I’ve read over least half the Discworld books in the last five years, and listened to several audio books in the last year.
Some authors, like John Grisham and Frank McCourt, come out very well with audio. I tried a couple of Pratchetts and something was missing.
Now, those were abridged versions, and one would hope that the unabridged versions survive better. But my favorite audiobook is Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, despite the fact that I read the book first and that this audiobook is also abridged.
Adams is not the wordsmith that Terry is, and vice versa. Terry relies far more on wordplay than Adams does. The philosophical musing would come through, and the plot, but one of Terry’s faults is that the plot is usually just average. Before the flames start, I better say that Pyramids, Small Gods and Hogfather are exceptions.
Consider the following TP phrases, and imagine what they would sound like if heard rather than read… a key word is ‘savor’.
…
“What do you call that warm feeling you get inside?”
“Heartburn?”
He counted to one on his fingers. Then he counted to two.
It’s easy to hold everything in common when no-one’s got anything.
He’d twice failed to become Village Idiot through being overqualified.
Drinks like this tend to get called Traffic Lights or Rainbow’s Revenge or, in places where truth is more highly valued, Hello and Goodbye Mr Brain Cell.
"It’s called a shovel… I’ve seen gardeners use them. You stick the sharp end in the ground. Then it gets a bit technical.
“We’ll strategically withdraw to previously prepared position.”
“Who prepared them?”
“We’ll prepare them when we get there…”
They looked at each other with mutual. grudging admiration and unlimited mistrust, but at least it was a mistrust each of them felt he could rely on.
“What did it feel like?”
“Have you ever been bitten by a viper?”
“No.”
“In that case you’ll understand exactly what it felt like.”
“hmmmm?”
“It wasnt like a snake bite at all.”