Twenty Years After

I beg to differ from the other reviewers. I believe the late Frederick Davidson (aka David Case) was without exception the best reader of audiobooks. Although I agree that this reading is slightly below his usual standard, Davidson below par is still better than most other readers at their best. The novel is the first sequel to The Three Musketeers and, although there is a bit less humor in this work, if you liked the original you will probably like this sequel.

It is far from lost on me that Fredrick Davidson put a great deal of effort and enthusiasm into this production. That said, his attempts at characterization, while spirited to say the least, were so very awful that I decided to spend the money on a different rendition of the story instead of suffer through the remainder of his performance. For instance, he portrays d'Artagnan with a caricature of a voice that might be appropriate for a stuck-up British dandy, similar in tone to Peter Sellers' role of Mandrake in the 1964 film "Dr. Strangelove." I kept expecting him to say "aHmmm... jolly good, yes" at any moment. His other character voices are bad, but d'Artagnan is insufferable. In addition to this, Davidson's pronunciation of French (as well as those words borrowed from other languages which frequently come up) is simply awful. Even the humblest actor should know better than to approach such a role with little or no preparation.

This story is a classic and my one star rating is solely based on the unacceptable voice acting. Please, get a copy of this amazing tale of adventure and gallantry. But DO NOT choose this one.

I recently finished this book after listening to "The Three Musketeers" narrated by John Lee. The story was excellent, but the narrator almost killed it for me. Besides the fact that he had trouble maintaining the same voices for characters from chapter to chapter, the voices which he chose seemed to detract from the characters. The editing was also somewhat sloppy because I occasionally thought that I could hear papers rustling and also the narrator tripped up slightly on several sentences which I felt should have been edited. Anyway, I would give the story 5 stars and the narrator 0.

I recently discovered Dumas' D'Artangion series, starting with the first one that is narrated by Simon Vance. I then skipped "Twenty Years After" and listened to "The Man in the Iron Mask", also narrated by Simon Vance. I decided to go back and listen to the one's I'd missed, starting with "Twenty Years After", narrated by Frederick Davidson. Well, in a work "Yuck". Mr. Davidson is a sad excuse for a narrator/reader/story teller. I gave it a chance, listening for two hours. Alas, I could not take Mr. Davidson any more and decided to check the book out of the library, as Simon Vance does not narrate a version of this book. I have placed Mr. Frederick Davidson on my do not listen to list forever.

Terrible, will never listen to a book narrated by Mr. Davidson again, NEVER.

I repeat all of Susanne's comments, verbatim. I am vastly disappointed. Like she, my one star is for the narrator, not the story.

Dumas is a delight but this one didn't gel and it took three listens to finally get the whole tale. Still, a Classic none the less

Twenty Years After is a worthy successor to The Three Musketeers, unusual for a sequel. Dumas is excellent in aging and maturing the characters for the better or the worse based on the trajectory of the personality of each. The caliber of the books in the series varies. but the first 2 are great adventure stories.

However, the narrator is not up to the material. His monotone detracts both in the narrative & the personification of characters. In dialog, monotone is not the only problem. Almost all lines are delivered as if the character was condescending, bored or domineering. There is virtually no distinction between characters. I would recommend this rendition of Twenty Years After only to those who are willing to endure the narrator in order to hear the story.

At first i was unsure with the reader of this installment but within 20 mints I was in the wonderful world of Alexandre Dumas. I have totally enjoyed these novels and am sad they are coming to an end.

Somewhere in the middle. Took a while to go through it. The reader wasnt always consistent in the voices, and d'artangion a hauty voice which really irritated me. The story itself was very political, not as much action as the first book. Too many characters to keep track of. Had to relisten to many parts because i missed something from zoning out.

I love dartangian's wittiness. U see it a lot in this book

Nooo