easttexasaggie04 said:
I've got a super long drive next week and hoping to find an audiobook that'll help the time pass. I'm a nerd and sci-fi usually keeps my attention or very interesting history books. I enjoyed audiobooks like Ready Player 1, Jurassic Park, Time Machine, and Into Thin Air. Any recommendations?
I'm going to try and give you some comps based solely on how much I enjoyed the audio book
Ready Player One. I loved this audiobook and it got me into the concept of Lit-RPG, so my recommendations will come from that genre.
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - Very funny, irreverent, lots of action. It's like you took The Running Man and Death Race, and made them funnier and added aliens.
- The Mayor of Noobtown - same general Lit-RPG conceit. Funny, but not as gruesome (or as good) as Dungeon Crawler Carl. Still enjoyable.
- Starter Villain - Not RPG, but it is Will Wheaton back as your narrator. Here's the tagline: "Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think... particularly when you discover who's running the place." Very funny, very entertaining.
The Time Machine & Jurassic Park.You've got science, drama, a measure of horror.
- 14 - Peter Clines' first book of the "Threshold Universe." Meet Nate and his weird apartment building and the secrets hidden in plain sight. Part X-Files. Part HP Lovecraft. Ray Porter is excellent on the mic.
- The Outsider - Stephen King doing Stephen King things. A kid is murdered, and they have pinned it on the Little League coach with convincing hard evidence. But he has a rock solid alibi. What? Will Patton is awesome as your narrator.
- Timeline - If you like Michael Crichton and time travel, why not a Michael Crichton book about time travel? Take the Assassin's Creed video games and mixt it with Excalibur.
Into Thin Air.Maybe my favorite adventure novel of all time. Real people surviving in real danger. I don't have a great audiobook comp here, so I'm going to go fictionalized and recommend
One Second After. Life in America after an EMP attack. It's fictionalized, and I hope it's not accurate but fear it is.
Very Interesting History.If you like fictionalized history (i.e., storytelling set against the back drop of real historical events), there's a ton of excellent options.
- The Pillars of the Earth - Am I really recommending Ken Follet's 40-hour audiobook about the building of a gothic cathedral in 12th centry England? Yes, yes I am. Probably in my top 10 books of all time.
- The Company - Robert Littell's opus clocks in over 40 hours as well and blends real people and fake characters together to tell the history of the CIA, starting with then of WW2 and following them through the end of the Cold War. Excellent espionage book.
- Fall of Giants - Back to Ken Follett here for another beast, though only 30 hours. This is the first book of the Century Trilogy. You meet five people from five very different families and watch as they become entangled in geopolitics leading up to the rise of communism and through WW1. Brilliant book.
- The Power of the Dog Series - Don Wilsons' "Power of the Dog" series is three books (The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border) that are fictionalized accounts tracking the real history of the drug trade and the DEA. Each book is like 20+ hours.
- Devil in the White City - I hesitate to recommend this, only because I assume at this point everyone in the world has read it or listened to it. If you haven't this is your pick. Follow America's "first" serial killer, HH Holmes as he tricks people visiting his "Murder Castle" in Chicago while Daniel Burnham tries to get the city ready for the world's fair. Absolutely incredible, and Scott Brick is a master narrator.
- In Cold Blood - Truman Capote's masterwork about the true story and lives involved in the 1959 Clutter murders. Scott Brick again to read you this American classic.