Audiobooks You Care to Recommend?

Books, comics, TV, music
22

If it’s like previous audiobook bundles, they’re just big MP3s or FLAC files. I guess load those files in iTunes to get them onto your iPhone.

I don’t think the Audible app itself can play regular MP3s.

23

I don’t have iTunes or iPhone. I suppose I could use Google Play or Amazon music to play it. I wonder they are good about always remembering where you left off in the middle of an mp3. And if you can come back to that spot if you go listen to some music in between. It seems like it would be too much of a hassle to keep track of where you are, especially if you’re switching audiobooks without finishing one.

24

The below Android apps tend to be mentioned in the audiobook subreddit:

Smart AudioBook Player
Listen Audiobook Player
Material Audiobook Player

But to be honest, I generally just stick to Audible.

25

I use Smart AudioBook player on my phone, and it does a good job. If you do use it, note that the underlying file structure is a bit odd. The books need to be in nested folders for the app to read them correctly: …/Author/Book

But, once the book is in that folder, it will track everything in that folder as if it were one big book and save your place in it, whether it’s one big mp3, an mp3 for every cd, or consecutively numbered rips of those CDs that have 99 tracks each.

26

It’s been a while, but this method worked last time I did it:

  1. Download the mp3 files.
  2. Use foobar2000 to convert the book’s files into one big *.m4a AAC file (if you have iTunes installed on the PC, you should have the codec)
  3. Manually change the file extension to m4b. That lets the phone & iTunes know it should be treated as an audiobook, so it will appear in your audiobooks app.
  4. copy it to your phone
27

Strongly recommend:
https://smile.amazon.com/We-Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse/dp/B01L082SCI/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498698952&sr=8-1

Also liked a lot:
https://smile.amazon.com/Terms-Enlistment-Frontlines-Book-1/dp/B00HQHXWS2/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498699017&sr=8-1
and
https://smile.amazon.com/Off-to-Be-the-Wizard/dp/B00IIQS546/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498699108&sr=8-1
and
https://smile.amazon.com/Will-Save-Galaxy-Food/dp/B06X6BTBF8/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498699076&sr=8-1

28

Thanks, I think. Seems daunting. Plus, I hate iTunes. But I appreciate the advice and may still try it.

29

Missed this thread the first time, but I’ll second these recommendations. I managed to get hold of about 7 of these cassette-based treasures back in the day, and I still treasure them. Darren McGavin does wonders with these, and really and truly pulls you into the stories. And his quality is consistent throughout. Especially the action scenes. The descriptions (both the writing and narration), are so vivid and well-realized that I can still recall some of the scenes now, 20 years after first hearing (seeing) them while driving down the interstate. I was enthralled.

Yet one more reason I’m such a huge Darren McGavin fan.

30

That one fell a bit flat for me. Story was ok. Reading was ok. But neither really gelled for me.

The audio book series I’d most highly recommend are the Rivers of London series. Fun urban fantasy and Kobna is an awesome reader who keeps getting better book after book.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B006IIZELI/

Listening to a new book in the series is always a treat.

31

Anything read by Frank Muller. ESPECIALLY Stephen King read by Frank Muller. And above all of those, The Green Mile, read by Frank Muller. Probably my favorite audiobook of all time. Just amazingly well done.

His reads of The Drawing of The Three, The Wastelands, and Wizard and Glass are also top tier -
He read the original Gunslinger, but it has since been replaced with the updated version by George Guidall - who is fine, but Frank puts on a better show in those books.



I’ve been meaning to listen to his rendition of The Prince of Tides too. Supposed to be great.

32

Recent audiobooks I’ve read that I’d like to mention:

  • The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. This is weird scifi with lots of great descriptions of animals and plants. His style is thick and soupy, and he seems to know a lot about biology. The narrator of the first book is really good too.
  • Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie. This is just average space opera. Not bad, but not great.
  • Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I liked this book a lot. The story is kind of cute. Too bad it is not part of a longer series, as I liked all the characters and would read about them again.
  • The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. The narrator is really good. It’s a good series. Its only fault is that I never feel any real danger, despite all the combat.
  • The Liveship Traders series by Robin Hobb. Great narrator! This is actually part of a much larger series counting over 15 books and several short stories, but these three are my favorite.
  • The Inheritance trilogy and The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin. These are pretty average. Nothing special.
  • The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. A look inside the bizarre land of North Korea! I like the narration of the daily state radio broadcasts the most! They fill me with patriotic vigor! :)
  • The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. I did not like the main character, and got fed up at about halfway through. Not recommended.
  • The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. This was good. Recommended.
  • Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Good. Recommended.
  • Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. A fantasy/scifi/mythology setting that feels fresh and very unlike Tolkien’s Middle Earth. I liked it!
  • The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I found these books to be long and tedious. Not recommended. [Edit: the female protagonist is not that bad, but the others are tedious.]
  • ASOIAF by GRR Martin. These are all pretty solid and I recommend them. The narrator of the first few books is especially good!
  • The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks. Bad narration and bad writing. Avoid this series if you can.
  • The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. The writing is not bad, but the main character is a pretentious Mary Sue. Not recommended.
  • The Black Company series by Glen Cook. Overrated, but still okay.
  • The Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock. I only listened to the first book in the series, and couldn’t finish it. It think it is also very pretentious.
  • The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. These are fun and entertaining, but not especially deep.
  • The Chalion series by Lois McMaster Bujold. These are pretty good, but again I did not feel real danger at any time while reading them.
  • Several books by China Mieville, which were pretty good but overrated, IMO.
  • Several books by Neil Gaiman, some of which were too “slick” and “British” for my tastes. I liked American Gods though.
  • The Peripheral by William Gibson. I don’t think this is a good choice for an audiobook because a lot of terminology is invented and the characters are hard to keep track of due to their strange names. You should read the book or ebook instead.
  • Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. Tedious boring space opera.
    [edit]
  • Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. Another long, tedious series. Bleh.

I listened to several more in the last few years. But none of them really stuck out, for good or for bad. These include some older books, such as the Ringworld series and Dragonriders of Pern series, which were just meh. There are also a lot of novels I could not find audiobooks for, which I read in ebook format instead. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is probably my favorite of 2016.

[edit]

Okay, this post went on longer than I planned.

33

The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer

About an Alsatian fighting on the WW2 east front for Nazi Germany.

There is some controversy over the veracity of the novel. I believe it is a roman a clef.

There is horror in the book, but Guy also wrote it as a testament to his comrades.

It is worth a read, as it is a reasonably honest account, unlike many memoirs which are an act of white washing. Guy also has literary talent, and even if it was a work of fiction it would be recommended for the power of his writing.

https://www.amazon.com/The-Forgotten-Soldier/dp/B06XD5X4VD

34

I’ll second the Frank Muller recordings, and the Dark Tower series, especially the ones he narrated. Muller was incapacitated by and eventually died from a motorcycle accident after recording Wizard and Glass, so George Guidall finished the series.

I enjoyed Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, starting with this:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Final-Empire-Audiobook/B002V0QCYU?qid=1499639152&sr=1-7
I listened to all 3, but haven’t tried the follow-up trilogy set a few hundred years after the first.

I like LONG audio books (I like to stretch out my 12 Audible credits/year, and I drive a lot), and Steven King delivers if you’re into him. I liked Duma Key

…read by John Slattery (recently of Mad Men fame)

I also liked the First Law trilogy that YakAttack mentioned above.

I’m currently having fun with Neal Stephenson’s Reamde

35

I am listening to The Heroes right now. It has the same great narrator! But it is also almost 100% combat and 40 discs long! All the combat actually feels kind of oppressive. :(

36

Ok my account davidf is not connected to a valid email anymore…left Intel so now creating a new account :)

Just picked up The X-Files: Cold Cases…sooo recommend this one!!!
This is the show that the mini series SHOULD have been! This revealed secrets to long unanswered questions, it found a way to bring everyone back including Dogget, Mr X and the smoking man…it answered 2 mysteries but left 1 new one for every new one it answered. It felt episodic where each episode could stand alone but also managed to build the world with each new episode. In short, its X-Files at its best…unlike the miserable mini series…this effort actually made me want to rewatch the series! Excellent, must get audio drama!

37

Welcome to the forum David_F. Nice first post! :P

I keep meaning to watch the whole X-files series some day. I even bought all the seasons on DVD for god’s sake, but just never got around to it yet. Netflix will probably be a lot easier than pulling the DVDs out. Back in the days of VCRs, I watched a lot of X-files episodes, but also missed a lot. So I was always confused.

“Who is this Krijeck guy?”
“What’s with this black ooze?”
“Scully is back after being abducted? I wonder how that happened?”

etc. In those days, you missed some episodes, and you just kept going, because unlike Babylon 5, you didn’t have a brother who religiously recorded every episode so you could watch it next summer.

38

OK I just picked up and consumed the foundation audio drama and now enjoying the Battle Field Earth Audio drama…both are hours long and very faithful to the source material and great acting and sound effects.

My question…are there other books sci/fantasy that have been faithfully converted to audio dramas? Classics of not?! I have a long drive and more audio drama of classics like this really hits the spot!

39

I love the Stormlight Archive and like the performances in the audio book.

40

Thanks! Added to my get list… I haven’t gotten a new graphic audio book sense the ended Deathlands (which I now know they restarted). :)

41

Will Save Galaxy For Food Is $4 today.