever heard!

Any additional comments?

Get a new narrator!

16 people found this helpful

Narrator ruins the book!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

No! Because the narration was so terrible (Dan Lawson sounded like he had either just learned English or was speaking to Kindergarten children) that I had wished I had bought the book to read instead of listed to. It makes me leery of listening to other books by Mark Rashid even though the Narrators are different. The information contained in the book was good however.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Dan Lawson?

John Pruden

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

14 people found this helpful

Horrible Narrator

This is such an excellent book, in spite of the narrator. If you're going to narrate a book with language you're unfamiliar with, ASK SOMEONE how to pronounce each unfamiliar word. This is your JOB. Ugh...save your money.

12 people found this helpful

First, determine whether your animal is a Horse.

Would you listen to Horses Never Lie, 2nd Edition again? Why?

I'll be listening to this again and again. I'm a dog lover and grew up with horses. horses have "prey minds" dogs have "hunter minds" but the relationship between people and their animals has a lot of similarities. Listening to this book brought back the best of my history with horses and from there the author added a lot to think about.

What did you like best about this story?

This book isn't a "how to" book, it's a parable, with lessons told in the form of stories.

Any additional comments?

I'll be buying more of this author's books. Any one who teaches any being, including self teaching -- will benefit from this book.

10 people found this helpful

Great book, awkward narrator

I really enjoyed listening to this book, but I felt that the narrator did a shoddy job of living up to the feeling that Mark Rashid had put into his book. Dan Lawson's narration makes the book sound as though it is written by a young, inexperienced person, not an older midwestern gentleman and rancher. For some reason this caused some of the verbiage to sound really jarring and as though the words were badly chosen, when obviously it is just how Mark Rashid speaks and thinks. For instance, Rashid talks about his adult children, which Lawson sounds too young to have.

The narration aside, I felt it was a very good book for horse lovers to read, whether you are into training or not. It also can be seen as a book for leaders in general, as an allegory for how much it can benefit a leader of horses or people to be calm, predictable, and reliable. Rashid explains how the relationship between horses and people can be, and he clearly has a greater insight into horse body language than the average person. In the book he talks about how horses generally want to please - they are social creatures. He also mentions a very important point, which runs as a theme throughout the book - horses are designed to expend as little energy as necessary in order to survive when a predator comes. A horse that seems lazy really is just being smart, from his perspective.

All in all, a good book, which I definitely recommend if you love horses.

6 people found this helpful

Bad Narrator

This is my 4th book written by Mark Rashid, on Audio books
While all 4 were great books, the narrator on Horses Never Lie, was so bad that I struggled to finish listening to it. Very robotic and seemed like the very first read through.
Go back to Mike Chamberlin or Kevin Young.
Mike Chamberlin, made me feel like I was being told a story live, not having a book read to me.

4 people found this helpful

Seriously redundant

Pretty sure I learned the lesson this guy is trying to impart when I was 15. The lesson was also apparent by chapter 3 of his book where it was obvious we were going to take a long drawn out journey covering the exact same topic every chapter. While it is a valuable concept that every horse trainer, rider or handler should be aware of it is nothing new and shouldn't take 7 hours of narration to explain. Would have been better if it had been cut in half.

4 people found this helpful

Awesome stories, horrible narration

Everyone else has said it already. For a while, I wondered if a computer was narrating the book bc the voice was so awkward and robotic. If the writer ever has a chance to redo the narration on this book, I hope he does it. Almost ruined the book for me, but the stories were so great that I hung in there. Hopefully his other books have a different narrator.

2 people found this helpful

Loved the book

I love Mark’s heart however this narrator needs to lighten up and not enunciate with such drama “a” does not need to be “a”. This drove me crazy!

2 people found this helpful