The expanded WORLD WAR Z audiobook, mind you. There are two versions, which I didn’t know when I bought the smaller one first. It is a measure of how good the longer audiobook is that I don’t mind spending extra. I say this as somebody who is not actually into audiobooks, too. The format helped a lot – they got a full cast to do all the interviewees, and a good one – and I was struck by how much harder some of the stories hit when you heard them, instead of read them. Good stuff, good stuff.
But God but this took forever to do.
#commissionearned
I’m not really a fan of audiobooks, either.
Oral storytelling is a completely different skill using different forms than being an author.
Turning a book into an audiobook ought to be an adaptation, albeit not nearly as much as turning a book into a movie. (Since everything is still being experienced inside the audience’s head. The means for evoking those experiences deviates between the two, but it’s still the same “screen”).
But audiobook markets insist on 1:1 fidelity to the text. Which can get really awkward, really quickly.
I do like to recommend The Silmarillion in audiobook form, though. Because it was written mimicking the oral tradition, things that are a bit of a slog to read pop with vibrancy and clarity when listened to. (Including, or maybe especially, the genealogies.)
And, of course, there’s the time factor. Audiobooks are great for listening to a story while doing something else. But just on their own? Yikes.
Oh, I agree with you. WWZ is just one of those books that works really well in audiobook format, if you can get multiple people to read the different parts. I don’t know what staffers cast the readers, but whoever they were, they were big ol’ nerds: Nathan Fillion, Denise Crosby, Bruce Boxleitner, Ajay Naidu, Nicki Clyne, Jeri Ryan, Masi Oka, Alfred Molina, F. Murray Abraham*, Rene Auberjonois… Brooks definitely took advantage of his last name there, and as well he should have. I’d have done the same.
*Okay, that one isn’t nerdy, but it IS Salieri, which was one of the better jokes in The Last Action Hero (which had tons of good jokes).