I closed out last year with two straight months of audiobook work on a number of projects I am so thrilled to be part of.
One of them was just announced yesterday, and as many of you correctly guessed, it’s When The Moon Hits Your Eye, by John Scalzi:
The moon has turned into cheese.
Now humanity has to deal with it.
I could quote more, but I feel like the people who are going to love love love this book like I did don’t need to know any more than that. You can pre-order the audiobook right here.
Another is Picks and Shovels, a new Marty Hench novel about the dawn of enshittification, from Cory Doctorow.
This is a rollicking crime thriller, a science fiction novel about the dawn of the computing revolution. It’s an archaeological expedition to uncover the fossil record of the first emergence of enshittification, a phenomenon that was born with the PC and its evil twin, the Reagan Revolution.
The year is 1982, and PCs are weird. Marty Hench is not yet Silicon Valley’s most accomplished forensic accountant, scourge of tech-bro finance scams. In 1982, Hench is a newly arrived MIT washout with a community college degree and his first job: working for Fidelity Computing, a PC company run by a Mormon bishop, a Catholic priest, and an orthodox rabbi. Sounds like a joke, right? But the joke’s on their parishoners, who are recruited into a pyramid selling faith scam that exploits social bonds to sell junk PCs that are locked in – from the gimmicked floppy disks that only work with their high-priced drives to the gimmicked tractor-feed paper that only works with their high priced printers.
Marty’s job is simple: figure out how to destroy Computing Freedom, a rival company started by three women who broke away from Fidelity, whose products are designed to unlock every customer the Reverend Sirs of Fidelity have locked in. Marty isn’t that far into this assignment when he realizes that he’s on the wrong side, and he throws his lot in with Computing Freedom’s founders: a queer orthodox woman who’s been expelled from her family, a nun who’s thrown in with antiimperialists liberation theology radicals resisting America’s dirty wars, and a Mormon woman who’s left the church over its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.
But when Marty sends his resignation to the Reverend Sirs, he learns that Fidelity isn’t just a weird PC company running a faith scam: it’s a violent criminal enterprise. Suddenly the stakes get a lot higher.
Picks and Shovels is a rollicking tale of the AIDS crisis, queer hardware hackers, gifted punk rock Unix programmers, Reaganomics-fuelled pyramid schemes, and the moment where the seeds of tech’s enshittification were planted in Silicon Valley.
Cory is one of my favorite authors and thinkers. He is going to be remembered and lauded in the future for his work in this moment, when we find fascist tech broligarchs threatening to take complete control of how we communicate and how freely information — true information — flows in America and the world. His novels are not just incredibly fun and satisfying to read (or listen to me read to you), they address very serious and meaningful issues of freedom, security, equality, and human rights.
Both of these books, as well as the not-yet-announced book, were tremendously satisfying to narrate. And something wonderful happened during the sessions. My favorite director, Gabrielle, gave me a simple note at the top of a page, a suggestion that I approach this part of the text with this particular thing in mind (I’m not going to get into more detail now. I may in the future.) and when I did that, something inside of me fundamentally changed.
Imagine a few elements all sitting next t each other on a workbench. You can put them together in various orders, and get generally the same thing with some subtle differences that most people won’t notice because they don’t know to look for them.
Now imagine you are handed a catalyst — a catalyst that was sitting on another table the whole time, that you just didn’t notice — and when you pour that catalyst across the elements, they suddenly reveal something new that you didn’t even know you could create from them. And that new thing looks an awful lot like the things you’ve built from them before, only this thing is clearly different than all those other things. It’s richer, more interesting, more complex, more satisfying … it’s just more.
That happened near the beginning of these sessions, and all the work I did after that was built using this new skill. People have told me for years that I’m a good audiobook narrator, and I have the awards and stuff to sort of back that up, but I’ve never really felt it. I’ve always been afraid that I’m barely sneaking past a guard, and at any moment someone will see me and shout out THAT GUY IS A BIG FAT PHONY!
I know that’s not true, but anyone else who knows the secret handshake absolutely understands what I’m talking about.
Well, for the rest of my life, every time I sit down to narrate a story, I will be using this updated skill set, and all the confidence and serenity that comes with it.
I’m very excited for y’all to hear these books. I hope you like them.
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So jealous that you get to read all these books before the rest of us do!
You’re one of my favorite audiobook readers, so this is great news. Especially the updated skill set learned. Also, “tech broligarchs” is a fantastic term.
Aw, thanks, Josh!
Mental image of Wil as a MMORPG character leveling up, with the bright light show and “whoosh!” sound FX that accompanies a new level. Congrats, Wil!
What Josh Neff said! Just added to my wishlist for purchase once they land.
Thanks for sharing those books Wil. I have listened to nearly all of the books you’ve narrated and found some new gems thanks to your recommendations!
I saw this and I was all excited that there was a Scalzi book I hadn’t read yet. Then I saw that I hadn’t read it yet because it’s not out yet, but coming soon. Yay!
They sound really great. Love John Scalzi
Always excited to see more books read by you, Wil! I already supported the Kickstarter and the newest Scalzi book is always on my Wish list and I pre-order it the month before using one of my credits from Audible. I hope you have more audiobooks in the pipeline!
Thank you for the pre-order link! My wife and I are listening to the Interdependency series as an appetizer.
You are an excellent narrator Wil. Like many, I became acquainted with your work through Wesley Chrusher. And reconnected through social media.
But listening to Ready Player One was a game changer. Until then I did not understand how much the narration could make a difference. In the years since it has totally changed my ‘reading’ habits (as my actual eyesight decreases and my audiobook usage increases) I don’t know if it’s a ‘talent’ or your past experience as an actor but timing and tone make all the freaking difference in the world. And yours is never bad.
I have a short list of narrators that I will move outside my regular genres for. And you are always one of them.
Whenever I’m having a rough time, your audiobook narrations are what I turn to. Usually Scalzi, but not always. I love that I can hear a smile in your voice at times (when it makes sense in the story). Can’t wait to listen to the new books as soon as they’re available.
I’m glad you’re here! Maybe you’d like to join us in my Discord? https://discord.gg/rF8FXaD4 (link expires 24 hours from now, about 1430 PST 23/1/25).
Hurray for spotting the Kickstarter for Picks & Shovels in time to back it! I love Cory’s books and I love you reading them!!
FYI, the blog is a much better place to read this than the email. The formatting was ugh in my email.
Breakthroughs are wonderful things, great you had one that day and that it is applicable beyond that moment. We all need a catalyst/muse/phase changer at times to wake us to the possibilities. As a designer I am always trying to find that thing which will make the product what it wants to be and I am just the instrument to fulfill it.
The formatting was all messed up by this damn block editor thing. I fixed it in the blog, but didn’t see it was all messed up until after I published. Thanks for stopping by!
Oh my god! I am so excited! I love love love anything you and John Scalzi do. I jokingly refer to you two as my audiobook boys! I commute 3 hours per day, so I go through a lot of audiobooks. These have just been added to my list!
WOW WOW WOW! When the Moon Hits Your Eye has gotten rave reviews and has been promoted a LOT in the bookseller biz. I’ll look forward to hearing you make it come to life.
I’ve been hoping for an opportunity to tell you how much I loved your work on Kaju Preservation Society and Starter Villan. I’ve listed to each about 5 times-usually I take most of my audio books out from the library. I own those two.
You nail the mix of humor and real feeling in Scalzi’s writing, and I really now can’t imagine anyone else reading them.
I have to go back and retry Ready Player One. The first time it threw me as a trek fan and 80’s kid- like my mind kept going “wrong era”. It’ll be fun to try it again.
I hit post prematurely on my comment. I haven’t read the Doctorow Novels, would you recommend I go read the previous ones in the series before this or can I just pick it up with the one you just finished?
Yay!