Got some weird news from Sarah at HC towards the end of last week: someone’s going to be abridging Cold Granite for audio. Eh? Now I’d seen the CD and tapes advertised on Amazon and the like, but never thought that much about it. To be honest, I had kinda thought I might end up reading the thing myself (thus fulfilling yet another of those things on the ‘to do before you die’ list), even though I ain’t the slickest read-out-loud-ist in the world.
But now here we are with a proper actor* (Scottish, thank the tartan gods) reading an abridged version of the book. How weird is that? I’m going to be able to put a tape in my car and hear someone else reading the book out loud, putting on voices for my motley collection of madey-uppy people, like it was a proper book or something... Actually I can’t put a tape in my car, not if I ever want to see it again, the damn thing ate a copy of Roger Waters’s Amused To Death about six months ago and I swear there are still little bits of monkey noise in there somewhere. The machine now only plays one side at normal speed; soon as it flips the tape over everything goes helium crazy. So that would mean chapters one through four read by professional actor man and chapters five through eight by Chip and Dale, really, really quickly. Though, given the graphic nature of some of the content, that might be quite funny.
Where was I, ah yes: abridgement.
Now I’ve been edited before (and very gently too, no bruises inflicted by the lovely Jane and Sarah), but never abridged. Sarah tells me that my abridger will be the same one who does the Ian Rankin books and is considered something of a star in the biz. And she has said nice things about CG, and so clearly has excellent taste (or is utterly deranged). So, sometime in the next two weeks I should be receiving another pile of paper through the post to read through and approve and after that it’s gonna be showbiz all the way, baby! Or not as the case may be.
*Who’s identity I shall protect for the moment, so as not to jinx the deal. Let’s just say he’s tipped for BIG things in the coming year and so probably should know better.