One of the downsides to not having many friends who share your hobbies is that important events often slip by you. This is especially true when it comes to things that require publishing, and even worse when there are different formats. When it comes to something like anime, I often try not to watch a series as it's airing in Japan. This is the case for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I absolutely HATE having to wait for things in installments. I can delay gratification better if I simply avoid the entire series until I can down it in one gulp while the whole week to week thing drives me crazy. Second, there's also the quality issues as well as any potential censorship which may exist. Considering the fact that I do watch Type B anime, that's not an unusual phenomena. It's not that I would be absolutely devastated to not see animated boobies and panties and more the fact that I find censor animations to be beyond obnoxious, though sometimes unintentionally hilarious. If you want an example of the latter, you can take a look at my review of Rosario + Vampire. Frankly, if it meant getting rid of the censorship, I'd be a happier camper if the boobs went with them. Because that's the case, I will often spend time waiting for the DVDs and/or Blurays to come out which both improves the video quality and gets rid of the censorship. Since it can be months after the fact, because disks come in 2-episode dribps and drabs, it's easy to forget the show even existed much less remember to snag a copy.

Now, I've used anime as an example but this also applies to books. It's true I don't read all that much anymore but there are still a few series that I follow religiously and one of them just happens to be Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files. Like everything else, I can't keep track of when new books are supposed to publish since they only pop out once a year and there's often a delay for the audiobook, which I prefer. So I guess it shouldn't be to my shock that I accidentally discovered that the next book in the series, Ghost Story had actually been out since July! Even more unforgivable, the audiobook version came out almost a month ago! I could have been listening to the book a month ago!



It's currently downloading in bittorrent and I was rubbing my hands together with the anticipation. I figured the only real downside is that I only just discovered this now, and I will be flying out to Ohio in around 30 hours, meaning that there's no chance I'll be able to finish it before then. Chances are good I'll end up bringing it with me loaded onto the netbook which means I'll probably end up getting even less sleep then I normally would. I was happily waiting for the download and decided to read up on the wiki page for the series, seeing if there was any updated information about the next book when the other shoe dropped.

In a release on Jim Butcher's website on June 27th, 2011,[2] he reported that, due to personal reasons, James Marsters, who had voiced all the previous Dresden Files novels in audiobook form, would be unable to voice "Ghost Story". Instead, Glover, the actor who portrays Lionel Luthor on Smallville, recorded the book.

AHHHHH! WTF?!?!!? AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Holy !#%!#!@% !##% ^$#@$ @@%@!!! The only way I accept this is if James Marsters was hit by space debris and incinerated in a bloody conflagration where no pieces could be recovered. What THE HELL? I absolutely loved Marsters' reading of the Dresden Files and I think he did a lot to make the audiobooks so freaking enjoyable in the first place. I absolutely HATE change when it comes to something I love. I have no idea what the hell these 'personal reasons' were but I sincerely hope it wasn't some sort of contract dispute. I have no clue who this Glover guy is but I seriously doubt he can fill the big boots left behind.

Of course, when I go to John Glover's wiki page to find out who the hell he is, I find this at the bottom:

He was praised universally for his performance by critics and is speculated to return for the rest of the dresden series.

Of course there are absolutely no citations for this linking to any critics so I have no idea if it's full of shit or not. Not to mention I was hoping that Marsters would return for the next book and this was simply a small hiccup due to 'personal reasons' like they claimed. It looks like I might be stuck with this Glover guy now and no matter how good he is, it's always going to be a problem in the flow of the series as far as I'm concerned. The narrative voice I hear in my head will have changed and I find that depressing.

*sigh* Anyway, I see the download is 70% done and the first 3 or 4 parts are queued up and ready to go. I guess I should go listen to them though a lot of the enthusiasm has been killed. I just know I'm going to spend the next few hours comparing and contrasting the voice work and being pissed that there's any difference at all.