Posts by: Sam

The Audiobookaneer, January 2018: Frankenstein in Baghdad, Beneath the Sugar Sky, The Beautiful Ones, and more

Posted on 2018-02-10 at 21:15 by Sam

I've no idea if I'll keep this up, but it doesn't seem like too much to tiptoe back onto the blog with one small monthly feature. I'm still chugging along with weekly release picks over on reddit, but I haven't tried to go back and pick the "picks of the picks" for a month in a long, long time, and, hey, this gives me a chance to put in pretty pictures again! Anyway, here's the first in what I hope is a monthly column this year, of use especially to those really looking for one or two recommendations, and

Posted in Sam's Monthly Listening Report

April 27th #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Madeline Ashby, Peter Watts, Jo Walton, Robert J. Sawyer, Steven Erikson, and more

Posted on 2017-04-27 at 14:16 by Sam

While I'm putting the finishing touches on the full #WhispersyncDeal roundup of the Monthly Deals in Kindle Books, today's crop of Daily Deal eBooks with Audible Narration is too good to just share out one Tweet at a time. Feast your eyes and ears on:

Company Town by Madeline Ashby, read by Cecelia Kim for Audible for $2.99+$4.49 -- "They call it Company Town--a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd. Hwa is of

Posted in Whispersync Deals

"Twisted and Frighteningly Relatable" -- James reviews The Circle

Posted on 2017-04-06 at 13:25 by Sam

The Circle
By Dave Eggers
Narrated by Dion Graham for Random House
 [Audible | Downpour]

-- Review by James Alexander --

Like a novel-length episode of Black Mirror, Dave Eggers’ The Circle paints a twisted and frighteningly relatable picture of technology and human nature gone wrong. The story beings with Mae Holland, a recent college graduate, bored, broke and overqualified at her nightmare of a job in public utility. She’s eventually recruited into the Circle, an exciting, all-encompassing tech

Posted in reviews | Tagged dave eggers, dion graham, james alexander, the circle

March #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Kate Reading reading Marie Brennan, Simon Vance reading Brian Staveley and James Maxwell, and more

Posted on 2017-03-31 at 03:56 by Sam

I'm getting this roundup just, barely, under the wire, as the main roundup expires at midnight on March 31. So... without further adieu, here's what most catches my #WhispersyncDeal-attuned eyes and ears among the 218 eBooks with Audible Narration in the March Monthly Deals in Kindle Books:

A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan, read by Kate Reading for $2.99+$3.99 NOTE: it looks like the Audible add-on portion of this price changed to $12.99? or? I somehow had the wrong

Posted in Whispersync Deals

What ever happened to Sam's "Release Week" roundup posts? They're on reddit!

Posted on 2017-03-02 at 02:27 by Sam

I've realized that I never made any kind of "formal" post or announcement here on the blog, when I moved the "Release Week" roundup posts from here to reddit's /r/audiobooks... So... Yeah... Sorry about that. I've been a moderator there for quite a long time now, and when push came to shove for that particular column, the formatting, linking, images, and such just became a bit too much to both write up here and then sanitize a bit for posting over there, and I just took to using the more or less "barebones"

Posted in Release Week

"The past can’t be changed, but it can be learned from." -- James reviews Snapshot

Posted on 2017-02-28 at 19:21 by Sam

Snapshot
By Brandon Sanderson
Narrated by William DeMeritt for Audible

— Review by James Alexander —

Snapshot is one of those books you know will probably be a movie soon right away. I mean that in the best possible sense, the premise is just too good. In a city of millions, detectives Davis and Chaz are the only real people. Cops in this futuristic world have taken to using “Snapshots”, large scale, holodeck-like re-creations of the past to solve crimes.

Let’s say a murder is committed Monday with no

Posted in reviews | Tagged brandon sanderson, james alexander, snapshot, william demeritt

February #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Octavia Butler, Julie McElwain, Wesley Chu, Greg Bear, Rysa Walker, Veronica Rossi, Ben Fountain, and more

Posted on 2017-02-26 at 17:52 by Sam

All right! February's Monthly Deals listings, of which 269 are eBooks with Audible Narration, aren't actually that long in terms of what I would call outstanding #WhispersyncDeal titles. But! A solid dozen are well worth checking out, starting with some time travel:

Kindred by Octavia Butler, read by Kim Staunton for $2.99+$3.49 -- "Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the

Posted in Whispersync Deals

January #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Aldous Huxley, Meg Elison, Jacqueline Carey, Alex Bledsoe, Clive Barker, and more

Posted on 2017-01-31 at 00:04 by Sam

The first #WhispersyncDeal roundup of 2017 is here! As usual I'll run down my picks among this month's Whispersync-for-voice-enabled Monthly Deals in Kindle Books, also known now as eBooks with Audible Narration, of which there are 536 to scan through this month. Well, I'm going to keep calling them "Whispersync deals", and here's what most caught my eye and ear this month; don't wait too long as these deals expire on January 31:

Island by Aldous Huxley, read by Simon Vance for Tantor Audio for $1.99+$3

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged aldous huxley, alex bledsoe, angela dawe, clive barker, jacqueline carey, meg elison, simon vance, stefan rudnicki

December 25th #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Neil Gaiman, Harper Lee, Pax, The Nest, Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist, and more

Posted on 2016-12-26 at 02:50 by Sam

In addition to the month-long December deals, Amazon.com has a pretty darned good lineup of Kindle Daily Deals today, including 26 Whispersync for Voice enabled titles. Here's a quick roundup of the best deals on the best titles:

American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition by Neil Gaiman, read by either George Guidall (the original audiobook) or the matching 10th anniversary edition full cast production, for $2.95+$3.99 -- "First published in 2001, American Gods became an instant classic—an

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged jeremy irons, neil gaiman, reese witherspoon, roxane gay

December #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Patrick deWitt, Marko Kloos, Chuck Wendig, Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, and more

Posted on 2016-12-25 at 18:28 by Sam

A well-timed Amazon.com gift card burning a hole in your digital pocket? Looking for some year-end reading and listening? I've got you covered with another monthly #WhispersyncDeal roundup, with great current year titles from Patrick deWitt, Marko Kloos, Chuck Wendig, and more, and classic sf from Arthur C. Clarke and Kurt Vonnegut. Here we go, with my usual picks from the monthly $3.99 or less listings. 358 are Whispersync-for-voice enabled, of which my very top picks are:

Undermajordomo Minor: A

Posted in Whispersync Deals