Rather than bore you with pointless history about audiobooks i'll simply say that ive loved a really great story my whole life and i am only ever more interested in learning still more.
although there is a backstory its mostly not relevant, more importantly is the most recent example of how the harry potter series changed my perception of storytelling.
Jim Dale, Oratory god that he is was never once on my radar as a paragon of acting prowess till his narration in this now esteemed series. Not to dismiss in any way the talents and obvious gregarious nature of Steven Fry but i was simply introduced to one of them first by chance and that is where my loyalties lie, rational or not.
Still, Performances aside, i could not possibly dismiss the unbelievable impact of such voice acting had on me. This guy did hundreds (apparently) of voices for all the different characters and did them reliably and with the vigor and depth of character each and every chapter revealed. The books were very good obviously but the number of times i listened to each book in the series is a little unbelievable. i know many scenes by heart and know the books characters each by voice now.
ANY medium that could capture my imagination in this way deserves my respect but having a single person more or less voice act an entire 7 book series of novels is really quite extraordinary.
This brings me to my now quite determined interest in audiobook collecting.
Although i don't have anything against the publishers or distribution channels in general, i do have issues with the need to have so many very talented writers and audiobook publishers so very difficult to locate and deal with. Some can be a joy to buy from like the book smugglers or weird tales and others were not so accommodating, like black library. They all host great writers but they don't need to be so douchey about personal data and rights restrictions. Its just not cool. I simply want to find a way to aggregate books off the web to eliminate these issues once and for all.
Its time to make the internet work FOR us for a change.