THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN

Matheson's classic novel about a man doomed to shrink a seventh of an inch every day centers on his last week's adventures, with flashbacks to earlier struggles. Yuri Rasovsky reads with great energy and expression, which is engaging at first. But the novel is already melodramatic, a characteristic that Rasovsky emphasizes. Dialogue is especially strident. He's true to the text, in his fashion, but this text could have used less slavish devotion and more modulation, more variability in the dynamics, less exaggeration. An echo effect in the introduction of some of the flashbacks is just silly. Still, Rasovsky's brio makes this reading more entertaining than not. W.M. 2007 Audies Award Finalist © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 06]