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Lester Shy
May 1, 2002

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!
Wow, I bounced off Night Vale after a handful of episodes years ago. I had no idea the genre had exploded so much. I'll definitely check out some of those.

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Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!


Lester Shy posted:

Wow, I bounced off Night Vale after a handful of episodes years ago. I had no idea the genre had exploded so much. I'll definitely check out some of those.

If you dig horror I think Magnus Archives is the best out there, it's cosmic horror so if that isn't your thing you may not like it. It starts out kind of slow but it gets fantastic

Wolf 359 starts as a Night Vale In Space but finds its footing and goes on to tell a tight story that I personally felt stuck the landing when it ended

que sera sera
Aug 4, 2006

I listen to audiobooks in their entirety and then immediately return them for the credit :twisted:

rectal_prolapse
Nov 10, 2018
Jingo: The Audiobook.

This is a rare find since the UK distributor stopped selling the beloved Terry Pratchett novel in the US. I've been trying to find a copy through legal archives and audiobook-peddlers for months.

Sure, it's not narrated by Nigel Planer, but it's another legend of Discworld.

Anybody have the privilege of hearing it?

ghouldaddy07
Jun 23, 2008
Marsfall and Uncanny County are two audio dramas I am currently enjoying. Available on standard podcast apps

Enfys
Feb 17, 2013

The ocean is calling and I must go

rectal_prolapse posted:

the UK distributor stopped selling the beloved Terry Pratchett novel in the US

they what :aaa:

Some Pinko Commie
Jun 9, 2009

CNC! Easy as 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣!

Mycroft Holmes posted:

are there any decent post-apocalypse books on audible? all they have looks like trash.

How do you feel about pre-apocalypse when the extinction event is non-negotiable?

https://www.audible.com/series/The-Last-Policeman-Audiobooks/B00DPK03ZY

tokenbrownguy
Apr 1, 2010

The Aubery-Matrin series narrator is really good, but he's also clearly a phlegmatic Englishman. Emphasis on the phlegm—in that you can hear the loving saliva slapping around his throat whenever he's cleaning up his vocal fry.

Submarine Sandpaper
May 27, 2007


Wow wrong thread.

I've enjoyed the broken earth series on m thg commute.

my kinda ape
Sep 15, 2008

Everything's gonna be A-OK
Oven Wrangler

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

I've enjoyed the broken earth series on m thg commute.

Seconding this. I liked the series a lot and it's a pretty neat setting.

Rooted Vegetable
Jun 1, 2002

biracial bear for uncut posted:

How do you feel about pre-apocalypse when the extinction event is non-negotiable?

https://www.audible.com/series/The-Last-Policeman-Audiobooks/B00DPK03ZY

Well worth a listen. I went through them several months ago and still think a lot about them.

poisonpill
Nov 8, 2009

The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.


How about recommendations on Sssssspppppaaaaaace? Non-fiction; history or technical oriented as much as possible?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yMy7JuGpJM

my kinda ape
Sep 15, 2008

Everything's gonna be A-OK
Oven Wrangler

poisonpill posted:

How about recommendations on Sssssspppppaaaaaace? Non-fiction; history or technical oriented as much as possible?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yMy7JuGpJM

The Sparrow, Children of Time

Edit: oops sorry I read that completely wrong. Those are definitely fiction. In that case The Right Stuff was pretty good history of the early astronaut training.

my kinda ape fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Feb 1, 2020

Mister Facetious
Apr 21, 2007

I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

:canada:

poisonpill posted:

How about recommendations on Sssssspppppaaaaaace? Non-fiction; history or technical oriented as much as possible?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yMy7JuGpJM

I'll post my collection after work in about three hours.

poisonpill
Nov 8, 2009

The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.


Mister Facetious posted:

I'll post my collection after work in about three hours.

:regd10:

Mister Facetious
Apr 21, 2007

I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

:canada:
Modern Scholar Series I: Earth, Sky and Planets
Modern Scholar Series II: Stars, Galaxies, And the Universe

- Prof. James Kaler

Horizons of Cosmology: Exploring Worlds Seen and Unseen
- Joseph Silk

Gravity's Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos*
- Caleb Scharf
* I don't remember ever listening to this one.

A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing*
- Lawrence M. Krauss
* Never finished it and I didn't care for it at all. Read the blurb and a review or two first.

Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour
- Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, J. Richard Gott

The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon*
- Todd Zwillich
* Audible Original of the month, so it's pretty short.

Great Courses Series: The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality*
- Don Lincoln
* Includes cosmology but it's not the focus iirc.

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems*
- Randall Munroe
* Only including this because it has a decent section of hypotheticals the creator of XKCD emailed to Chris Hadfield :canada:

Great Courses Series: My Favorite Universe
- Neil deGrasse Tyson

I wouldn't call any of these heavily technical, and not just because you can't really show graphs in an audio format :haw:
For that, I would recommend Michio Kaku instead, but I only have actual books of his, nothing in audio. Ditto for Sir Hawking.

Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 01:50 on May 28, 2020

poisonpill
Nov 8, 2009

The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.


Mister Facetious posted:


The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon*
- Todd Zwillich
* Audible Original of the month, so it's pretty short.

This is what got me on this kick. Exploring New Horizons looks like more of the same inside baseball at NASA. Thanks for the other recommendations. How well do you think Hawking's Brief History of Time would work aloud?

Mister Facetious
Apr 21, 2007

I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

:canada:

poisonpill posted:

This is what got me on this kick. Exploring New Horizons looks like more of the same inside baseball at NASA. Thanks for the other recommendations. How well do you think Hawking's Brief History of Time would work aloud?

Don't have that one. I have The Universe In a Nutshell.

Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!


I finally saw Knives Out and was reminded of how much I like murder mysteries but haven't read many.

Should I just start at Agatha Christie? The only experience I have with her stuff is the Murder on the Orient Express movie

Mister Facetious
Apr 21, 2007

I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

:canada:
I'm not a mystery guy, but goon host Friedman of the podcast I Don't Even Own a Television is a mystery superfan. Try tweeting/emailing/patreon'ing him:

https://www.idontevenownatelevision.com

MeatwadIsGod
Sep 30, 2004

Foretold by Gyromancy

Len posted:

I finally saw Knives Out and was reminded of how much I like murder mysteries but haven't read many.

Should I just start at Agatha Christie? The only experience I have with her stuff is the Murder on the Orient Express movie

If you haven't read all the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels I would definitely start there. They're insanely good.

XBenedict
May 23, 2006

YOUR LIPS SAY 0, BUT YOUR EYES SAY 1.

Len posted:

I finally saw Knives Out and was reminded of how much I like murder mysteries but haven't read many.

Should I just start at Agatha Christie? The only experience I have with her stuff is the Murder on the Orient Express movie

Most of her stuff is good, but pretty short as well, so the better value on Audible is some of the 2 for 1 collections of her work.

Honestly, though she’s a heinous terf, J.K Rowling’s Cormoran Strike Series (published under the name Robert Galbraith) are really excellent twisty mysteries. There are a couple of underlying storylines, so you should probably read them in order (The Cuckoos Calling).

Also Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series is good. The first, In the Woods, was a mindfuck.

XBenedict
May 23, 2006

YOUR LIPS SAY 0, BUT YOUR EYES SAY 1.

MeatwadIsGod posted:

If you haven't read all the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels I would definitely start there. They're insanely good.

Definitely the Stephen Fry narration.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

XBenedict posted:

Definitely the Stephen Fry narration.

Yeah the Stephen Fry narration is amazing and you can get the entire set for one audible credit which is like 70 hours of listening right there.

my kinda ape
Sep 15, 2008

Everything's gonna be A-OK
Oven Wrangler

ImpAtom posted:

Yeah the Stephen Fry narration is amazing and you can get the entire set for one audible credit which is like 70 hours of listening right there.

I bought this a year or two ago and I've been too intimidated by the length to start it.

Baka-nin
Jan 25, 2015

If it helps most of Sherlock Holmes were collections of short stories, and the ones that had continuity with each other had text that made the connections explicit and easy to catch back up on.

The_Other
Dec 28, 2012

Welcome Back, Galaxy Geek.

Len posted:

I finally saw Knives Out and was reminded of how much I like murder mysteries but haven't read many.

Should I just start at Agatha Christie? The only experience I have with her stuff is the Murder on the Orient Express movie

Christie isn't a bad place to start, I've been trying to read her all her Hercule Poirot books over this past year. My only problem is that I read all the really good ones already and the other either a) have repetitive plots and/or b) have Poirot turning up later and later in the book. I gave up reading A Cat Among the Pigeons because Poirot doesn't show up until the last third of the book. Apparently Christie started to dislike the character and was using him less and less (although she still wrote about 40 books with him).

My picks for the best Hercule Poirot books would be

  • The Mysterious Affair at Styles - the first Poirot book and not a bad place to start
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  • Murder on the Orient Express
  • The A.B.C. Murders - I actually like this one better than Orient Express
  • Hercule Poirot's Christmas

Also if you like your mysteries with a healthy dose of humor I would recommend Steve Hockensmith's Holmes on the Range series. Set in the US west in the 1890's it follows the exploits of Gustav "Old Red" Amlingmeyer and his younger brother Otto "Big Red", two cowboys who, after reading about the exploits of one Sherlock Holmes (The Red Headed League, 'natch) decide that they're going to become detectives (well, Old Red decides, Big Red is just along for the ride mainly). The stories have definite Holmes/Watson feel to them, being told from Big Red's perspective, but since there characters are brothers, Big Red can say things to his brother Watson would never dream of saying to Holmes.

Here's a link to Steve's website

Island Nation
Jun 20, 2006
Trust No One

ImpAtom posted:

Yeah the Stephen Fry narration is amazing and you can get the entire set for one audible credit which is like 70 hours of listening right there.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the US version remove most of the stories from The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes since they are still under copyright? The version read by Simon Vance has all of them FWIW.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

I've been toying around with the idea of subscribing to Audible, but I can't figure out how the gently caress it actually works. According to this, you get 1 credit a month on the Gold plan. Does that mean I can only listen to one book a month?

I listen to audiobooks for 1.5 hours a day in the car, whenever I'm in the gym, and I guess now they have an Apple Watch app, so I can listen to them while out running, which is cool as hell. I've been burning through a book every week or so. Am I just going to be out of credits super quick?

my kinda ape
Sep 15, 2008

Everything's gonna be A-OK
Oven Wrangler

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

I've been toying around with the idea of subscribing to Audible, but I can't figure out how the gently caress it actually works. According to this, you get 1 credit a month on the Gold plan. Does that mean I can only listen to one book a month?

I listen to audiobooks for 1.5 hours a day in the car, whenever I'm in the gym, and I guess now they have an Apple Watch app, so I can listen to them while out running, which is cool as hell. I've been burning through a book every week or so. Am I just going to be out of credits super quick?

You can just buy books at full price whenever, with the subscription giving a pretty good discount on all books. The subscription also gives 1 or 2 credits depending on the plan which can be exchanged for any book in the store regardless of length. You can also buy like three more credits per month for $33 (total) or something like that. Occasionally they'll have various promotions and sales that may or may not involve credits. You can also choose 2 out of 6 of the monthly selections for free every month as part of your subscription.

That’s about it. If you have the 2 credit plan plus the monthly selections that's about 40-55+ hours of content per month unless you're getting relatively short books. If you need more you gotta pay more.

Mister Facetious
Apr 21, 2007

I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

:canada:
And if you own the Kindle version of something, you can get it for a reduced price if it supports Whispersync

Dune is a good option for this.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

my kinda ape posted:

You can just buy books at full price whenever, with the subscription giving a pretty good discount on all books. The subscription also gives 1 or 2 credits depending on the plan which can be exchanged for any book in the store regardless of length. You can also buy like three more credits per month for $33 (total) or something like that. Occasionally they'll have various promotions and sales that may or may not involve credits. You can also choose 2 out of 6 of the monthly selections for free every month as part of your subscription.

That’s about it. If you have the 2 credit plan plus the monthly selections that's about 40-55+ hours of content per month unless you're getting relatively short books. If you need more you gotta pay more.

Alright, that's kind of what I gathered from reading that FAQ and that table I posted. Sounds like I'd need the higher plan to keep the books flowing. Bummer.

mystes
May 31, 2006

Mister Facetious posted:

And if you own the Kindle version of something, you can get it for a reduced price if it supports Whispersync

Dune is a good option for this.
I don't know if this is still the case, but I think at least previously if you borrowed a kindle book from a library through overdrive you could then buy the audiobook for the reduced price, too. (Obviously if your library has the audibook you should just get that, though).

bengy81
May 8, 2010

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

Alright, that's kind of what I gathered from reading that FAQ and that table I posted. Sounds like I'd need the higher plan to keep the books flowing. Bummer.

You might get enough mileage out of the one credit tier to be worth your time.
I drove 5k miles a month for work, and mostly listen to books and I end up pausing for a month each year so I can get caught up.
I tend to use my credits on 30 plus hour books, and then hit the sales for shorter ones. Also if I end up with two or more credits I'll get a notification about a 3 for 2 sale, not sure if those are targeted or not.

mystes
May 31, 2006

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

Alright, that's kind of what I gathered from reading that FAQ and that table I posted. Sounds like I'd need the higher plan to keep the books flowing. Bummer.
You can also just subscribe to the 2 credit plan long enough to buy a bunch of audiobooks and then cancel your subscription. The only downside to cancelling is that you lose any unused credits and can't get the free audible originals, but you keep all your books.

poisonpill
Nov 8, 2009

The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.


Try it for a while, milk a few free months and buy the cheap books or do the kindle shuffle. It's worth it.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

poisonpill posted:

Try it for a while, milk a few free months and buy the cheap books or do the kindle shuffle. It's worth it.

Yeah I may. What do you mean a few free months? Looks like only the first one is free at the moment. I remember seeing deals all the time on slick for maybe 3 months or something?

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Personally I think the price of audiobooks on Audible is such that it's a waste of money to buy any of them. Just use Credits.

Granted, I mainly listen to history and philosophy books but even the Warhammer 40K books I was getting into are all $20. That means it would cost at least $60 for 3 books. Better to buy 3 Credits for $33 and get those 3 40K books.

I wonder if they jack up the audiobook price so much so you buy credits. I hope the creators I like don't lose out on money from the fact I have to use Credits for everything.

que sera sera
Aug 4, 2006

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

Alright, that's kind of what I gathered from reading that FAQ and that table I posted. Sounds like I'd need the higher plan to keep the books flowing. Bummer.

I posted this earlier in the thread, but:

que sera sera posted:

I listen to audiobooks in their entirety and then immediately return them for the credit :twisted:

I usually listen during my commute and through a large portion of the work day, sometimes 5-6 hours a day and paying for more credits on top of the pretty $$ subscription just is something I am not gonna do. Once you build up some credits over a few months it becomes easier to shuffle them around and have a few different books going. I've been doing this for like 9 months now and while there is a restriction on the number of credits you can return automatically, I've only just recently run into that and you just have to send an email asking them to refund it and they usually do it within a few minutes. But since I have built up such a surplus of credits now, I only really have to do that with books I genuinely don't like and cant finish. Good luck

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Mister Facetious
Apr 21, 2007

I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

:canada:

NikkolasKing posted:

Personally I think the price of audiobooks on Audible is such that it's a waste of money to buy any of them. Just use Credits.

Granted, I mainly listen to history and philosophy books but even the Warhammer 40K books I was getting into are all $20. That means it would cost at least $60 for 3 books. Better to buy 3 Credits for $33 and get those 3 40K books.

I wonder if they jack up the audiobook price so much so you buy credits. I hope the creators I like don't lose out on money from the fact I have to use Credits for everything.

The average membership price of novels is equal to a standard paperback, in Canada anyways.

You have to get the lectures or the really big and lengthy books to have to pay more.

And they're maybe half to a third the price of a launch day hardcover

Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Feb 5, 2020

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