More Originals from Audible

Audible continues to build its lineup of audio-original releases with three new titles this fall. First up is The Dispatcher, by Hugo Award–winning science fiction author John Scalzi. Happy with Audible’s handling of his audiobook adaptations, including the dual versions—one narrated by Wil Wheaton and the other by Amber Benson—of his novel Lock In, Scalzi says he jumped at the company’s invitation to create something new “that would work in the audiosphere.” And he had just the thing in mind: “I had an idea about people who die and come back, but I was thinking about people who were intentionally killed—murdered, or in war.”

Scalzi says that in The Dispatcher, “if someone actively tries to kill another person, 999 times out of 1,000, that victim comes back.” He adds: “What are the ramifications of that scenario? You have a line of professional killers who are dispatched to kill not in a sexy James Bond sort of way, but in a boring actuary-table kind of way.”

Scalzi notes that when he and Steve Feldberg, senior director at Audible, were kicking around names for a potential narrator, one actor rose to the top: Zachary Quinto. “He was always on our A list. He’s right around the same age as the character, and I could gauge his sensibility from his acting work. It was a great match of character and narrator.”

When Quinto responded positively to signing on to the project, Scalzi says, “my entire email response to Steve was ‘Cooooooooooooooool,’ with about 16 o’s.” He adds: “I don’t pretend to be blasé about these things. To have people like Zachary, Wil Wheaton, William Dufris, Amber Benson, and others narrate my work... I know I’m a lucky writer.”

The Dispatcher is available free of charge on Audible from October 6 to November 3, and it will be available at regular cost exclusively through the site after that.

Next up on the docket is the October 18 release of the free comedic title Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff by Pappy Pariah, read by Sean Penn, with appearances by Frances McDormand, Ari Fliakos, and Leila George. Penn appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Real Time with Bill Maher in late September to promote what he called a “mem-noir” by Pariah, who has had adventures that remarkably mimic Penn’s own, including helping Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans and associating with drug lords. In both TV appearances, Penn denied he was the author of the work and crafted a wild backstory about how he came upon the manuscript from Pariah, whose Bob Honey character is pitched as a “American middle-aged man with a mission—a loner struggling to find truth amid the chaos of a political campaign that threatens to destroy the values of the country he loves.”

And on December 8, Audible will publish the audio exclusive Romeo and Juliet, a novelization of Shakespeare’s play, adapted by David Hewson and performed by Richard Armitage. According to Audible senior PR manager Esther Bochner, the company believes that producing audio exclusives “helps create the habituating experience that our members have come to love and furthers the expansion of the industry.”

Booktrack Partners with Hachette Audio for YA Titles

Booktrack, a technology company that specializes in creating and synchronizing movie-style soundtracks and ambient audio to e-books and audiobooks, has teamed up with Hachette Audio to provide soundtracks to a line of YA titles. The move marks an expansion of the companies’ partnership (first announced in July), which saw the release of Booktrack e-books from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. In that initial agreement, the e-books featuring Booktrack soundtracks were from LBYR’s digital-only imprint Novl. The fall Booktrack-enhanced Hachette Audio titles are drawn from the same pool and include three works by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl: the novel Beautiful Creatures and the novellas Before the Claiming and A Gatlin Wedding, as well as one novella by Laini Taylor, Night of Cake and Puppets. In a statement on the new venture, Anthony Goff, senior v-p of content development and publisher of Hachette Audio says: “Working with Booktrack, we hope to expand our authors’ audiences, giving current audiobook fans the ability to experience some of their favorite stories in a fresh, new way, while attracting those who may be new to audiobook listening with a ‘cinematic’ gateway experience.”

Simon & Schuster Audio Breaks Big with Cranston Memoir

Emmy- and Tony-winning actor Bryan Cranston, widely known for his role as high school chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin Walter White in the AMC series Breaking Bad, reads his memoir, A Life in Parts, due October 11 from Simon & Schuster Audio. Cranston recounts his turbulent childhood and the trajectory—and detours—of his wide-ranging career, from his first TV commercial at age seven to a regular soap opera gig, a lead in sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, and roles in numerous feature films and on Broadway.

Endurance Athlete Karnazes on the Run for Tantor

Accomplished actor and two-time Audie winner Robert Fass recently stepped into the booth for Tantor Audio to record The Road to Sparta, ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes’s memoir about his quest to explore the history of, and re-create, the world’s first marathon—a 153-mile run from Athens to Sparta in 490 B.C.E., carried out by Pheidippides, who delivered crucial information during a battle in the war between Greece and Persia. Karnazes, who is of Greek descent, drank only water and ate only foods that would have been available in ancient Greece during his training for the modern-day Spartathlon, which honors Pheidippides’s epic route.

Brooks’s ‘Young Frankenstein’ Is Alive at Hachette

Fellow comedic film directors Mel Brooks and Judd Apatow recently recorded their sections of the audiobook Young Frankenstein: A Mel Brooks Book; The Making of the Film, set for an October 18 release from Hachette Audio. Brooks serves up anecdotes about on- and offscreen antics during production of the award-winning 1974 horror spoof, and Apatow provides the foreword. In the studio, Brooks delivered some off-script asides that may make the recording’s final cut.

Tara Clancy’s ‘Queens’ via Random House

Many listeners are familiar with Tara Clancy’s voice, from her work on public radio as a frequent host of the Moth Mainstage live shows, and performing stories such as the ones that earned her a Moth GrandSlam title. In the Random House Audio recording of her new memoir, The Clancys of Queens, bowing October 11, Clancy provides snapshots from her early years as a raucous tomboy growing up in wildly different homes that included a converted boat shed in working-class Queens and a posh Long Island estate.