UPDATE 2017-12-07: Yup, I’m “re-using” this post yet again for Audible’s latest members-only 50% off sale, which ends in one week, on December 14, 2017 at 11:59 PM PT (US). Don’t be confused by either last year’s sale end date (December 14, 2016) or the year before that’s sale end date (December 16, 2015) and miss out. As you can see, there’s quite a bit on sale, and each year, the list keeps growing!

UPDATE 2016-12-13: I’m “re-using” this post again for Audible’s latest members-only 50% off sale, which ends tomorrow (December 14, 2016) so don’t be confused by last year’s sale end date (December 16, 2015) and miss out. As you can see, there’s quite a bit on sale!

UPDATE 2016-10-10: I’m “re-using” this post for Audible’s latest members-only 50% off sale, expiring today, on science fiction and fantasy titles. All the below are still very much in play, and see the end of the post for new titles since December!

I am getting this out now rather than waiting to put together this month’s full #WhispersyncDeal roundup, because these deals expire December 16th. So, what’s going on? Audible.com’s member-only “Big Thanks” sale gets 50% off the regular price sale on… pretty much everything, including pre-orders. First, a word: 50% of the regular price means the actual “regular price”, not the already discounted member price. This means that quite a lot of the books I’ve had my eye on are still above a credit cost, or even still cheaper the Whispersync add-on way. But! a few looked pretty darned good.

First off, $5.59 for Last Dragon by J.M. McDermott is a steal. It’s an amazing work of fantasy:

Read wonderfully for Iambik Audio by Cori Samuel, who might be familiar to those of you who enjoy the Librivox catalog of public domain works, Last Dragon instantly became one of my all-time favorites, not just of debut fantasy novels but of all time. The book is a disjointed experience, with several timelines bringing out exquisite foreshadowing and a beautiful sense of melancholy, purpose, and atmosphere. At first, the switches between timelines was a bit jarring, but before long I found the rhythm and began to recognize the cues that setting, characters, and events quickly provided. I do not want to say too much about this book other than: listen to it or read it. Zhan is a girl coming of age, leaning to be a hunter in a secondary world of snow, ash, war, and power. What magic there once might have been is largely gone. What gods there are do not seem to listen. Once, dragons lived. But they have all been hunted and killed. So, into this, in a tribal culture, the girl Zhan. Her family is murdered, apparently by her grandfather, and so off on a quest of vengeance into the wider world goes Zhan with her uncle Seth, a fire-breathing shaman. Who can make golems. They meet and hire a mercenary bodyguard; a paladin; a gypsy. They travel through and ahead of the drums of war. It’s just beautiful, menalcholic, a paean to lovely things and dark things.

Okay, now that I’ve got that first one out of the way, there’s a huge, huge pile priced at $5.59 or less, including the entire Iambik Audio catalog, as well as some classics and even some new releases, and a wide swath of titles from Brilliance Audio and Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio as well as pretty much the entire Tor.com Publishing novella line:

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And, really, there’s tons, tons more afoot, from classic science fiction (Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, read by Dick Hill) to epic fantasy novellas (The Shadow of Elysium: A Shadow Campaigns Novella, Book 2.5 by Django Wexler, read by Richard Poe) and more. TONS MORE! MOAR!

As I mentioned, I thought to check out the Tor.com novellas as well, which are all well worth picking up, and found that, yes, of course, they’re all on sale, even the pre-order listings for next year are on sale. So… Yeah. Sorry, wallet. Sorry, year-end budget planning. You’re welcome, 2016 version of me. While The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is $4.72 (UPDATE 2016-12-13: $8.50) in this sale (I mean, come on, it’s one of the best books of the year, people!) most/all of the rest of the line actually comes in under $4 as well. Here they are, in publication order:

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Back though to speaking of pre-orders in this ridiculous under-$5 price range, I also found one more Brilliance Audio title to mention — I kind of snuck Marcus Sakey’s Written in Fire up in the rest of his aptly-titled “The Brilliance Trilogy” — that I think just might be eagerly anticipated by a few people. And! One last ridiculously cheap one: $1.39 for a Star Wars audiobook!

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OK, one last under-$5 to mention which transitions nicely to the still well under $10 listings, which again heavily feature both Brilliance Audio and Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio:

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Okay! That’s a lot of on-sale audiobooks. Which ones did you pick up? Which ones do you recommend the most? You’ve got 3 days and counting. Tick-tock!

UPDATE 2016-10-10: Here’s some new titles since December which also fall into the 50% off sale, currently ongoing through tonight on science fiction and fantasy titles, starting with a group of the nearly all fantastic Tor.com Publishing novella line — and keep in mind that quite a few of the 2016 titles were already included in my wrapup from last year, as pre-orders were included — and a few others out from Macmillan Audio, starting with some of the shorter ones for $3.77 each:

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