That’s what we used to call them, back in the day when they were on tape. Massive folders stuffed full of cassettes. You could listen to them on your Sony Walkman, but you had to flip the tape every 30 minutes or so.

Then they went to CD audiobooks, and even those were quite big because you could only fit an hour or so on a disc. Finally, we arrive at MP3 discs, where you can put an entire book on a single disc, or MP3 downloads via Audible, iTunes, audiobooks.com, Google play and a number of other places. You can take the whole book with you without having to switch media or carry cumbersome tapes/disc sets. Isn’t progress wonderful?

The Simon & Schuster audiobook version of Flight or Fright, which will be released on September 4th, the same day as the Cemetery Dance hardcover, is now available for pre-order, and the readers have been announced. They are: Stephen King, Bev Vincent, Norbert Leo Butz, Christian Coulson, Santino Fontana, Simon Jones, Graeme Malcolm, Elizabeth Marvel, David Morse and Corey Stoll. You’ll probably recognize a number of those names. David Morse, of course, from The Langoliers, The Green Mile, and other King adaptations. Elizabeth Marvel, who recently played the President on Homeland, as well as appearing on House of Cards and Fargo. Corey Stoll is also a House of Cards alum, but I know him better from Law & Order: LA. Norbert Leo Butz is a two-time Tony award winning Broadway actor, but I know him as Kevin Rayburn on Bloodline. Christian Coulson was in one of the Harry Potter films, playing young Tom Riddle. Santino Fontana voiced Prince Hans in Frozen and was on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Simon Jones has played Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy several times (and had a cameo in the 2005 movie version). Graeme Malcolm has done a lot of theater and audio books, and was profiled in AudioFile Magazine.

Steve is reading his introduction, his notes at the beginning of each story, and his own story, “The Turbulence Expert.” I did not elect to read my story (best leave that to the professionals), but I did agree to record my afterword, which was an interesting process. I have done readings at conventions on occasion, and I recorded “Harming Obsession” several years ago, but that was done the low-tech way. I also regularly read to my wife.

However, for the folks at Simon & Schuster, I had to go to a studio. This was back in early June, on a fairly hot day. S&S arranged a studio in Houston, so I drove into town, ending up very close to the theater where I saw the advanced screening of It last year, not long after Hurricane Harvey messed up the city. The studio was part of a house on a residential street. I guess I’d been expecting an office building of some sort, but Houston has lax zoning laws (if there are any at all), so running a business out of a home is a-ok.

I met the recording engineer, who escorted me into a small isolation chamber and fitted me with large headphones. I had a lectern for my reading material and a microphone and a bottle of water. I could have chosen to sit for the session, but I stand up most of the time when I’m at a computer (easier on the old back), so I decided to stand for the reading, too. I think that gave me a little more freedom to gesture with my hands, not that that will come across on the reading, but it helped, I think.

First, I read my story notes for “Zombies on a Plane,” my contribution to the anthology. It’s the only story where I wrote the header notes, at Steve’s suggestion. I don’t know if that will be used on the audiobook, though–this was mostly done as a warm-up and to let the engineer and Christina, the producer, determine the sound levels and other technical things like that. Speaking of the producer, she was in New York calling in by Skype, and she was my constant companion through this process, speaking into my ears.

I guess I thought I’d be reading the thing straight through a number of times, but that’s now how it’s done. I read and re-read (and, several times, re-re-re-re-re-read sentences and paragraphs. Christina was very hands-on. She would stop me and encourage me to try a different tone or approach to a sentence. It was a bit like being back in high school in drama club, taking direction on how to deliver my lines. In some places, she wanted me to break loose (the one-word sentence “Yippie-ki-yay” comes to mind). She looked for jauntiness in some sections, and a more serious approach in others. A building sense of excitement in some anecdotes. She was also mindful that I got every word right (it’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, not “Nightmares”).

My afterword is only a few pages long, but it took about 75 minutes to record it, and at the end of that session there must have been scores of audio snippets that would need to be reviewed, selected and spliced together to yield the final audio file. Very much like a movie editor’s job in selecting takes and splicing them together to make a motion picture.

It was a fascinating process, and I can’t wait to hear how it all sounds. I have a renewed respect for people who narrate for a living or on a regular basis. It’s a demanding job. Once we wrapped the afterword, Christina asked me a few questions that will be used either to promote the audiobook or will be included on the audiobook itself. I think I was more nervous during that section because I didn’t have anything scripted out. Nothing to read!

Finally, to put a bow on the digital edition of the audiobook, Steve and I recorded an interview with each other by phone last week. We spent about 20 minutes discussing the project and related topics. There was no third-party interviewer, just us passing the ball back and forth. That was a blast, and pretty freewheeling, although the facilitator again asked us to repeat certain lines at the end of the session to make sure they had clean versions of them.

Less than a month until the book and the audiobook are unleashed on the public. I can’t think of a better way to spend a long flight, preferably a trans-oceanic flight with long sections over the water, than listening to the audiobook version of Flight or Fright!