I listen to a lot of audio books. Working through all of Stephen King, Dickins, Sherlock Holmes and P.G Wodehouse. So far my predictable favorites have been Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Project Hail Mary and True Grit. Less predictable, Fibber in the Heat (Miles Jupp), The Accidental Soldier (Owain Mulligan), and Endurance (Alfred Langsing). Didn’t finish Terry Pratchett, (it’s just words for the sake of words) Ayoade on Top, Richard Ayoade (just not funny) Riddley Walker Russell, Russell Hoban (couldn’t get into it. I will try all these again incase I was in the wrong headspace to listen to them. I’ve dozens of honourable mentions through autobiographies, sci fri, crime, drama, comedy etc so I’m pretty varied with what I’ll listed to, what hidden gems are out there that I’m missing?
The Expanse by James SA Corey, narrated by Jefferson Mays. Jefferson Mays is the best narrator I’ve listened to yet. The first book, Leviathan Wakes, is a sci-fi mystery that sounds squarely up your alley.
If you have particular narrators that you like, please share them!
Additions:
NK Jemisin’s sci-fi will tear your heart out and expand your understanding of humankind in The Broken Earth trilogy, narrated by Robin Miles. But if you’re not ready for that right now (very understandable what with gestures at everything), The Great Cities (two books, also narrated by Robin Miles) are on par with Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (full cast recording, which is interesting and kind of neat but can be overloading if you’re sound-sensitive), and being cosmic horror, weirder.
Angie Thomas has written some terrific books with excellent narrations that I think of as modern classics. The Hate U Give and On the Come Up, both performed by Bahni Turpin.
Obviously Jeff Hayes is on another level but he kinda spoils it for others.
I second The Expanse series.