I recently bought The Chronicles of Narnia Unabridged Boxed Audiobook Set of HarperCollins for my birthday through Amazon.com, along with a new hardbound Narnia book. I got my package last 24 June (which was also my 40th month together with my boyfriend Sidney) and I’ve been listening to it whenever I’m driving alone (which isn’t actually that often).

This is my first time to listen to an audiobook and I wasn’t disappointed. At first, I thought there would be sound effects (like perhaps the sound of a river running or horses trotting) in the background, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was just one British voice reading the books out loud to you, changing the tone and accent of each character so that you’d distinctly know which was which.

I’ve already gone through the first four, and here are my comments:

The Magician’s Nephew – narrated by Kenneth Branagh

This is my definitely my favorite audiobook so far. There were two particular character voices I loved. The first is that of the cabby (who later became King Frank). In the book, it says he had a cockney accent, but since I’ve never heard of a cockney accent before, I had no idea how that would sound like. The audiobook really brought it to life for me, especially the part how his speech changed while Aslan was talking to him. The second was the Bulldog who kept arguing with the Elephant by saying, “I object to that remark very strongly.” The way he said it was so funny, I literally burst out laughing.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – narrated by Michael York

I can’t actually remember much about this one. It was good, but not quite memorable. I liked the voice of Aslan, Peter and Jadis though.

The Horse and His Boy – narrated by Alex Jennings

This is my second favorite so far, mainly because the narrator was able to invent a distinctly Calormene accent for Rabadash, the Tisroc etc. I love how Rabadash said, “Oh my father and oh the delight of my eyes” in a drawling voice which really sounded as if the Tisroc was not the delight of his eyes. I just have one issue: how come Shasta and Aravis didn’t have the same accent, even though they both grew up in Calormen? Oh well.

Prince Caspian – narrated by Lynn Redgrave

I had apprehensions before listening to this one, because I didn’t know how all the predominantly male characters would be voiced in such a way as to distinguish one from another. You’d have to remember that nearly all the lead characters in Prince Caspian are male (e.g. Peter, Edmund, Caspian, Trumpkin, Dr. Cornelius, Miraz, Trufflehunter, etc). For all the other audiobooks, the narrators were male, and the female characters they had to do usually ranged from only one to three (e.g. Lucy, Susan, Polly, etc). But the narrator actually did a really good job, especially with Trumpkin. I just didn’t like her Aslan voice though.

You can read part 2 here.