For those who don't know, there is a whole world of podcast audiobooks out there. These are books, either published or not that authors have decided to have read or performed for your listening enjoyment. The most famous of these may be those by Scott Sigler - see here. But right about the same time Scott was giving us audio horror, Mercedes Lackey (well-known author in her own right) got a group of writers together to start a shared world story akin to Wild Cards called the Secret World Chronicle.
The Secret World Chronicle is based in an alternate version of our world where superheroes called metahumans exist and many work to maintain law and order throughout the world. This is thrown into chaos when a mysterious group of armored soldiers and metahumans attack all over the world causing devastation. The story focused mainly in Atlanta, where one of the metahuman groups, Echo, works to understand who has attacked and how to stop them from doing so again. Each book of the series expands on the story of the metahuman and regular human men and women of Echo and other groups as they deal with a world at war fighting to determine how to stop a menace no one knew was coming.
This is the start to the Secret World Chronicle, which has been podcasted (available for free on iTunes) since 2006 and is currently "airing" its sixth book in the series. Each book is a single narrative brought together through a set of stories by different authors. The authors working with Mercedes Lackey are Steve Libbey (books 1 & 2), Larry Dixon, Dennis Lee, Cody Martin and Veronica Giguere. Veronica also pulls double-duty as the producer and voice for the podcast version of the books. The podcast has also successfully led to the first few books in the series being published by Baen books - more here. As a side note, many of the characters in the story started life as characters of the authors in the City of Heroes MMO.
If you like Super Heroes, big battles, strong characters and well performed audio books, then you should give the Secret World Chronicles a try. The characters are not all good, with many that are broken or damaged from their past and we get to see how they deal with the situation the authors have placed them in. One of my favorite things about the series is how well Veronica Giguere does in giving each character a distinct voice, making it easy for the listener to fall into the story.
I started listening to the Secret World Chronicle in 2006 when I had a long commute to work and it was a great way to pass the trip. I recently started back listening again and have been rapidly consuming books 3 and 4. The story keeps up the adrenaline and doesn't pull any punches. If you have a long drive or just want a fun story with Super Heroes, go out and download the Secret World Chronicle, a 4 Mick Happies podcast novel series. I know I will be listening to more tomorrow on the way to work.
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