Audiobooks Vs. Podcasts: two extremes

There has been an explosion in good podcasts recently; there are enough out that they tend to make my Audible subscription recede into the background when I don't have a super-compelling audiobook at the top of the stack.

A recent pair of examples:

It took me a while to get into this one ... it's a very somber war story. It's based in some future where there is faster-than-light travel and some part of humanity has splintered off and become "savages" with different/greater capabilities and who think it's their duty to wipe out the previous version of humanity.

OK ... I gave this enough time to get to the moderately-compelling last part of the book: "Colonel Marx" is revealed to be ... well, I won't spoil the story by giving this one but overall ... well, 3 stars. I paused every time I had a marginally compelling podcast to listen to.

A vivid contrast:

This is the end of a trilogy that starts with The Collapsing Empire ... the first two of these are compelling enough, but not a blockbuster like this one. I stopped most podcast listening and even stayed up later than usual to listen to the end of this one ... one of the most fun endings of a novel I've experienced in a long time! (Even better than Scalzi's Android's Dream!)  Five stars!

Since I finished this two nights ago I have been catching up on podcasts, notably Marketplace, Freakonomics and Radiolab ...

I started "rereading" (via audiobook) the first of the trilogy to see if the first two were more fabulous than I remembered ... not so far. I wouldn't be surprised if everything was to set up the fabulous third book, sneaky and talented Scalzi!

Why John Scalzi got $3.4 million for his next 13 books (in 2015)

The short answer: Tor, his publisher noticed that many people who bought one of his books went right back and bought all of them!

Sounds rational to me ... I've just finished his latest:

I found this one extremely satisfying ... even better than its predecessor:

These two (and a proposed third book) are set in an alternate universe where there are physical "flowstreams" that allow quick interstellar travel.   But what happens when a physicist predicts that these flowstreams, which are the basis of many civilizations including several space habitats that can't support human life without regular trade? Two very good novels, that's what ...

Try any of Scalzi's books; you can't go wrong!

An interesting interview with Scalzi is here ...