Podcast Novels
So a few months back, I was whining to James about how I had a long car trip to Kansas City ahead of me and I had nothing good to listen to on the way. He suggested I check out podiobooks.com. “Podiobooks” are basically unpublished novels that the authors podcast in weekly installments in lieu of traditional paper books or even traditional audiobooks. After digging around on the site, I figured I’d try a few of the books that had won awards or were being read by the staff. I started with J.C. Hutchin’s 7th Son, a three book science fiction series (two released, one more coming in July) about a secret government cloning project gone awry. Then I moved on to Scott Sigler’s podcast novels, which are sort of science fiction horror. These are the only books I’ve listened to on podiobooks.com, and I’m sure there are lots of less than great books up there, but I’m thorougly impressed with all of these so far, from the quality of the storytelling to the overall production value.
Granted, these aren’t going to win the Pulitzer Prize or anything,* but they are a good source of entertainment, and it’s kind of scary how quickly I fly through them. I listen both ways on my 30 minute trip to work each day, while doing the dishes & other boring household tasks, and a little bit each night before bed.** I admittedly cheat a bit on the “podcast” part of the podcast novel: I’ve only listened to novels that are complete already, downloading the whole thing in one fell swoop and listening straight through. (Hint: the Firefox extension DownThemAll helps.) This isn’t just with podcasts though: I’d much rather watch a TV show after the season is released on DVD so I can watch the episodes in big chunks at a time, and I’m currently going nuts waiting an entire months between Buffy season eight comics. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I’ve burned through the complete podcast novels and end up suffering through weekly fixes of, say, the third 7th Son book.
By the way, I sent this post through the Gender Genie and it correctly identified me as a male: my “male score” was 705, while my “female score” was only 408.
* Speaking of Pulitzer Prize winning books though, I finally finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay after hearing how great it was from about 15 unrelated sources. They weren’t exaggerating: it’s a great book.
**I’m one of those people that needs a lengthy winding-down ritual before I can fall asleep at night. Teresa complains she’s “having trouble sleeping” if it takes her more than five minutes to fall asleep. Listening to audiobooks, unlike reading, does not require keeping a light on, so it’s a win-win for both of us.
Post-WP Update: After moving from WordPress I lost my comments. I didn’t have a lot of comments to begin with, so I didn’t worry about this too much. However, this particular post attracted comments from both J.C. Hutchins, author of 7th Son, and Evo Terra, founder of podiobooks. I imagine they probably subscribe to Google Alerts for their names and/or products and try to comment whenever someone says something positive about what they’re doing. Aside from producing highly entertaining fiction, this is what has made them successful: building up a loyal fan base around what is, at first, just some guy talking into his mic and putting it out there for the world. Hutchins is publishing books straight to print these days. So just in case 10 years from now a bunch of these podcasters end up being the famous authors of the day, it’s worth saving these comments as evidence of how they built such a loyal fanbase early on:
