Best audiobook experience ever - thanks to none other than Burt Reynolds

I know my books, heck, I've written them. But my novel "Quintus Hopper of Nevada" took on a whole new and utterly amazing life, when Burt Reynolds read it to me.

Burt Reynolds was an actor at the top of the Hollywood game in the seventies and eighties. While his movie star power waned after that, his voice just got better, and better, and better. Reynolds passed away in 2018 … then how on Earth could he read a novel, any novel, let alone mine - to me right now?

In 2024, audio/AI company ElevenLabs entered into agreements with the estates of a few stars of yore, among them Judy Garland, James Dean, Laurence Olivier and yes, Burt Reynolds. Now, with the free ElevenReader app, everyone can select documents, articles, entire manuscripts, and have them read by one of these stars. It is, there’s no other way of putting it, thoroughly astounding.

I’ve seen what AI can do, and I know that we’re still only just scratching the surface. On a day by day basis, whether in movies or on YouTube or with any of the increasingly many apps, we see more and more of what seems near miraculous. But frankly, I could easily put that aside, it feels playful and gimmicky and most often utterly unnecessary.

Audio readers, too, have become ubiquitous. More and more places offer them as an easy alternative to reading news articles and some such. Good. But there, too, it’s often - even if highly polished these days - female and male virtual voices that do a fairly good, but also fairly uninspired job.

Then last week my son told me that he’s reading my books with ElevenReader, having them voiced by Sir Laurence Olivier (my novels connected with Olivier? It made me feel decidedly knighted!) Of course I proceeded I gave it a try myself - and was amazed.

I added the manuscript of my Old West historical fiction “Quintus Hopper of Nevada” to be read, decided on Burt Reynolds’ voice, perfect for that story … and I’ve been immersed in it ever since.

Again, this is my own novel. I’ve penned it, it’s sprawling, it’s epic, it’s rambling along with the peripatetic life of most peculiar frontier newspaper typesetter Quintus Hopper and his journeys, adventures, trials and friendships. And here I am these past days, listening to Burt Reynolds telling me my own story - and it’s as if it has become something new, something else. I find myself getting emotional time and time again … and it is because the AI does absolute wonders with Burt Reynolds’ voice.

Of course it’s not altogether perfect. Sometimes Burt makes odd choices, but by and large the AI works magic, instantaneously, better than ever before. Honestly, for the most part, it blows me away.

Cheers,

PS: There’s all of that on one side … and then there’s the increasingly slippery AI slope on the other. Whatever next, right? The sky’s the limit, right? I think AI experts are right when they say that this ship has sailed, that this genie cannot be put back into the bottle, let alone controlled.

A great deal has been written about ChatGPT et al. Imagery, video, audio, all of it blurs, comes together and apart again in new ways, altered ways … maybe it’s because I’m of the older sort, but I worry. Increasingly so. I don’t like remakes and I don’t like remixes. But we’re heading into a whole new world where those are old school, where everything and everyone can be used and reused in a thousand and one ways … indefinitely.