Recently I took a chance on the full-cast audio version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that’s just come out. I say “took a chance” because the preview on Audible does not communicate the nature of the book especially well, focusing entirely on the narrator, whom I liked well enough but did not want to commit to, considering I listened to Stephen Fry narrate this same book earlier in the year. I’m glad I threw my credit at Audible, though, because the full-cast audio is terrific. Its sound design makes it more of an audio drama, and the voice-acting bench is fairly good. As “full cast audio” implies, every character has a different actor, so there’s no dealing with a narrator having to do falsettos to reach out of his range. Interestingly, although this edition carries the American title in Audible, it was recorded with the original text, so the students do “revisions” instead of studying. I’ve read a British version of Philosopher’s Stone and somehow missed that until I heard it being said multiple times here.

An important thing to note about this full-cast audio edition—and a selling point, I’d say—is that the sound design is atmospheric. We don’t simply have actors reading lines one at a time: when one is speaking, we can hear others reacting in the background. There’s originality here as well, in that we hear background reactions that are not written down word-for-word in Rowling’s original text. Spatiality is also incorporated. When the scene is focused on Harry, as it were, and someone speaks from across the room, we hear them as such—at least, if we have stereo speakers. When I was driving through a foggy wood and listening to this, I had the startling experience of having a character yell at “Harry” from my passenger door. Not the sort of Forbidden Forest immersion I’d expected! There are also audio effects: characters speaking from behind a door are muffled, and there’s a kind of rippling intro when characters are reading from a letter or remembering something someone said earlier. The sound design also includes effects like footsteps and crowd noise, along with some music, delicately applied in only a few scenes where it feels especially appropriate. I was very much impressed. The voice-acting bench is strong. So far, the only character whose voice I don’t like is Snape’s—and I swear it’s not just because he doesn’t sound like Alan Rickman. The problem is he sounds like a nasty insurance agent who doesn’t like his job, but who has been doing it too long to do anything else and is many years yet away from retirement. He’s bored and slightly bitter but not….Snapey. Other characters make me suspect that their movie actors slightly inspired their casting — especially Hagrid and Oliver Wood — but on the whole the bench is distinct, yet recognizable.

I can see continuing in this series, but more as a every-once-in-a–while treat. I loved the experience, but it seems silly to spend credits on a book series I’ve already read, and — in the case of the early books — listened to several different versions of. This post’s title comes from my amused observation (while driving) that Harry appears to spend most of the book actively trying to get into trouble, especially after dark.