The Skull

By: Philip K. Dick

Narrated by: Mike Vendetti

Length: 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

A man is given the chance to get out of jail, but he must travel back in time and kill a man who has changed the world. His only clue to the identity of this individual is a skull. The man's skull is 200 years old. What if?

Public Domain (P)2013 Audio Books by Mike Vendetti

Great old-school sci-fi short story

I enjoyed the story. It was great fun and a quick read. I was torn about how to rate this production, though.

I was thrilled to find this kind of old-school sci-fi available through Audible. And, like I said the story was great. When it started though, I recognised the narrator's voice from the Librivox's production of "Red Badge of Courage". In that audiobook, he mispronounced a word I felt he really should have known (or looked up). It irked me because it yanked me out my immersion in the story. But it was Librivox and free, so it was no biggie.

Just a short way into this Audible book, though, he pronounces “Martian”, “martin”. Add to this the fact that his reading style doesn’t do much for me, and hopefully you will understand why I felt I could only give the narration two stars.

The key reason I switched from free audiobooks on Librivox to paid ones on Audible is quality of the narration. If the quality is not there, I’m left feeling a bit disappointed. Mind you, this story is probably not available on Librivox and also, this story was not very expensive. So, maybe I should just chill a bit...

In the final analysis, I do NOT want to discourage Audible from making these sorts of obscure and/or short classics available. I want to encourage it. That said, someone at Audible should be carefully reviewing these cottage-industry readings to at least check the pronunciation.

(I say “cottage industry” as I see from his website that this narrator has gone into the business of encouraging others to narrate fringe classics in the public domain. In fact, the very next story I listened to, Isaac Asimov's "Living Space" was a result of this effort. Again, the general idea of making these great old stories available is a great one.)

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Philip Dick

Narrator did great job of this short story. It was my second listen to this book. A permanent keeper.

Short but powerful

Mike does a pretty good job narrating; Very casual, almost as though passing on quirky story heard from a friend. Can't say more without giving it away!