The audio book has long been a literary tradition pretty much since the first years of audio recording. When radio became widespread, serial-format shows were often broadcast in the evening
s after most American families had finished dinner and were settling down.
Now, we listen to broadcasts in all sorts of ways: iPods, streaming audio, the radio, satellite radio, or via a subscription online such as a podcast (which can in turn be played on an iPod or in iTunes or another audio player).
The serial-format radio drama still exists today! A neat one I recently discovered called “The Leviathan Chronicles” is divided up into chapters, available as episodes of a podcast online.
From what I can tell from the first chapter, it appears to be about a Chinese and an American sub that wind up in the same trench at the same time. An accidental firing sets off some sort of an energy pulse below the surface of the ocean. A year later, a government agent is called in to investigate what happened, because the signal from under the ocean was answered… from space.
So far, the presentation is pretty engaging. The background audio sounds like the ocean up against the outside of a sub wall, so you feel like you’re actually listening in inside a submarine. Also, instead of just a straight read-through, there are actors reading the lines of the characters, and a sexy female British voice reading the narration.
