Posts filed: The Arrrdies

2016 Arrrdies, Part 1: The digital regional divide of 2015: Tad Williams, Daniel Polansky, Becky Chambers, Robert Holdstock, Sarah Pinborough, and more

Posted on 2016-02-22 at 17:8 by Sam

I had a blast putting together the most missing audiobooks of 2014, and I'm back for more. This year saw (in the US Audible science fiction and fantasy section alone) 3,606 new audiobooks, up a few hundred from last year's 3,267. And, of course, that number doesn't include GraphicAudio, independent and podiobook releases, and (most notably for my interests) the six new Cory Doctorow audiobooks at DRM-free Downpour.com.

I suppose that in fairness I should go back through the 2014 list and highlight some of

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Posted in The Arrrdies | Tagged Andrew Wincott, Becky Chambers, Daniel Polansky, digital regional divide, robert holdstock, sarah pinborough, tad williams

2015 Armchair Audies: Science Fiction

Posted on 2015-05-21 at 20:27 by Sam

I'm honored to be a guest judge this year for the The Armchair Audies, the audiobook blogosphere's annual "challenge" in conversation with the Audio Publishers Association Audies which will be awarded at the sold-out APA Audies Gala on May 28. This year I signed up for the Science Fiction category, if for no other reason than that I'd already listened to 3 of the 5 nominees, a 4th was very, very high on my wishlist, and the 5th came highly-recommended as well. (It didn't hurt that The Guilded Earlobe was

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Posted in The Arrrdies | Tagged andy weir, armchair audies, audies, claire north, dark eden, john scalzi, lock in, rc bray, the martian, wil wheaton

The AudioBookaneers pick their favorite audiobooks of 2014

Posted on 2015-03-02 at 15:15 by Sam

Well, it's (past) that time of year again: time for Dave and I to look back on a year in listening. We laughed, we cried, we cheered, we jeered, we stayed up well into the night for these audiobooks. It seems like every year calls for a slight wrinkle in presentation, but this year it's a familiar one: our audiobooks of the year, runners up in both new audiobooks of new books and new audiobooks of previously published books, and our favorite "new to us" listens of the year. (And, mostly because it helps

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Posted in The Arrrdies | Tagged adjoa andoh, afterparty, amber benson, andy weir, andy weird, ann leckie, anne charnock, area x, bd wong, ben h. winters, bronson pinchot, catherynne m valente, chang-rae lee, cherie priest, chris beckett, cibola burn, claire north, daniel abraham, dark eden, daryl gregory, donna tartt, drizzt, evie wyld, fred berman, gabrielle de cuir, haruki murakami, ironskin, j.k. rowling, james marsters, james sa corey, janis ian, jeff vandermeer, jo walton, joe hill, john darnielle, john scalzi, johnny b truant, jonathan lethem, josh cohen, junot diaz, kameron hurley, katherine addison, kristen bell, lev grossman, lewis shiner, lock in, macleod andrews, manly wade wellman, maplecroft, margaret atwood, mark bramhall, michael chabon, michel faber, monica byrne, motherless brooklyn, my real children, neil gaiman, nick harkaway, octavia butler, on such a full sea, one hundred years of solitude, peter berkrot, RA Salvatore, rc bray, richard kadrey, robert galbraith, robert glenister, rosalyn landor, ruth ozeki, sandman slim, sean platt, shirley jackson, six-gun snow white, stefan rudnicki, ted chiang, the beam, the book of strange new things, the brief wondrous life of oscar wao, the girl in the road, the goblin emperor, the goldfinch, the martian, the mirror empire, the silkworm, the yiddish policeman's union, therese anne fowler, tigerman, tina connolly, vampire empire, veronica mars, we have always lived in the castle, when women were warriors, wil wheaton, wolf in white van, xe sands

The 33 most missing audiobooks of 2014

Posted on 2015-01-17 at 6:12 by Sam

Three thousand two hundred sixty-seven. That's how many science fiction and fantasy audiobooks were added to Audible.com's US listings alone in 2014, and the larger number of new speculative fiction audiobooks -- which include GraphicAudio, independent (for example The Maze of Games and Eric Flint's "Islands"), and other titles not available at Audible (for example Cory Doctorow's Homeland and Information Doesn't Want to Be Free), physical-only releases, podiobooks, and English-language audiobooks released

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Posted in The Arrrdies | Tagged adam roberts, alex dally macfarlane, am dellamonica, american neolithic, ben aaronovitch, blake butler, broken river books, bryan allen carr, dave hutchinson, david edison, david james keaton, diana wynne jones, elysium, emmi itaranta, fred venturini, gemma files, greg van eekhout, hilda hilst, iain m banks, james l cambias, jay lake, jennifer marie brissett, jenny erpenbeck, jm mcdermott, joanne m harris, john hornor jacobs, jonathan carroll, josh weil, julia elliott, kerry howley, laila lalami, lavie tidhar, maze, naomi foyle, neil williamson, nick mamatas, nina allan, our lady of the islands, peter liney, rajan khanna, richard house, rjurik davidson, sam sykes, shannon page, simon ings, stephen baxter, stuart rojstaczer, terence hawkins, the great glass sea, the last projector, ultima, unwrapped sky, ursula jones, will mcintosh, wu ming-yi

At Long Last! The AudioBookaneers Favorite Audiobooks of 2013!

Posted on 2014-02-24 at 14:53 by Dave

Yes, it's been a looooooooong wait. But 2013 was a pretty good year, and we have the audiobooks to prove it! In our wrap-up of 2012 in audiobooks, we had a consensus pick for best new audiobook, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. This year, we are a house -- er, pirate ship? -- divided. Last year, we also split things up quite a bit between "best new audiobook of a new book" and "best new audiobook of a previously released book". This year, there are no second class citizens among our listens

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Posted in The Arrrdies | Tagged american elsewhere, ancillary justice, ann leckie, doctor sleep, hild, kate atkinson, kim stanley robinson, lauren beukes, life after life, neil gaiman, niccola griffith, robert jackson bennett, shaman, stephen king, the ocean at the end of the lane, the shining girls

The AudioBookaneers 2012 Year in Review, Part 2: Books We Missed

Posted on 2013-01-10 at 21:28 by Dave

We tried. We really did. "ALL THE BOOKS!" But, alas, there was a good number of audiobooks we had our eyes on but for one reason or another -- usually time... -- we didn't get to them. While listing even all of those books would take a while -- Audible Frontiers published 750 audiobooks this year alone, let alone the output from the other publishers and the influx of ACX titles -- we tried to narrow our lists down as much as we could. (We really did.) This is part 2 in a 3-part wrapup of 2012, with part 1 b

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Posted in The Arrrdies

The AudioBookaneers 2012 Year in Review, Part 1: Our Favorite Listens

Posted on 2013-01-05 at 0:13 by Sam

Well, like everybody else, we're taking a look back at 2012. It was the biggest year ever in terms of audiobook releases: Audible Frontiers published 750 audiobooks this year alone, not to mention the output from the other major and independent publishers and the influx of ACX titles this year. Did we listen to everything? Oh no. (More on that in the second part of this series. Much more.) Did the audiobook publishers get to every deserving book? Not quite. (More on that in the third part of the series

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Posted in The Arrrdies

2011 in review, 4 of 4: My picks for the year's best in science fiction and fantasy audiobooks

Posted on 2011-12-23 at 13:24 by Sam

This is the last of four posts looking back at 2011 in science fiction and fantasy audiobooks, after my year in listeningwhat I missed, and the most missing audiobooks. Here, I lay out my picks for the year’s best in science fiction and fantasy audiobooks!

I already spilled the beans on my pick for the best new audiobook of the year, that being Glimpses By Lewis Shiner Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki:

This one I reviewed back in March, and my opinion of this 1994 World Fantasy Award winner hasn’t changed

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Posted in The Arrrdies