Where Are The Audio Books?

PICTURE: Too Much Horror Fiction

Once again, I find myself wanting to dig into vintage King.  Of course, reading King is really not what I do (gasp) -- listen!  Honestly, I think one reason I got hooked on King was because a lot of his stuff was on audio book, and it wasn't abridged.  That's what you do when you are a lazy nerd -- listen to books.

So, once again I find myself wondering where some audio books are.  Is no one else asking?  Most of these complaints can be filed under "What's wrong with Doubleday?"  They have the same problem as Universal -- they're afraid to make money.

Don't bother writing in the comment section that we should go to the "torrent" illegal downloads and steal this stuff.  That's not what I'm asking for (and I'll delete such links).  I'm wondering: When will we be able to buy this stuff? 

Where is. . .

1. The Stand Unabridged.

2. The Mist Unabridged.  Don't give us that 3D sound stuff and then pretend it's the same as the book.  King's craft is his words, and they don't translate perfectly to any other medium.

3. Pet Sematary.  Once again, I can find the radio version, but the actual audio edition doesn't exist as far as I know.  Even for the blind!  I love this book, but once again, actually reading is so much work!  (Check out too much horror fiction's review of this book -- it's super duper.  toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.com.  I like this blog)

4. Rage.  Yep, I would gladly listen.  I know, big fear that it might cause teens to go nuts.  But I promise, I'll just listen and blog. 

5. The Dead Zone.  Can't find it!  There was a TV series, a movie -- but I guess Doubleday still doesn't think anyone would want to listen to the book.

6. The unabridged version of Desperation.  They tried to pull a fast one on this -- and I bought it!  I never thought I'd have to check a Stephen King book to see if it was abridged or not.  More whining and uncalled for bellyaching about this below.

7. The Regulators unabridged. Nice try -- but I want the whole thing.

8. Audio version of Bev Vincent's The Stephen King Illustrated Companion. Okay, so it's not written by King -- but I would still listen. Yes, I do know the magic of the book is all the extra's Bev stuffed the book full of -- but his reviews are crisp and insightful.  And don't say companion books don't get put on audio, because I have the Twilight Zone companion from audible.

9. The Audio of Swan Song.  So long as I'm complaining -- why not offer this one up, too.  I liked the book a lot -- and I had to read it all!  But I would return to it much more often if I had it in an audio format.

At some point a couple years ago, Viking's eyes popped open, and someone said, "Hey, we're losing a ton of dough!  We own this stuff, let's make money!"  What a great idea.  Now it's Doubleday's turn.

Speaking of audio. . .

Something nice happened a few years ago.  Audio books went unabridged.  King was a pioneer in this field, since he so hated the abridgement of Thinner.  There was really nothing like trying to keep up with Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising in a 3 hour abridgement.  I think the unabridged is 30 hours! 

Aren't we all glad King wouldn't put up with that?  Imagine a 3 hour version of Duma Key.  But, for some unknown reason, he gave in when it came to Desperation.  I couldn't believe it when I bought the audio, only to discover it is abridged!  Of course, it is an 8 hour abridgement -- but that still means someone was ripping pages out of the book!