Looking for some good geek books to listen to? Look no further! Check out some of my favourite geeky books from Audible.
Ready Play One – Ernest Cline
Possibly my favourite on this list has to be Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Set in a dystopian future where people spend most of their waking hours in a virtual world called the OASIS. The book is packed with nostalgia-inducing references to some of your favourite old movies, video games and pop culture references you will find it tough to take a break from listening.
A major bonus is that this book is narrated by Wil Wheaton who adds a whole new level to the story based on the way he guides you through this adventure as the stories main character Wade Watts.
Ready Player One: Audible
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Armada – Ernest Cline
Another Ernest Cline/Wil Wheaton combo, Armada, is every gamers dream come true.
Imagine you’re playing a video game and it is suddenly revealed to you that the game you are playing is not actually a game but in fact preparation for an imminent attack from an alien race.
Again, in my opinion, the narration style from Wil Wheaton really adds to the stories ability to suck you in.
Console Wars – Blake J. Harris
Possibly my favourite non-fiction book in this list, Console Wars details the journey of Sega from a small and “scrappy” video game company into a behemoth of a company during their efforts to take down Nintendo.
As a kid I was always firmly in the Sega camp, being the owner of a Master System and Genesis, I was sucked into this story containing many first-person accounts from both sides of the battlefield that was the video game industry during the 1990s.
If you are a retro video game fan, this book is a must.
Magic 2.0 Series – Scott Meyer
The Magic 2.0 series contains 4 books (listed below) that chronicle the adventures of Martin Banks after he discovers that the entire world is a computer simulation and can be changed via a single text file. As you can imagine, Martin gets himself into trouble and has to travel back to the middle ages with the idea of pretending to be a wizard.
I found myself giggling nonstop and laughing out loud repeatedly while listening to this series. The writing style of Scott Meyer and the incredible narration of Luke Daniels work great together to keep you locked into this and unable to stop listening.
- Book 1: Off To Be The Wizard
- Book 2: Spell Or High Water
- Book 3: An Unwelcomed Journey
- Book 4: Fight And Flight
All-in-all the series is about 45 hours of listening, but it is worth it.
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Masters of Doom & Prepare to Meet Thy Doom – David Kushner
The first book, Masters of Doom, in the two part series, is based around the “Lennon and McCartney” of the video game industry. John Carmack and John Romero. The story chronicles the rise and subsequent fall of “id” software from the early pre-doom days to the post-quake days. David Kushner does an excellent job of showing how the early days in the gaming industry were the true definition of the wild west.
Book two, Prepare to Meet Thy Doom does not revolve around the two John’s from book one but rather shares individual stories that either formed or were formed by the video game industry and the games it produced. The compilation does an excellent job breaking down some of the first-hand accounts of the video game industries biggest moments.
The book does tend to jump around chronologically but each story has a lot of content and gets listeners behind the scenes enough to really pull you in.
Book two also provides an update on what Carmack and Romero are up to these days as well.
It is also worth noting that Wil Wheaton also narrates both of these books on Audible. As mentioned before, his narration style is excellent and really makes it hard to stop listening until you reach the end of the story.
Prepare to Meet Thy Doom: Audible
That’s it! There are dozens of other really excellent books that could have gone on this list, but these are my favourites from both the fiction and non-fiction genre. Currently, I am listening to a book titled “Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA” by Sam Pettus. It covers the story of Sega from the early days in the 1950’s up until the end of its console run with the Dreamcast. It is a good story so far, but nowhere near the quality of writing or narration that sucks you in the same way that Console Wars does.
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What are some of your favourite geeky books? Let me know in the comments below!
GadgetSyrup 