In Robin Sloan’s new novel, Clay Jannon has stumbled upon a job working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and stumbled into some sort of crazy mystery. What follows is a literary adventure story full of technological puzzles and a good old-fashioned love for books. At the center of it all, there is a fictional trilogy called the Dragon-Song Chronicles. Clay and his best friend were obsessed with the fantasy series as kids and it comes up again now that they are adults.
But the edition of the Dragon-Song Chronicles that becomes an essential part of the plot is not a hardcover but rather, the audiobook. As such, it only seemed right that the audiobook edition of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore be particularly exceptional. And so it comes with some great extras. For one thing, there’s bonus content that Sloan wrote exclusively for the audiobook. In addition, the program features a cameo by a special voice: Sloan himself! While Ari Fliakos is the narrator of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, the author is the narrator of the Dragon Song Chronicles, the audiobook-within-the-audiobook.
Listen to an excerpt from the first chapter and let us know what you think.
Audio Player
Samantha Beerman is spreading the word about audiobooks. Check out the array of free audiobook excerpts she provides here on Tor.com.
Absolutely fantastic book, but this audio book does NOTHING to convey the magic of the book. This guy’s voice does not match the character’s AT ALL. He’s gotta sound sincere, intense, kinda geeky. Not the voice I’m hearing. UGH.
I have to say that I admire the effort. The pauses are slightly long in the beginning,but other than that he reads the book in exactly the way I remember reading it. I will have to agree with Orlanda, though. The voice is not as perfect as it could be. The vision of most readers is a geeky character who is slightly curious, very loyal, and truely “resourceful”. It is slighly a let-down, but nothing is perfect. The acting is superb, and the reading phenominal, but the line the audience has set for it has not been reached.