A real classic. As an author who was asked by my publisher to perform my own audiobook:

1. There is a reason 'reader of audiobooks' is a profession - it is stupid difficult. I will never do it again.

2. I loved this tape so much. It does such interesting things with its soundscape (from memory - if it actually is just Gibson reading it, then he must have embedded those memories through the sheer brilliance of his performance.

3. My fiancee is partially-sighted (I see her as an investment that will appreciate as biohacking becomes more and more prevalent) and she reads mostly by audiobook.

It's not really how I prefer to read - I get distracted too easily - but I've been appalled at the production quality of what I've overheard. While Gibson's work is a special case, an audiobook is only one dimension away from a film adaptation.

4. Literally all my millennial-Gen-Z-cusp friends who are non-readers opted for the audiobook of my book, not the book-book. Anecdata, but interesting. They would just switch Rogan or whatever out during their commute until they felt they'd listened to (what I assume as) enough of it to be socially acceptable.

5. I have no market knowledge other than that I signed my audiobook rights away to my publishers in the industry-standard way.

6. I'm sure it'd be very easy to procure data that made a case for audio fiction that was well-produced and incorporated soundscape-like elements, being incredibly commercially successful. It strikes me as a form that is ripe for innovation. And everyone loves books on tape.

7. There has been so much really interesting innovation in 'aural mood amendment' over the last decade or two. Some of it seems like pseudoscience, some of it seems legit - I wish I had sources to share. Apologies that I don't.

8. I assume someone has already built this concept - well-produced, soundscape-driven longform audio fiction - I'm not a consumer of that market well enough to know it. It'd be a really, really fun project. I'm sure it'd be very tough to get profitable, but it's almost too fun to care. This could be another reason it doesn't exist.

9. Gibson's 2003(?) novel Pattern Recognition is insanely underrated - probably not by people here - but I think the prose is better, and in a decade or two it will feel just as (if not more) prescient. It's a really, really good example of a literary classic that didn't get attention from book dweebs because it's from a 'genre' guy. If you like Neuromancer, and want to think about the next couple of decades in a similar way, you will really love it. I always thought it'd make a great double-bill with the movie Children of Men .

I would second Pattern Recognition. Something about it struck a chord with my similar inclination towards clothing and accessories without massive labels. Never realised it was so such a big thing that would spawn sites like cool hunting, or the current gen-z styling that tends towards all black/all white.

the best author-read audiobook I've listened to recently has been Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky[0]. He did a really good job and I would never have guessed it was the author himself. As you say, it's a very different and difficult job.

[0] https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0CMXTZZN2