SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Interesting SFF books on Audible Plus? Tell us about the gems you found!

Please note that the Plus selection changes weekly, so anything listed here might not be on Plus in the future.

I found Barbary by Vonda N. McIntyre, which is a MG/YA scifi with space cats! ^_^ Yes, I'm starting it immediately!

Some of the group books I spotted:


Dreamsnake
An Unkindness of Ghosts
Babel-17
The Sheep Look Up
Brave New World
The Bone Witch

Other possibly interesting books:
Nova
The Lesson
Embers of War + Fleet of Knives
Patternmaster
Finder
More Than Human
Bellwether
Dreadnought + Sovereign
Hunger Makes the Wolf
Troll: A Love Story
Unholy Land
The Test
Mem
Wylding Hall
The Dispatcher
Horrorstör
The Stars Change
The Prestige
Blindness
Convenience Store Woman (not SFF but I really liked it)
The Galaxy Game (technically you should read The Best of All Possible Worlds first, but you don't absolutely have to)
Wolf Moon (book 2)

Anthologies/Collections:
Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places
Stories of the Raksura, Volume 1
Stories of the Raksura, Volume 2
Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry
METAtropolis: The Dawn of Uncivilization
METAtropolis: Green Space
Across the Spectrum

Lots of books by:
Lois McMaster Bujold
Judith Tarr
Nancy Kress
Catherine Asaro

There are more, but that's what I spotted during a quick browse

Sweet! This actually has some books that I wanted to read but didn't want to pay for. =D

Yay more audiobooks!

I added more stuff to message #2. If anyone has found something cool I haven't listed, please tell us about it!

I looked through my Audible wish list, mostly out of curiosity (wish lists are where I put things that I'll probably never get back to), and found less overlap than I'd expected. Perhaps 5% of my SFF-heavy wish list is in Audible Plus. The list has entries dating back to over 15 years ago and the matches were mostly towards the older end. I'd wondered if this would cannibalize existing memberships but... maybe not.

Another group book that I found: Planetfall by Emma Newman.

Susan Palmer's Finder is also in the program as is Stephen Fry's epic (62 hours) Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Audio Collection.

Other authors that I saw with books in the program: Ursula K. Le Guin, Connie Willis, Neal Asher, R.A. MacAvoy, Wesley Chu, and Larry Niven.

While I was going through the wish list I also saw reference to a separate (addition cost) program, Audible Escape, that provides "Unlimited listening to thousands of romantic and feel-good stories." This seems to be focused more on traditional romance but there's overlap here as well. I found a book from Connie Willis, some from Lois McMaster Bujold (mostly Penric novels), and Howl's Moving Castle from Diana Wynne Jones. This is getting so confusing.

I have a smaller set of books available for me in Finland, so only the one Connie Willis and UKLG. But for me that's fine since they're books I've read, own or plan to read and/or own. Also no Planetfall, but I own that in all possible formats already :D

The only SFF books I found that were of interest to me on Escape when I tried it in February were the Bujold and Willis books, which I'd already read, and The Shore of Women by Pamela Sargent.

I'm really excited about Judith Tarr's books being on there. There are some I haven't read yet and favs that I have read that I will not re-read by audio. Woot!

I'm pretty sure all of the Audible Originals are on the Plus Catalog.

Authors on Plus (US):
- Dean Koontz
- Jonathan Maberry
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Max Gladstone
- Nicholas Sansbury Smith
- Alan Dean Foster
- C.S. Lewis
- Jodi Taylor
- Grady Hendrix
- Alex Bledsoe

Soo, if you have recs for which Judith Tarr to try first, let me know! I think I can squeeze one of the APlus ones in before my sub ends on Monday.

Judith Tarr is a good writer. I have the first three books of the Avaryan Rising and I read them several times.

Hm. The first book for Avaryan Rising is not on Audible+ but I think you can go into The Lady of Han-Gilen without reading #1 first.

That's the one I would recommend out of the batch because I love the series.

The other books are historical fiction and I'm pretty keen to read them at some point.

Thanks, I was not considering that, because the first one isn't on +, but if you think it's OK, I might try it!

I read two of Alex Bledsoe's series Eddie LaCrosse & they were great adventure-fantasy. =)

He has at least two series on Plus. Planning on listening to them & probably buying.

Books:
- Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
- Mars One by Jonathan Maberry
- Finder #1 by Suzanne Palmer

Authors on Plus (US): Not always entire series. It's weird mix.

- Rob Thurman
- Julie Kagawa
- Anne McCaffrey
- Mark Tufo

After asking for Judith Tarr recs, I ignored them and listened to the two short standalones instead: Living in Threes and Dragon Winter. Living was a fun but sad YA science fantasy adventure in Egypt, always appreciated. I have other books by Tarr that I'll get to later, I don't think I'll be jumping into the series that isn't fully available. I'll try to read the first one before I next get Audible, and hope that the other two are still on Plus.

I think I already looked at McCaffrey, either there was nothing by her for me on Plus, or they were all middle of the series. I'll check again.

I'm gonna bet Living in Threes was better than Dragon Winter. I listened to Dragon Winter and it wasn't a good representation of her writing.

So far, I'm listening to mostly Plus books and all of them are 3-5 stars for me. Good range and fun. =D

Yeah me too, although I'm making a short detour into something else today, then I'll try to get a couple of more A+ books read while I still can.

I don't really have much to say about Dragon Winter, it didn't really stick in my mind. I didn't expect it to, but it was short and free, so why not!

OK, so I started my A+ journey with Barbary, a book about a cat in space for a younger audience. I'm now ending my A sub with Pet Noir, a book about a cat in space for a younger audience :D This has a genetically modified kitten detective who lives on a space station and tackles things like the lack of gravity, space rats and smugglers. I wouldn't recommend it as something everyone should go out and buy, but if anyone likes detective stories with animals, check this out for free. The cover and narrator don't match what the story is so far, because he is a four week old kitten and misses his mom a lot, but the narrator sounds like a noir detective. Maybe he grows up before the book ends, and it'll make sense. I'm about a third into it, so I don't know yet.

edit: This is *not* for younger audiences. There is a casual mention of the cat's human "browsing the porno feeds", and then there's attempted sexual assault.

This seems like a really odd collection of books to start this service with. At least from the books I'm interested in most are middle books in a series. A lot of the books are also those offered through Hoopla so not much incentive for me to pay for this.

I have been doing the one time purchase for 24 credits for the last few years but have such a backlog that I'm not sure if I will renew later this month when my subscription expires. Might just suspend my account for a few months.

Yeah I wouldn't get Audible just for this! But if you're already paying, at least there are a couple of things worth listening to.

Thanks for this list, Anna! I discovered that After Atlas is also on here, which is perfect timing because we just got a trial subscription of Audible.

Also the novella Necahual, by Tobias S. Buckell from his Xenowealth series.

I would be jealous of free Emma Newman audiobooks, but I own them all in three formats, so no need for jealousy ^_^

I cancelled my Audible sub yesterday, and for the first time ever I finally got an offer for a discount if I don't cancel. I always want it, because I want to have the option of being an Audible member, but not at the regular price. Anyway, after spending a week frantically listening to things from Plus, I'm back to an annual member XD

Anna wrote: "Anyway, after spending a week frantically listening to things from Plus, I'm back to an annual member XD"

😄 I guess Audible's marketing department knows what it's doing.

lol, if they did, they'd give me that offer every time I try to cancel!

Sadly the 3rd and 4th are not on Plus, so I will have to find them elsewhere.

Yay for re-sub discounts! lol

I had Audible on free subscription & a few series of cheap discount for 6 months before I signed up for their annual account. Now I have a growing audio library. Though, it's nothing compared to my physical and ebook libraries. lol

As I said, I’ve had a monthly subscription with Audible since 2008, I think. One credit a month. I think I went a whole year or maybe even more without listening to a book. Mind you, I was still using my credits, but I was never going to catch up. I called them up and asked if I could have a hiatus. They agreed to a 6 month break in which I never got a credit and also didn’t pay. It started back up automatically. You could always try that...

Imaro - Currently on Plus.

I have it tagged to read soon-ish. Could be good.

Ooh, nice! I hope it's there for me, too.

edit: It is! Yay!

I think you don't have audible plus in Germany. I have the normal subscription and often do 3 months pauses on Audible, otherwise my audiobooks would just accumulate too much. I just started one now after getting the September book. I think it's my second pause this year, I got it by going after the unsubscribing button but choosing a 3 months break instead.

Nah, we don't have Audible Plus in Germany, but it sounds cool. I currently pay 10€ for my subscription and for that I get 1 free audiobook every month and the option to buy any other audiobooks for around 10€. I usually try to get very long audiobooks :).

There are some great bundles on there. Those are the ones I try to get. Well, if the story is worth it. That's not always the case.

Gateway is on Plus. It was good but not what I thought it would be. Listening experience and the blurb are a bit different.

I just deleted a discussion starter about Audible Plus, so here is the thread :)

Anna wrote: "I added more stuff to message #2. If anyone has found something cool I haven't listed, please tell us about it!"

anthology: Great Classic Science Fiction: Eight Unabridged Stories

several by Robert Silverberg, Lester Del Rey, Robert Sheckley

The Man in the Maze
Police Your Planet and Other Works by Lester del Rey
Nightwings
The Game of X
Untouched By Human Hands

The Martian seems to be on Plus, in case someone has managed to not read it already.

Has anyone tried Chirp audiobook service.. I like it.. You choose what you enjoy get an email of books on audio most are under 5 dollars..

Let’s focus on Audible in this thread, but check out this one:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The Sandman is free for US members until October 22nd. I don't know if you get to keep it or if it's part of Plus, because I'm not in the US.

Anna wrote: "The Sandman is free for US members until October 22nd. I don't know if you get to keep it or if it's part of Plus, because I'm not in the US."

Weird. It says free on the banner but when I click through to the page there's only a buy option. Anyone else having this issue?

That's what I see, but I assume it's because I'm not in the US :)

Ah, they do seem to be having issues. If anyone else has this problem here's how to work around: steps to work around

I had other problems on Audible today, so maybe it's just suffering from the Goodreads curse? I was logged in, and it said my name, credits, etc. at the top, but the page looked like I was logged out, telling me to subscribe.

Anna wrote: "The Sandman is free for US members until October 22nd. I don't know if you get to keep it or if it's part of Plus, because I'm not in the US."

Thanks for posting this. I'd been thinking that I wanted to get back into this series but was feeling a need to start at the beginning. This looks like a great way to do that.

I'm in the US and I got to keep it. I also saw the weirdness with being asked to subscribe despite being logged into my active account but it didn't keep me from taking part in the giveaway.

So, I just checked my emails, and there was a "thanks for your order" from Audible. I was like wtf I haven't bought anything, and when I opened it it was Sandman. I tried doing what the workaround link said when Jordan posted it, but I got an error, and I did check my library after, and it wasn't there. So I figured I didn't get it since I'm not in the US, and that's fair since it does say US only. Anyway, now it *is* in my Audible library, and downloaded to my phone. And again, I'm not in the US. So anyone else outside of the US, try Jordan's workaround link!

(Yes, I got the email on the same day, I just have them going to an ads folder which I don't check daily.)

I tried it today from the front page. I was prompted to purchase it for $0.00. So now I own it.

I don't think it's part of Plus; it's a giveaway to boost visibility, like they used to do before Plus.

Yeah it looks like that. I just didn't know before since I couldn't get it, or so I thought :)

Hard to believe it's been a year :S but my Audible sub is ending again, and so I have a week left to get through any Plus books. But I can't seem to find anything I'm interested in right now, so if anyone has listened to anything great lately, let me know!

This is not a Plus question but a general Audible one.

Does anyone know what happens if I want to return/exchange something I bought in a 2 for 1 credit sale? I don't buy things planning on having to exchange them, but the current sale has one book I very much do want, and nothing else I'm super interested in. So if I happen to pick one I really do not like, what happens? If the sale is still on, do I exchange for another sale title? If the sale has ended, then what?

Anna wrote: "Hard to believe it's been a year :S but my Audible sub is ending again, and so I have a week left to get through any Plus books. But I can't seem to find anything I'm interested in right now, so if..."

It's a question of taste, but I liked the Split Worlds series read by the author herself, Emma Newman
I also liked The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughterand European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman by Theodora Goss and the series The Deathless by Peter Newman

I don't think any of those are in the Plus catalog? But I've listened to most of them and have the rest on my Storytel shelf :)

Anna, when I look at my account's purchase history, some audiobooks have a link that says "Return this title." Others say, "Return status: not eligible," which means I bought it in a sale or got it as a free promotion.

I do think that you could make an exchange while the sale is still going on, but you'd probably need to call and talk with a person.

OK, thanks Chris! I might just have to skip this sale, because there's nothing that seems even remotely interesting besides the one book. It's not really worth saving half a credit if the other book isn't one I'd normally buy. I don't think I've ever gotten anything in a 2 for 1 sale, because this is typical, I can't find two that I want. But now there's one that I *really* want but have been hesitant to get because of low ratings. Ah well, I'll keep waiting for another sale or eventually just get it full price or forget it :)