Audible's "Big Thanks" Sale through December 16: from under $5 to just under a credit, here's some fantastic picks from the members-only 50% off sale

• By Marko Kloos
• Narrated By Luke Daniels -- $5.24 each for this Hugo Award nominated (and then withdrawn) military science fiction series is about as cheap as the Audible-only editions will run; the series is cheaper this month via Whispersync upgrades ($1.99+$1.99 each) if you are comfortable with that approach; start with the Kindle edition of Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines Book 1) and step into: "The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements, where you're restricted to two thousand calories of badly flavored soy every day: You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world, or you can join the service."

• by H. Paul Honsinger
• Narrated By Ray Chase -- "The Terran Union is engaged in a vast interstellar war against the Krag Ruthless aliens intent on exterminating humankind. In 2315, the wily Max Robichaux is given command of the USS Cumberland, a destroyer with state-of-the-art capabilities but a combat record so bad, she's known as the "Cumberland Gap." Capt. Robichaux's first mission: to take his warship to the Free Corridor, where the Krag have secretly been buying strategic materials, and to seize or destroy any ships carrying enemy cargo. Far from the fleet and under enforced radio silence, Max relies only on his determination and guile...and the support and friendship of his chief medical officer, the brilliant Dr. Sahin. Because even as he deals with the ship's onboard problems and the stress of carrying out her risky assignment, Max and the doctor discover that the Cumberland and her misfit crew are all that stands in the way of a deadly Krag attack that threatens to end the war - and humanity - once and for all. A far-future story in the tradition of "ships of wood, men of iron" novels, To Honor You Call Us and the Man of Warseries combine the adventure of exploration, the excitement of war, and the dangers of the unknown through the eyes of a ship and her crew." Note: The Kindle+Whispersync price for this is $3.99+$1.99, so a couple quarters more and you'd get both editions.

• By Andreas Eschbach, Samuel Willcocks (translator)
• Narrated By Nick Podehl -- Winner of the 2012 Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis: "They are just children when they first meet: Charlotte, daughter of the French ambassador, and Hiroshi, a laundress’s son. One day in the playground, Hiroshi declares that he has an idea that will change the world. An idea that will sweep away all differences between rich and poor. When Hiroshi runs into Charlotte several years later, he is trying to build a brighter future through robotics. Determined to win Charlotte’s love, he resurrects his childhood dream, convinced that he can eradicate world poverty by pushing the limits of technology beyond imagination. But as Hiroshi circles ever closer to realizing his vision, he discovers that his utopian dream may contain the seeds of a nightmare — one that could obliterate life as we know it. Crisscrossing the globe, from Tokyo to the hallowed halls of MIT to desolate Arctic islands and Buenos Aires and beyond — far beyond — Lord of All Things explores not only technology’s dizzying potential, but also its formidable dangers."

• By Alter S. Reiss
• Narrated By Christopher Price -- "With a single blow, Cete won both honor and exile from his last commander. Since then he has wandered, looking for a place to call home. The distant holdings of the Reach Antach offer shelter, but that promise has a price. The Reach Antach is doomed. Barbarians, traitors, and scheming investors conspire to destroy the burgeoning settlement. A wise man would move on, but Cete has found reason to stay. A blind weaver woman and the beautiful sunset mantle lure the warrior to wager everything he has left on one final chance to turn back the hungry tides of war."

• By Angela Slatter
• Narrated By Marisa Calin -- "Mistress Gideon is a witch. The locals of Edda's Meadow, if they suspect it of her, say nary a word - Gideon has been good to them, and it's always better to keep on her good side. Just in case. When a foolish young shape-shifter goes against the wishes of her pack and gets herself very publicly caught, the authorities find it impossible to deny the existence of the supernatural in their midst any longer; Gideon and her like are captured, bound for torture and a fiery end. Should Gideon give up her sisters in return for a quick death? Or can she turn the situation to her advantage?"

  

Envy of Angels: A Sin du Jour Affair

UNABRIDGED

• By Matt Wallace
• Narrated By Corey Gagne -- "In New York, eating out can be hell. Everyone loves a well-catered event, and the supernatural community is no different, but where do demons go to satisfy their culinary cravings? Welcome to Sin du Jour - where devils on horseback are the clients, not the dish."

The Builders

UNABRIDGED

• By Daniel Polansky
• Narrated By Corey Gagne -- "A missing eye. A broken wing. A stolen country. The last job didn't end well. Years go by, and scars fade, but memories only fester. For the animals of the captain's company, survival has meant keeping a low profile, building a new life, and trying to forget the war they lost. But now the captain's whiskers are twitching at the idea of evening the score."

Domnall and the Borrowed Child

UNABRIDGED

• By Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
• Narrated By Tim Gerard Reynolds -- "The best and bravest faeries fell in the war against the Sluagh, and now the Council is packed with idiots and cowards. Domnall is old, aching, and as cranky as they come, but as much as he'd like to retire, he's the best scout the Sithein court has left. When a fae child falls deathly ill, Domnall knows he's the only one who can get her the medicine she needs: mother's milk. The old scout will face cunning humans, hungry wolves, and uncooperative sheep, to say nothing of his fellow fae!"

  

The Shootout Solution: Genrenauts Episode 1

UNABRIDGED

• By Michael R. Underwood
• Narrated By Mary Robinette Kowal -- "Leah Tang just died onstage. Well, not literally. Not yet. Leah's stand-up career isn't going well. But she understands the power of fiction, and when she's offered employment with the mysterious Genrenauts Foundation, she soon discovers that literally dying onstage is a hazard of the job! Her first assignment takes her to a Western world. When a cowboy tale slips off its rails and the outlaws start to win, it's up to Leah - and the Genrenauts team - to nudge the story back on track and prevent a catastrophe on Earth. But the story's hero isn't interested in winning, and the safety of Earth hangs in the balance...."

The Drowning Eyes

UNABRIDGED

• By Emily Foster
• Narrated By Robin Miles -- Coming January 12; my goodness, how empty December has been without these weekly releases! It's like the "oh, it's the last Tuesday of the month again, isn't it, that's why I don't have a new Tor.com novella?" writ large, with an extra week to wait for folks to recover from New Year's Eve. Anyway, 2016 gets off to a Miles-narrated start, with beautiful cover art by Cynthia Sheppard and this story of ships, raiders, magic, and women.

Patchwerk

UNABRIDGED

• By David Tallerman
• Narrated By Tim Gerard Reynolds -- January 19 -- "Fleeing the city on the TransContinental airship, Dran Florrian is traveling with the Palimpsest - the ultimate proof of a lifetime of scientific theorizing. When a rogue organization attempts to steal the device, however, Dran takes drastic action. But his invention threatens to destroy the very fabric of this and all other possible universes, unless Dran - or someone very much like him - can shut down the machine and reverse the process."

  

Lustlocked: A Sin du Jour Affair

UNABRIDGED

• By Matt Wallace, coming January 26 -- "At a goblin royal wedding party, a magical food additive turns the humans in the room into horny, six-foot lizards, and all they want to do is have sex. With anything. For as long as they can. And as lizard love isn't something that interests the Sin du Jour staff, something must be done, but the building's magical defenses have kicked in, sealing off access to the outside world."

A Song for No Man's Land

UNABRIDGED

• By Andy Remic -- February 9, the first in an ongoing new series that sees this novella line step into gritty epic fantasy in a big, big way: "He signed up to fight with visions of honor and glory, of fighting for king and country, of making his family proud at long last. But on a battlefield during the Great War, Robert Jones is shot and wonders how it all went so very wrong and how things could possibly get any worse. He'll soon find out. When the attacking enemy starts to shape-shift into a nightmarish demonic force, Jones finds himself fighting an impossible war against an enemy that shouldn't exist." While the narrator isn't listed at Audible, the Macmillan Audio listing seems to indicate that it will be Tim Gerard Reynolds.

The Ballad of Black Tom

UNABRIDGED

• By Victor LaValle -- February 16 really can't come soon enough! I don't see a formal narrator announcement, but the Macmillan Audio listing leads me to believe that it's going to be Kevin R. Free. "People move to New York looking for magic, and nothing will convince them it isn't there. Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his black skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their trained cops. But when he delivers an occult page to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic and earns the attention of things best left sleeping. A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?"

   

The Absconded Ambassador: Genrenauts, Episode 2

UNABRIDGED

• By Michael R. Underwood -- February 23: "Fiction is more important than you think. When stories go wrong, the Genrenauts step in to prevent the consequences from rippling into our so-called real world. When a breach is discovered in Science Fiction World, rookie Genrenaut Leah Tang gets her first taste of space flight."

The Devil You Know

UNABRIDGED

• By K. J. Parker -- March 1: "The greatest philosopher of all time is offering to sell his soul to the devil. All he wants is 20 more years to complete his life's work. After that he really doesn't care. But the assistant demon assigned to the case has his suspicions because the philosopher is Saloninus - the greatest philosopher, yes, but also the greatest liar, trickster, and cheat the world has yet known - the sort of man even the Father of Lies can't trust. He's almost certainly up to something...but what?"

Forest of Memory: A METAtropolis Story

UNABRIDGED

• By Mary Robinette Kowal
• Narrated By Allyson Johnson -- Okay, this one's kind of snuck in here, as this story was first published in METAtropolis: Green Space, the third entry in Audible's original series, back in October 2013, and has been available standalone in audio since January 2014. Well, Tor.com is putting it out in ebook and paperback on March 8, and as it's already available for $1.49 in this sale, well. Here you go: "Katya deals in Authenticities, trading on nostalgia for a past long gone. But when she encounters a stranger who calls himself Johnny in the woods - even she can't say whether it's real or not." As an audio work it's perfectly conceived: Katya sells the telling of this story to a wealthy patron, a one-time-only, guaranteed unique experience. And yes, this came out well before Wu-Tang Clan's record Once Upon a Time in Shaolin sold its single existant physical copy to a millionaire.

  

Pieces of Hate

UNABRIDGED

• By Tim Lebbon -- March 15 -- Because it rhymes with "pieces of eight", right? "During the Dark Ages, a thing named Temple slaughtered Gabriel's family. A man with snake eyes charged him to pursue the assassin wherever he may strike next, and destroy him. Gabriel never believed he’d still be following Temple almost a thousand years later. Because Temple may be a demon, the man with snake eyes cursed Gabriel with a life long enough to hunt him down. Now he has picked up Temple's scent again. The Caribbean sea is awash with pirate blood, and in such turmoil the outcome of any fight is far from certain." Also includes a free bonus novelette, Dead Man’s Hand. "In the wilderness of the American West, the assassin is set to strike again. Despite his centuries-long curse, Gabriel is still but a man, scarred and bitter. The town of Deadwood has seen many such men... though it’s never seen anything quite like the half-demon known as Temple."

Every Heart a Doorway

UNABRIDGED

• By Seanan McGuire -- April 5: "Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children: No Solicitations. No Visitors. No Quests. Children have always disappeared under the right conditions - slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere...else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced...they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy's arrival marks a change at the home. There's a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it's up to Nancy and her newfound schoolmates to get to the heart of things. No matter the cost."

The Emperor's Railroad

UNABRIDGED

• By Guy Haley -- April 19. No cover art or narrator yet for the audiobook, but the book cover art certainly looks intriguing: Railroads and swords? YES YES YES RAILROADS AND SWORDS. "Global war devastated the environment, a zombielike plague wiped out much of humanity, and civilization as we once understood it came to a standstill. But that was a thousand years ago, and the world is now a very different place. Conflict between city-states is constant, superstition is rife, and machine relics, mutant creatures, and resurrected prehistoric beasts trouble the land. Watching over all are the silent Dreaming Cities. Homes of the angels, bastion outposts of heaven on Earth. Or so the church claims. Very few go in, and nobody ever comes out. Until now...."

Hm... You know what else is $3.47 each in this sale? The entire run of Bookburners from Serial Box, written by Max Gladstone, Mur Lafferty, Brian Francis Slattery, and Margaret Dunlap, and read by Xe Sands. Funny thing: these are cheaper directly from Serial Box, and! "the first one's free" as well. There's even a mobile app to make it easier to get these stories into your ears as easily as possible. But if another app doesn't suit you, or sorting out Serial Box's website for purchasing, and you "just want it in my Audible app, darn it" well, here you go: Bookburners: Badge, Book, and Candle: Episode 1, Bookburners: Anywhere But Here: Episode 2, Bookburners: Fair Weather: Episode 3, Bookburners: Episode 4: A Sorcerer's Apprentice, Bookburners: The Market Arcanum, Episode 5, Bookburners, Episode 6: Big Sky, on through Episode 10. Over at Serial Box, Episode 13 is already out, with 14, 15, and the season-concluding 16 due out each week before the year's out:

     

• By Kevin Hearne
• Narrated By Luke Daniels -- $6.99 each for this highly entertaining, fantastically narrated urban fantasy series set in Arizona: "Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old - when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer. Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries...." Be ready to fall in love with that wolfhound, "Oberon", and the way that Daniels brings him to life. While the rest of the series is a bit over a credit cost even in the sale, Two Ravens and One Crow: An Iron Druid Chronicles Novella is available for $7.

• By Ramez Naam
• Narrated By Luke Daniels and Mikael Naramore -- $6.99 each for the first two books in Naam's very, very well-received series of the all-too-near-future: "In the near future, the nano-drug Nexus can link mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it. When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he’s thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage, with far more at stake than anyone realizes." A quick note: the Kindle edition of book one at $4.61 (now there's a weird price for you) offers a $1.99 Whispersync add-on to the Audible edition.

• By Wesley Chu
• Narrated By Mikael Naramore -- $6.99 gets you into Chu's series, on the strength of which he just won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Author: "When out-of-shape IT technician Roen wakes up and starts hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumes he’s losing it. He isn’t. As of last night, he has a passenger in his brain - an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Over the millennia his people have trained human heroes to be great leaders, to advance our species at a rate far beyond what it would have achieved on its own. Split into two opposing factions - the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix - the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries."

The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Book 1, The Merchant of Dreams: Night's Masque, Book 2, and The Prince of Lies: Night's Masque Series, Book 3

UNABRIDGED

• By Anne Lyle
• Narrated By Michael Page -- "When Tudor explorers returned from the New World, they brought back a name out of half-forgotten Viking legend: skraylings. Red-sailed ships followed in the explorers’ wake, bringing Native American goods - and a skrayling ambassador – to London. But what do these seemingly magical beings really want in Elizabeth I’s capital? Mal Catlyn, a down-at-heel swordsman, is appointed to the ambassador’s bodyguard, but assassination attempts are the least of his problems. What he learns about the skraylings and their unholy powers could cost England her new ally – and Mal his soul." Note: The Kindle edition of book one at $2.99 offers a Whispersync add-on to the Audible edition for $3.49, for a total price of just a bit under the $6.99 Audible-only price, if you're comfortable with that approach.

       

ROW 1: The Blue Blazes By Chuck Wendig, Narrated By Patrick Lawlor; Empire State: A Novel and The Age Atomic By Adam Christopher, Narrated By Phil Gigante; and Hang Wire By Adam Christopher, Narrated By Luke Daniels

ROW 2: Seven Wonders By Adam Christopher, Narrated By Nick Podehl; Carpathia By Matt Forbeck, Narrated By Ralph Lister; vN: The First Machine Dynasty and iD: Machine Dynasty, Book 2 By Madeline Ashby, Narrated By Christina Traister; and Giant Thief: Tales of Easie Damasco, Book 1, Crown Thief: Tales of Easie Damasco, Book 2, and Prince Thief: Tales of Easie Damasco, Book 3 By David Tallerman, Narrated By James Langton

       

ROW 3: Between Two Thorns: The Split Worlds Series, Book 1, Any Other Name: The Split Worlds Series, Book 2, and All Is Fair: The Split Worlds Series, Book 3 By Emma Newman, Narrated By Emma Newman; Koko Takes a Holiday and Koko the Mighty By Kieran Shea, Narrated By Hillary Huber (NOTE though that the Kindle+Whispersync price is just $1.99+$3.49 for book one); Valis By Philip K. Dick, Narrated By Phil Gigante [NOTE: See the huge list of PKD books at $5.24 earlier in this article!]; and Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 with stories by John Scalzi, Sylvia Day, Brandon Sanderson, Charles Stross, Ken MacLeod, Brit Mandelo, Rachel Swirsky, and Meghan McCarron (among others), Narrated By Luke Daniels, R.C. Bray, Amy McFadden, MacLeod Andrews, Kathleen Gati, Cassandra Campbell, Jill Redfield, and Gideon Emery

ROW 4: Michael Crichton a-go-go! Congo Narrated By Julia Whelan; Sphere and Jurassic Park: A Novel Narrated By Scott Brick; and Eaters of the Dead Narrated By Simon Vance; AND: There’s still more Crichton at $6.99 including The Andromeda Strain Narrated By David Morse, The Terminal Man Narrated By Luke Daniels, and Rising Sun: A Novel Narrated By MacLeod Andrews.

The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson, Narrated By Angela Lin for Recorded Books is Sanderson’s Hugo-winning and World Fantasy-nominated novella from late 2012: “New York Times best-selling author Brandon Sanderson is widely celebrated for his Mistborn Trilogy and contribution to the final three books of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. In The Emperor’s Soul, a Forger named Shai can copy and re-create any item by using magic to rewrite its history. After being condemned to death for attempting to steal the emperor’s scepter, Shai is given one final chance. She’ ll be allowed to live if she can create a new soul for the emperor, who hovers near death.” Note: At $6.99 this is only just a bit cheaper than the $4.99+$2.99 Kindle+Whispersync price.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland: A Book by Patton Oswalt is read by the author, and I really enjoyed it; also includes some PDF illustrations from the book: “Oswalt combines memoir with uproarious humor, from snow forts to Dungeons & Dragons to gifts from Grandma that had to be explained. He remem­bers his teen summers spent working in a movie Cineplex and his early years doing stand-up. Readers are also treated to several graphic elements, includ­ing a vampire tale for the rest of us and some greeting cards with a special touch.”

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, Narrated By John Keating is the celebrated story of war, redemption, and a hero’s journey. It’s also the basis of one of the great stage plays of this new century — no, seriously, you have to see War Horse staged if you get the chance, the puppetry is simply amazing. “In 1914, Joey, a beautiful bay-red foal with a distinctive cross on his nose, is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges toward the enemy, witnessing the horror of the battles in France. But even in the desolation of the trenches, Joey’s courage touches the soldiers around him and he is able to find warmth and hope. But his heart aches for Albert, the farmer’s son he left behind. Will he ever see his true master again?”

Okay, four more $6.99 titles to send along before another bump in price, this time all focused on the “kids” section. I’ll start by cheating and including a big pile of books by William Alexander as just “one” entry, but if you’re going to pick up just one, go with Goblin Secrets. Ghoulish Song is also here, as are his “young reader science fiction” books Ambassador and Nomad, all read by the author.

Sparky’s First Space Adventure: The Spacers Series, Book 1 By Mike Teale, Narrated By Stefan Rudnicki is maybe not one for your kid’s bedtime, but it’s one I think they’ll have a blast listening to, complete with alarm sound effects. I haven’t heard Rudnicki have this much fun on a narration in a long time! “Space is a fun and scary place. Join Sparky and his fellow spacers as he goes on his first space adventure to help Professor Hubble, the orbiting space telescope. Will the Debris Brothers, the space rubbish pranksters, mess up the mission? Will Sparky make it through the extremely hot and dangerous reentry window?”

A big, big stack of Matt Christopher’s sports books are well-priced in the sale, but two from his non-fiction series “Great Americans in Sports” (Great Americans in Sports: Drew Brees and Great Americans in Sports: Blake Griffin, both read by Alden Ford) are down in this price range.

And one more kids title here (don’t worry, I cover a couple more young reader series later!) which is Space Taxi: Archie Takes Flight by Wendy Mass and Michael Brawer, barrated by child actor Eason Rytter, and it begins a fun little series: “Archie Morningstar learns a big family secret and helps save the universe. All before breakfast! up at midnight. But today is Take Your Kid to Work Day, and Archie is finally allowed to ride along in his dad’s taxi cab. He has been waiting eight years, eight months, and eight days for this moment to arrive. But he’s about to discover his dad is no ordinary cab driver… In fact, he drives an intergalactic space taxi!”

All right. We’ll go ahead and bump up to the $8-$9 range here for some titles I think are well, well worth the price:

Wylding Hall By Elizabeth Hand, Narrated By Jennifer Woodward, John Telfer, Dan Morgan, Emma Fenney, Simon Victor, Kris Dyer, and a full cast really is a special book and audiobook; it’s set up like a documentary transcript, and the full cast audio production is absolutely superb. In Wylding Hall, a British folk band sets out to record their next album at the sprawling country home “Wylding Hall”, getting out of London and away from its distractions. Years later, the surviving members of the band try to sort out what happened that fateful summer, when the lead singer disappeared into the secrets of the Hall and was never seen again.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things: Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 2.5 By Patrick Rothfuss. read by the author expands the story of Auri while Kvothe is out adventuring and we wait, patiently I swear, for Book 3.

Willful Child By Steven Erikson, Narrated By MacLeod Andrews sees this master of dark epic fantasy give sarcastic space opera a go: “These are the voyages of the starship A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life-forms, to boldly blow the… And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through the infinite vastness of interstellar space.”

The Fault in Our Stars By John Green, Narrated By Kate Rudd hardly needs any introduction I suppose? It’s the heartbreaking story of two teenage cancer patients who meet and (against both of their better judgement, knowing the likely terminal natures of their respective diseases) fall in love.

ROW 1: Never Knew Another: Dogsland, Book 1 and When We Were Executioners: Dogsland, Book 2 By J. M. McDermott, Narrated By Eileen Stevens (a pair of fantastical fantasy novels); Made to Kill: A Novel By Adam Christopher, Narrated By Dan Bittner (a robot detective in a post-war Hollywood that never was); Lock In (Narrated by Wil Wheaton) and Lock In (Narrated by Amber Benson) By John Scalzi — and speaking of Wheaton reading Scalzi, Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas; and Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury, Narrated By Tim Robbins (there are some cheaper audio editions, but being read by Tim Robbins is quite a bonus)

ROW 2: Several books by the great Octavia E. Butler including Dawn: Xenogenesis, Book 1 read by Aldrich Barrett, Wild Seed read by Dion Graham, and her collection Bloodchild and Other Stories read by Janina Edwards; Shower of Stones: A Novel of Jeroun By Zachary Jernigan, Narrated By John FitzGibbon, a fantastic follow-on to his debut No Return; Half-Resurrection Blues: Bone Street Rumba, Book 1 By Daniel José Older, read by the author, which is a breath of fresh air in a sometimes stale urban fantasy subgenre (note though that the Kindle+Whispersync price is $7.99+$3.99, so a couple more bucks for both editions if you prefer); and The Summer Prince By Alaya Dawn Johnson, Narrated By Rebecca Mozo and Lincoln Hoppe

ROW 3: Echo By Pam Muñoz Ryan, Narrated By Mark Bramhall, David de Vries, Andrews MacLeod, and Rebecca Soler (out just earlier this year, a fantastic production of music and magic); Where the Hell is Tesla?: A Novel By Rob Dircks, read by the author (also out earlier this year, a comedic science fictional take on the discovery of a “lost” journal of Nikola Tesla being hidden by a shadowy government agency); The Dinosaur Four By Geoff Jones, Narrated By Nick Podehl (just released last week; what more do you need than the title and cover of this one?); and quite a few audiobooks from author David Drake including All the Way to the Gallows read by R.C. Bray, Cross the Stars: Hammer’s Slammer’s Series read by Jay Snyder, Northworld: Justice: Northworld, Book 3 read by Scott Aiello, Igniting the Reaches: Reaches, Book 1, Through the Breach: Reaches, Book 2, and Fireships: Reaches, Book 3 read by Ray Porter, Patriots read by Marc Vietor, and The Military Dimension: Mark II read by Stephen Bel Davies

ROW 4: A great selection of Kurt Vonnegut audiobooks: Slaughterhouse-Five Narrated By James Franco, Breakfast of Champions Narrated By John Malkovitch; Bluebeard: The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916-1988)By Narrated By Mark Bramhall; and Deadeye DickNarrated By Sean Runnette; as well as Jailbird Narrated By Richard Ferrone; Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage Narrated By Richard Davidson; Slapstick Narrated By Adam Grupper; Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons Narrated By Joe Barrett; Hocus Pocus Narrated By LJ Ganser; Palm Sunday Narrated By Tom Stechschulte; A Man Without a Country and While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction Narrated By Norman Dietz; Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction Narrated By Christopher E. Welch;  and! at $7.08, Timequake Narrated By Arthur Bishop; and! at $7.47 We Are What We Pretend to Be: The First and Last WorksNarrated By Colin Hanks, Oliver Wyman, and Suzanne Toren

ROW 5: Lakota Woman By Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes, Narrated By Emily Durante; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time By Mark Haddon, Narrated By Jeff Woodman; So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed By Jon Ronson, read by the author; and The Forgotten Garden By Kate Morton, Narrated By Caroline Lee

Lastly, here’s some that are just barely over $10, only mentioned due to just how highly I recommend them:

• By Samuel R. Delany
• Narrated By Stefan Rudnicki for $10.48 -- This is one of the great all time works of science fiction, read by one of the masters of the audiobook form, with excellent production touches to boot: “Babel-17, winner of the Nebula Award for best novel of the year, is a fascinating tale of a famous poet bent on deciphering a secret language that is the key to the enemy’s deadly force, a task that requires she travel with a splendidly improbable crew to the site of the next attack.”

Moxyland

UNABRIDGED

• By Lauren Beukes
• Narrated By Nico Evers-Swindell for $10.49 -- Beukes' 2008 debut: "What's really going on? Who's really in charge? You have NO. F***KING. IDEA. In the near future, an art-school dropout, an AIDS baby, a tech-activist, and an RPG-obsessed blogger live in a world where your online identity is at least as important as your physical one. Getting disconnected is a punishment worse than imprisonment, but someone's got to stand up to Government Inc. - whatever the cost."

Broken Monsters

UNABRIDGED

• By Lauren Beukes
• Narrated By Christine Lakin, Terra Deva, Sunil Mohatra, Robert Morgan Fisher, J. D. Jackson for $10.50 -- "A criminal mastermind creates violent tableaus in abandoned Detroit warehouses in Lauren Beukes's new genre-bending novel of suspense. Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit's standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams?" (Meanwhile, The Shining Girls: A Novel is $12.24, another full cast production, another amazing book and audiobook.)

The Man in the High Castle

UNABRIDGED

• By Philip K. Dick
• Narrated By Jeff Cummings for $1.049 -- Finally adapted (and it's adapted fairly broadly) for the small screen by Amazon, Dick's alternate history masterpiece of a world where the United States lost World War 2: "It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war - and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake."

The Creative Fire: Book One of Ruby's Song

UNABRIDGED

• By Brenda Cooper
• Narrated By Yetta Gottesman -- At $10.36, this first book in Cooper's "Character-driven, social science fiction inspired by the life of Evita Peron" gets things kicked off with a bang. "Ruby Martin expects to spend her days repairing robots while avoiding the dangerous peacekeeping forces that roam the corridors of the generation ship the Creative Fire. The social structure of the ship is rigidly divided, with Ruby and her friends on the bottom. Then a ship-wide accident gives Ruby a chance to fight for the freedom she craves." And another Cooper title, Mayan December, read by Allyson Johnson, is also at this price.

   

Lastly! (Well, almost done.) Joe Abercrombie’s “First Law” novels narrated by Steven Pacey for $10.38 each? Yes. The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings tell the stories of Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, Captain Jezal, dashing officer, Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, and the wizard Bayaz, set amidst war and political intrigue; Best Served Cold sees the action a bit more focused on one story of revenge. Another fantastic book in the series, Red Country is $12.74, so depending on your credit situation it might still be something of a good deal for you.

 

And, really finally, and back to the bargain basement prices, I need to glance further through Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and see which ones are enough of a bargain to pick up now; quite a few at $3.47 and my kids are big fans. Speaking of my kids favorite series and $3.47, Luke Daniels reads several of Winter Morgan’s Minecraft adventures, starting with Quest for the Diamond Sword: A Minecraft Gamer’s Adventure.

• • By Sherrilyn Kenyon
  • Narrated By Fred Berman