LibriVox: Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

SFFaudio Online Audio

We talked about it on the most recent SFFaudio Podcast, I’ve listened to it, and I declare it: awesome. Here comes one of the coolest new releases from LibriVox.org this year:

Second Variety by Philip K. Dick!

And with the release there’s now a new file format that makes it easier for some users too. The M4B format is a fully bookmarkable file type that’s compatible with what I use to listen to most audiobooks, Apple iPods. Here’s the full description:

An M4B file is an audio file which can be bookmarked. This is the audio-book file type. These files can have chapter markers which can be skipped through as you would skip through files on a play list. They can have built in cover art and chapter images. They will remember where you left off each time you stop the file and come back to it . And variable speed settings on iPods and a growing number of other mp3 players can be utilized by this file type. The ability to bookmark allows for as little as one large file instead of many small ones without the burden of fast forwarding to find your spot every time you resume listening or the fear of otherwise losing your place. The reduced number of files also makes browsing through your files to find your book and your place in it much less effort.

In fact there’s a whole catalogue of M4B LibriVox audiobooks available.

Second Variety
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |M4B| File or 2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 22, 2010
Early victories by the USSR in a global nuclear war cause the United Nations government to retreat to the moon leaving behind troops and fierce autonomous robots called “Claws”, which reproduce and redesign themselves in unmanned subterranean factories. After six bloody years of conflict the Soviets call for an urgent conference and UN Major Joseph Hendricks sets out to meet them. Along the way he will discover what the Claws have been up to, and it isn’t good… First published in the May 1953 edition of Space Science Fiction Magazine.