Spider Robinson is guest editor over on Audible.com right now. That means he’s written an essay (titled “The Missing Audiobooks“) and made a list of Audible audiobooks he recommends.
Here’s a snippet from the essay:
“Where are all the audio short story collections and anthologies?
Audiobook editors solemnly assure me that surveys prove audiobook readers hate short stories, whether in single-author collections or anthos. But if I ask where I can find those surveys they change the subject. So I can’t prove the pollsters bungled the job; I just strongly believe it. But in the case of science fiction, I’m certain: they’re dead wrong. There’s a vast audience for short SF; always has been.”
And here are Spider’s picks:
Several stories from… 2000x [from The Hollywood Theater of the Ear] |READ OUR REVIEW|
A Sheckley Trilogy by Robert Sheckley [from Wonder Audio] <--- from SFFaudio's own staff!!! The Retrieval Artist by Kristine Kathryn Rusch [from Deuce Audio] <--- from SFFaudio's own staff!!! Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge by Mike Resnick [from Audible Frontiers]
The Winds of Marble Arch by Connie Willis [from Audible Frontiers]
The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick [from Blackstone Audio]
Antibodies by Charles Stross [from Infinivox] |READ OUR REVIEW|
10 to the 16th to 1 by James Patrick Kelly [James Patrick Kelly’s StoryPod]
Posted by Jesse Willis
I think there are two issues here with audiobooks that are collections of short stories, and both are audible-specific. One is that the audible subscription model pricing makes individual short stories or short collections very unattractive. I can get a 15-20 hour work for my one credit, or I can get a 46 minute short story for the same price? Guess which one I’m going to select.
The second is that one of the primary “benefits” to short fiction anthologies is to be able to skip around and pick and choose which story to read next. Sometimes the story quality varies tremendously. The “year’s best sf” collections are usually really bad about this. They are usually almost half filler that’s not worth my time. The way audible presents anthologies is usually one big file, so there’s no way for me to skip past the crap, once I realize that something is, in fact, crap, or just listen to that novella that the anthology ended with first, because it’s what I’m really interested in.
So I suspect that this has a lot to do with the “surveys”, as if I were ever surveyed by audible, that’s what I’d say. But of course audible has no need to survey, they can just look at the actual sales of what they offer.
Insightful stuff Skip! I can’t say I disagree with a single point. A lot of it comes down to audible’s credit price point problem. They should try having 1/2 credits and quarter credits maybe?
I suspect they need to have collections put together by someone who’s good at picking ’em. The recent Best SF of the Year anthologies are of course affected by the quality of available stories, but I have to say that their introductory material has given the impression that the editors actually liked the least appealing stories.
When you can choose from every copyrighted sf story around, old or new, there is no way you shouldn’t be able to come up with an interesting “magazine issue” of good stories that sound well, and that provide meat for actor/narrators. Give people ten to fourteen hours of that, and give them bookmarks so they can skip around. Then they won’t feel cheated.