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24 Audiobooks to Match Your Travel Time

24 Audiobooks to Match Your Travel Time

Fourth of July weekend is almost here and that has us thinking about SUMMER VACATION! We’ve planned our trip and packed our bags. The car is gassed up and ready to go. But here’s the hardest part: what audiobook are we going to listen to on the drive?

If we’re having this problem, we’re assuming you are too. So we decided to put together a list of recommended audiobooks of varying lengths. Whether it’s a short train ride or a long flight with transfers, here are 24 audiobooks that will help make the journey memorable!

< 1 hr-4 hrs | 4-8 hrs | 8-12 hrs | 12-16 hrs | 16-20 hrs | 20-24 hrs | Need more time?

Less than 1 hour

The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin

The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin
Narrator: Maggi Meg Reed
Duration: 48 minutes

The ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold and frozen land. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember.

1-2 hours

Confessor: A METAtropolis Story by Elizabeth Bear

Confessor: A METAtropolis Story by Elizabeth Bear
Narrator: Gates McFadden
Duration: 1 hour 51 minutes

Deep in the forest, a cop-for-hire investigates a gruesome murder—as she tries to forget an operation gone so wrong that her marriage, to her partner, lies in ruins. She teams with an Interpol agent tracking an exotic species smuggling operation tied to the killing. What they find leads them to a hidden compound—and two rather unusual children

2-3 hours

A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card

A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card
Narrators: Scott Brick andStefan Rudnicki
Duration: 2 hours 26 minutes

Orson Scott Card offers a gift to his millions of fans with A War of Gifts, a short novel set during Ender’s first years at the Battle School where it is forbidden to celebrate religious holidays.

 

3-4 hours

The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson

The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson
Narrator: Angela Lin
Duration: 3 hours and 55 minutes

In The Emperor’s Soul, a Forger named Shai can copy and re-create any item by using magic to rewrite its history. After being condemned to death for attempting to steal the emperor’s scepter, Shai is given one final chance. She’ ll be allowed to live if she can create a new soul for the emperor, who hovers near death.

4-5 hours

The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 1

The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas Volume 1 by Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, & Charles Beaumont
Narrators: Full Cast
Duration: 4 hours and 4 minutes

Experience one of television’s greatest science fiction series: The Twilight Zone. This collection of episodes is fully dramatized for audio and features a full cast, music, sound effects, and performances by some of today’s biggest celebrities.

5-6 hours

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Narrator: Neil Gaiman
Duration: 5 hours 48 minutes

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. He is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettiemagical, comforting, wise beyond her yearspromised to protect him, no matter what.

6-7 hours

Jumper: Griffin's Story by Steven Gould

Jumper: Griffin’s Story by Steven Gould
Narrator: Ted Barker
Duration: 6 hours 51 minutes

Griffin has a secret. It’s a secret that he’s sworn to his parents to keep and never tell. Griffin is a Jumper: a person who can teleport to any place he has ever been. The first time was when he was four, and his parents crossed an ocean to protect the secret. The most important time was when he was nine. That was the day that the men came to his house and murdered his parents. Griffin knows that the men were looking for him, and he must never let them find him.

7-8 hours

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Narrator: Mary Robinette Kowal
Duration: 7 hours 37 minutes

Shades of Milk and Honey is exactly what we could expect from Jane Austen if she had been a fantasy writer: Pride and Prejudice meets Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It is an intimate portrait of a woman, Jane, and her quest for love in a world where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality.

8-9 hours

The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bledsoe

The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bledsoe
Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
Duration: 8 hours 27 minutes

It should have been a case like any other: a missing princess, a king willing to pay in gold for her return. But before he realizes it, private investigator Eddie LaCrosse, a slightly shopworn sword jockey with a talent for discretion and detection, is swept up in a web of mystery and deceit involving a brutally murdered royal heir, a queen accused of an unspeakable crime, and the tragic past he thought he’d left behind.

9-10 hours

Willful Child by Steven Erikson

Willful Child by Steven Erikson
Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
Duration:9 hours 46 minutes

These are the voyages of the starship A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life-forms, to boldly blow the… And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through “the infinite vastness of interstellar space”.

10-11 hours

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
Narrator:  Kate Reading
Duration: 10 hours 16 minutes

You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart—no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon’s presence, even for the briefest of moments—even at the risk of one’s life—is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten….

11-12 hours

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Narrator: Steven Crossley
Duration: 11 hours 34 minutes

Kell is one of the last Travelers-magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes, connected by one magical city. There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, and with one mad king-George III. Red London, where life and magic are revered-and where Kell was raised alongside Rhys Maresh, the rougish heir to a flourishing empire. White London-a place where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London. But no one speaks of that now.

12-13 hours

The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons

The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons
Narrator: Soneela Nankani
Duration: 12 hours 4 minutes

In a world where females are scarce and are hunted, then bought and sold at market for their breeding rights, 15-year-old Aya has learned how to hide. With a ragtag bunch of other women and girls, she has successfully avoided capture and eked out a nomadic but free existence in the mountains. But when Aya’s luck runs out and she’s caught by a group of businessmen on a hunting expedition, fighting to survive takes on a whole new meaning.

13-14 hours

The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu
Narrator: Luke Daniels
Duration: 13 hours 7 minutes

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

14-15 hours

The Human Divisions by John Scalzi

The Human Division by John Scalzi
Narrator: William Dufris
Duration: 14 hours 53 minutes

For generations the Colonial Union had defended humanity against hostile aliens, deliberately keeping Earth an ignorant backwater and a source of military recruits. Now the CU’s secrets are known to all. Other alien races have come on the scene and formed a new alliance – an alliance against the Colonial Union. And they’ve invited the people of Earth to join them. For a shaken and betrayed Earth, the choice isn’t obvious or easy.

15-16 hours

The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind

The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind
Narrator: Sam Tsoutsouvas
Duration: 15 hours

An accident leads to the discovery of a mysterious machine that has rested hidden deep underground for millennia. The machine awakens to begin issuing a series of increasingly alarming, if minor, omens. The omens turn out to be astonishingly accurate, and ever more ominous. As Zedd tries to figure out how to destroy the sinister device, the machine issues a cataclysmic omen involving Richard and Kahlan, foretelling an impending event beyond anyone’s ability to stop.

16-17 hours

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Narrator: Kyle McCarley
Duration: 16 hours 25 minutes

The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an “accident,” he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.

17-18 hours

Imager by L.E. Modseitt, Jr.

Imager by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
Narrator: William Dufris
Duration: 17 hours 55 minutes

Although Rhennthyl is the son of a leading wool merchant, he has spent years becoming a journeyman painter. With his skill and diligence, Rhenn stands to be considered for the status of master artisan. Then, his entire life is transformed when his master patron is killed in a flash fire, and Rhenn discovers he is an imager—one of the few in the entire world who can visualize things and make them real.

18-19 hours

The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

The Emperor’s Blades by Brian Staveley
Narrator: Simon Vance
Duration: 18 hours 46 minutes

In The Emperor’s Blades by Brian Staveley, the emperor of Annur is dead, slain by enemies unknown. His daughter and two sons, scattered across the world, do what they must to stay alive and unmask the assassins. But each of them also has a life-path on which their father set them, destinies entangled with both ancient enemies and inscrutable gods.

19-20 hours

Hellhole by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Hellhole by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
Narrator: Scott Brick
Duration: 19 hours 12 minutes

Only the most desperate colonists dare to make a new home on Hellhole. Reeling from a recent asteroid impact, tortured with horrific storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and churning volcanic eruptions, the planet is a dumping ground for undesirables, misfits, and charlatans…but also a haven for dreamers and independent pioneers.

20-21 hours

Widdershins by Charles de Lint

Widdershins by Charles de Lint
Narrator: Kate Reading
Duration: 20 hours 55 minutes

Ever since Jilly Coppercorn and Geordie Riddell were introduced in de Lint’s first Newford story, “Timeskip,” back in 1989, their friends and readers alike have been waiting for them to realize that they belong together. Now, in Widdershins, a stand-alone novel of fairy courts set in shopping malls and the Bohemian street scene of Newford’s Crowsea area, Jilly and Geordie’s story is finally being told.

21-22 hours

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Narrators: Peter Larkin
Duration: 21 hours 41 minutes

Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind’s potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these “regions of thought,” but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

22-23 hours

When the Heavens Fall by Marc Turner

When the Heavens Fall by Marc Turner
Narrator: Oliver Wyman
Duration: 22 hours 40 minutes

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

23-24 hours

Crown of Vengeance by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

Crown of Vengeance by Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory
Narrators: Kate Rudd and Christopher Lane
Duration: 23 hours 7 minutes

She does not have a thousand lifetimes. She has just one—and time is running out. For the prophecy spoke not just of her, but of a great Darkness that would destroy the elven kingdoms. A Darkness that is coming ever closer. She is Vieliessar Farcarinon and she must save her people. Even if she must shatter custom and destroy the world she was born to rule.

More than 24 hours

Have a full summer of travel planned? Know that you’re going to need more than 24 hours of listening material? We’ve got you covered there too! Check out the amazing Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer. Or, if you’d prefer a sci-fi series, check out the fantastic Dune series, by Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson.

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