The Hope Of Elantris [Dramatized Adaptation]

Elantris

By: Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by: full cast, Colleen Delany, Kimberly Gilbert, Mort Shelby, James Lewis, Richard Rohan, Michael John Casey, Danny Gavigan, Tracy Olivera, Eric Messner, Nanette Savard, Chris Davenport

Length: 38 mins

Publisher's Summary

Notes from the author: The following is a short story I wrote in the Elantris world back in January of 2006. At that point, Elantris had been out in stores for only about seven or eight months, but I actually hadn’t written anything new on the story or world since 2000, when I’d finished the first draft of the original book.

There were always a few holes in the manuscript where I decided not to include viewpoints or sections of explanation in the name of streamlining, particularly at the end. In the back of my mind, I knew what happened. This story talks about one of those holes; it is meant to be heard after you’ve finished the novel and takes place during the events of the climax. In the annotation, I’ve written a further explanation of why I wrote this piece. Some of you may find it interesting to hear this ahead of time; I put it in the annotation, however, as I know others would rather enjoy the story without bias beforehand, then hear my thoughts afterward. Either way, if you haven’t listened to Elantris, this contains major spoilers. Might I suggest listening to the book first? This story won’t work at all for you if you haven’t.

Performed by Colleen Delany, Kimberly Gilbert, Mort Shelby, James Lewis, Richard Rohan, Michael John Casey, Danny Gavigan, Tracy Olivera, Eric Messner, Nanette Savard, Chris Davenport, Evan Casey, Scott McCormick, Ken Jackson, Timothy Lynch, Thomas Penny, Rose Elizabeth Supan.

©2006 Brandon Sanderson (P)2017 Graphic Audio, LLC

Difficult to hear

Nice little dramatization, but the aeons are little too distorted and hard to understand and the background noise - particularly the loud combat sounds - are so overwhelming it is hard to concentrate on the words. Immersion is great but if I can't hear the story it's self-defeating.

Major characters and site name mispronounced

Brandon Sanderson Cosmere fan here. If you've listened to the full-length Elantris novel on Audible multiple times, as I have, those pronunciations of major character's names and indeed of "Elantris" itself are now canon in my head. If you listen to Brandon's live streams, his pronunciations are consistent with Michael Kramer and Kate Reading's as they narrate his full length novels. Major changes to primary character name pronunciations in this version just ruined this for me and I just couldn't listen to it. I will return it if I can. Plus, this title is included in the "Arcanum Unbounded" anthology with Michael and Kate narrating and maintaining consistency. I enjoyed that version MUCH more than this.

Great Short Story but Don't Like the Dramatization

This is a fun short story, but you need to read or listen to Elantris first.

I really do not like the dramatization in this audio book. It makes it difficult to listen to especially with the voices of the aeons. The distortion with them is terrible and very annoying to listen to.

This story is in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection. Get it instead of this. It also has some of Sanderson's other short stores. Even though I love Sanderson I don't like these dramatizations.

Disappointingly flashy

High production quality.
Fast paced narration that makes it intolerable to listen to for me. It seems like half of this audiobook us people sighing dramatically. Perhaps my expectations were too high after reading the raving reviews for the graphic audio books. I still like the idea of multiple voice actors but the pace in this audiobook is just intolerably fast, it's like a low quality action movie that relies on cuts that are less than a second to keep you hooked.

Almost every proper noun mispronounced

Graphic Audio should be ashamed. It isn't that hard to listen to the official audiobook and figure out the pronunciation.

A short and sweet radio drama.

The Hope of Elantris was a good story, I always enjoy full cast productions because they bring the story to life in a way that is difficult for most single narrators to do. This story was no exception; it was exactly as good as you'd expect a 38 minute long radio drama to be. If you're already a fan Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books, this may be on that you enjoy as much as Sanderson's other short stories - and for the price - it's worth a listen. If you've never read anything from the Cosmere before, this is not an entry point. You will be completely lost if you haven't read Elantris.