Locke & Key

By: Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez

Narrated by: Haley Joel Osment, Tatiana Maslany, Kate Mulgrew, full cast

Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Finalist, Original Work, 2016

Based on the best-selling, award-winning graphic novel series Locke & Key - written by acclaimed suspense novelist Joe Hill (NOS4A2, Horns) and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez - this multicast, fully dramatized audio production brings the images and words to life. 

A brutal and tragic event drives the Locke family from their home in California to the relative safety of their ancestral estate in Lovecraft, Massachusetts, an old house with powerful keys and fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them. As siblings Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke discover the secrets of the old house, they also find that it's home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all.... 

Featuring performances by Haley Joel Osment (Entourage, The Sixth Sense), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), Kate Mulgrew (Orange Is the New Black, Star Trek: Voyager), Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez, and Stephen King (The Stand, 11-22-63), as well as a cast of more than 50 voice actors, this audio production preserves the heart-stopping impact of the graphic novel's astounding artwork through the use of richly imagined sound design and a powerful original score. 

*Locke & Key contains explicit language and adult situations. 

Experience this title in immersive 3D audio by setting your download quality to High within the app. Headphones recommended. For more, browse our entire collection of 3D audio listens. 

©2014 Joe Hill (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The concepts in this production, based on a graphic novel, are perfectly executed by a full cast.... Kate Mulgrew leads the way with her perfect portrayal of an ancient grandmother with an evil streak." (AudioFile)

I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

This book was just a comic book that drags on and on and on. It is very difficult to follow because of all the different readers, some of which put me to sleep as soon as they started reading.

I am a Huge Joe Hill Fan

So, Please Hear Me Out
I believe I have bought and read every Joe Hill book on the market. I love the guy. It will take more books, before I know if I like him better then his dad, but he has a good start.

FREE
Right now this is free and it might not stay that way, so by all means get it.

The Graphic Version is Better.
This is a full cast with music and sound effects and that is all good. Stephen King even does a walk on. For me doing this book this way, made it sound more young adult then it is meant to be. Yes, graphic novels are not for old guys like me, but they audio version comes off as a little silly and over done. At times during the screaming (which is blood curdling) it is easy to get lost on who is doing what. Since it is not done in a novel version, there is a lot that seems missing. A novelization of this would probably work out great. Gabriel Rodriguez does the art work and it is art. The art adds a lot or is the whole story. After listening, see if you can find the book, you will see what I mean. Having the graphic novel also gives you the ability to take your time and admire the art and the story. I just feel the graphic novel is more fulfilling.

Folks, this is an audio play.

Dismiss all the negative reviews from people complaining they couldn't follow the narration.

Why? Because it's not narrated. This is an audio play, much like what people used to listen to on the radio a hundred years ago or so. Yes, there are many different voice actors, and yes you do have to pay attention to follow the plot. But it's worth it.

I enjoyed the hell out of this and want to find more audiobooks in this vein. It's one thing for a narrator to describe a scream, it's quite another to hear the actual terror and pain.

don't waste your time/money

everything about this book/audiobook was horrible. story was just an edge feast trying to make each new situation worse than the last. I'd say nearly 10% of this audiobook is crying or screaming. Another 10% being music randomly played for 20 seconds to over a min straight transitioning between scenes. At times there will be a struggle situation and it isn't clear what happened until later when you find out one of the characters is still alive. just overall a horrible story and horrible production . It's like listening to a movie playing in the next room over.

"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places"

I'm not a comic book/manga reader. It's probably an age thing. I don't remember any good comic books at the corner drug store that I could walk to in the small Midwestern city I grew up in. Archie, Jughead and Richie Rich just didn't do it for me. The last "comic book" I bought was Stephen King's "Creepshow" (1982), with its fantastic artwork by Bernie Wrightson - and yes, it was published before George Romero's mediocre movie of the same name was released.

With writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Ramirez "Locke & Key" (2008 - 2013, limited series comic books, IDW publisher; 2015, Audible Studios performance), Audible actually created a new genre: Audible Comics. At least, I think that's what they are planning to call it. Right now, it's 'uncategorized' in the book index. Whatever genre it is, it works quite well as a listen.

According to the Wikipedia entry for "Locke & Key", the director of the Audible performance is voice actor William Dufris. Wikipedia can be hit-or-miss, but the "Locke & Key" entry spawned footnotes like bunnies, and it looks credible - although I can't find a second source to confirm the director. Whoever did direct the performance did an astounding job. There are a bunch of really talented actors (about 45, plus the three top billed stars); great sound effects; and specially commissioned music.

It took me a while to get through "Locke & Key" because it demands careful attention. Miss a few important lines, and you'll miss a plot twist. It should be listened to at night, when the imagination can run wild and scared, and without the distraction of smart phones and television. Have a cup of hot herbal tea, or a glass of red wine to go with the listen. It is, after all, Lovecraft, Massachusetts, where the line between worlds is just a hidden door deep within a drowning cave; locked with key after key forged from metaphysical metal; and guarded by the echoes of loved ones, daemons from ghastly other worlds, and teenagers who ease into the supernatural like easing into driving. They'll tell you it's an awesome and frightening responsibility, but you get used to it.

"Locke & Key" is really a new form of storytelling. It relies heavily on the imagination, which makes the experience different for every listener. The production quality - the actors, the music and the effects - is so high (and probably so expensive) it will be hard for future performances of other works to meet the standards this performance sets. Enjoy the scare - it's well worth the time to listen.

The title of the review is a quote from "The Picture in the House" (1920, 1921) by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937).

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It's a mess

Ihave a feeling I'd really like the graphic novel. But the audiobook is a mess. There's very little direction or narration of who is saying what. So it's just kind of a guess sometimes as to who is speaking and what is happening. There's lots of sound effects but I often couldn't tell by the sound effect what was happening. At one point a character changes gender and then I was completely lost as to who it was that was speaking. Overall I found the audiobook to be so confusing that I finally stopped listening. Maybe if I listened to it as I read along with the graphic novel I'd enjoy it more.

Egads! Not worth the free ride.

Overproduced and poorly acted. Brodie, the three year old in a nine year old's body was more then a tad too annoying to contend for such a long story length. What about the seemingly ten hours of unnecessary interlude music?! How much shorter this would have been without the mood music and excessive sound effects.

Have no idea what is going on

It's what a blind person must feel like listening to a movie.Its just random noises and people talking,just horrible and confusing.

Very intriguing

Not sure what all the bad reviews are about... I guess you really need that twisted mindset of years of Stephen King to understand Joe Hill. I will say it does require a lot of focus and imagination to keep up with the different references, times, and situations. I though the story was very fun and the way audible performed this was fantastic...it really put me in a theater watching a movie...

gave up after chapter 3

This was terrible. We could barely understand what was going on in the story. I have listened to and loved the old radio dramas and thought this would be similar but it certainly wasn't. The characters were hard to understand when they were speaking. I got the gist of what was happening from the narrator but it just wasn't worth it to continue listening.

Absolutely incredible

I was unsure how this would work (being a graphic novel) and haven't listened to a book with so many voice actors for years but it worked amazing well. Occasionally, clearly, extra dialogue had been added as this would not usually be needed in the original format but it was never forced. Really interesting story and loveable characters, it worked really well as an audio book. Good pace and a little different. The reason it lost a star was there is a character who has Downs Syndrome and is both impacted by his condition as expected but is also very insightful to it (in a negative way) and a little extra sensory which I dislike in books, I like to see such people normalised as everyone else is and I didn't like this combination. That said it was really good to see such a character included as there is a real lack of 'different' characters existing in books I just would have liked him to just be.

Like Listening to a High Budget Film

I enjoyed listening to this audiobook but there was little in way of actual storytelling, more of characters speaking with high drama and lots of special effects. The result was dramatic and engrossing. I'm not sure I would always go for this type of audiobook, as it lacks the intimacy of a one narrator tell. But it certainly gave me an idea of what can be done with sound.

An emotional rollercoaster.

Locke and Key is bought to life by a superb cast and there's also ambient noise to really put you as a fly on the wall as your mind constructs the image.

I thoroughly enjoyed the listen, it was a turbulent rollercoaster of emotions all the way through. Picture this, I'm a 6'4, 33 year old, gym loving male, I'm also foreman where I work and after 10 clock tea break, most of my delegation and other duties are pretty much done. So its around this time I pop my head phones on and work preying I won't get disturbed ( fat chance).

Now, three times this audio comic has had me fighting back tears. Its not exactly the look you wanna go for when you've 9 men to look after.

Our hero, Tyler, is a level headed young man for an 18 year old, looking after his mum and siblings in the abscense of his father, as past events spiral their life out of control in the magical Locke household that belongs to their Uncle Duncan.

The story twists and turns and comes to a conclusion you find yourself asking how you never saw it coming.

10/10. Now to treat my lovely lady to a new graphic novel I know she is gonna love.

DNF

This is one of the few audiobooks I haven't been able to finish. I struggled on as far as I could, then realised I wasn't even halfway through and there was still what seemed like 20 hours to go.

The premise is fascinating and trying to audio-adapt a visual medium like graphic novels is ambitious, but I felt it failed in the execution. I rapidly got fatigued by the endless screaming, sobbing and shouting that comprises most of the dialogue, by trying to guess what was going on from the characters' largely non-verbal reactions, and by wishing the darn thing had subtitles because I couldn't make out what was being said. I found the characters unlikeable and the plot insane, but not in a good way. Maybe I should have read the comic first.

what a FANTASTIC book !

why can't we have more fully dramatised books like that? I work on site most of the time...this book brought me to tears at the end...not a good look on site :)

A bit of a muddle

Action scenes without descriptive narration or dialogue just dont work in audio alone. This story was a bit of a mess and most of the time I struggled to follow what was actually going on.

Amazing!

A great twisted tale. Enjoyed this brilliant story from story from start to finish. Highly recommended to anyone who likes graphic comic audio books.

Good stuff

Very well put together . great story line and would recommend to anyone . will be listening to more of Joe hills books .

A Masterpiece

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

I will recommend this to friends as it takes audio fiction to a new level. Narrated audio books are great, but dramatised stories offer so much more, and this one was executed brilliantly. From the writing and acting, through to the music, soundscape, and production - everything is first class.

What was one of the most memorable moments of FREE: Locke & Key?

The acting in some of the intense scenes is brilliant, the cast worked extremely well together and did a fantastic job.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

As Joe Hill himself said, you can't get scared reading a comic. I think he said that anyway...

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The tension building and suspense has been done very well, it's an emotional rollercoaster for sure.

Any additional comments?

Amazing job all round, and can't believe this is being given away for free. I'd have paid about £25 for it.

Wow!

This was my first experience of a graphic novel of this type/genre and also the first time I'd tried an audio book that wasn't read by one person. I struggled at first and wondered if this was for me but after around 45 mins I was hooked. superb story, interesting characters and the score/actors really brought it to life. Thoroughly enjoyed it and am now hunting for something similar. ....would definitely recommend it :-)