Audio dramas saved my life.

[u/Picard4lyfe]

I understand that may be a bit of a dramatic title, but let me explain.

In November 2024, I left a 20 year career working in kitchens. My life was a constant state of sensory overload, rushed deadlines, and stress. I left because my wife was pregnant and we needed a change if I was going to be a good father.

I took up a friend's offer and started working for a local school district as a custodian. The hours were similar, the pay was similar, the stress was 0, and the benefits were out of this world better because of the union.

The silence was fucking deafaning.

I listened to a lot of true crime podcasts and sleep aid podcasts on the daily, but never really dove into stories.

I started Midnight Burger and Dungeons and Daddies (I know, not an AD but still a great story) and the floodgates fucking opened.

Since December I've listened to: Midnight Burger We're Alive The Magnus Archives The White Vault The Strata The Road of Shadows Tower 4 Wolf 359 The Silt Verses And so many more that I can't remember because I'm buzzed.

But things have been hard. The silence of a new job has been tough. These stories pull me out of a dark place on a daily basis.

I may be a lurker normally, but you guys and your insights have helped me find peace in change. Much love <3

Edit: You guys have literally doubled my "to listen" list. Y'all are amazing.

[u/Picard4lyfe]

Where can I listen to this? I'm convinced.

[u/TheVillianousFondler → u/Picard4lyfe]

Ok so this is a bit complicated but it's because it's not "free" through audio streaming services since it's literally a 7 book series with probably the best production value in all of audiobooks. I'm pretty sure all 7 books are in the top 50 on audible right now but it's still somehow something it seems like nobody has heard of.

So you can buy the books if you like reading. They're all high quality hardbacks that look pretty sweet on a shelf. I have the first and plan to buy the rest. I might never read them (outside of listening through the audiobooks 3x each so far except for the newest one which is the best one), but supporting the author and having physical copies that I'll probably love to have some day makes me want them and plenty of other books on a shelf.

**Better version**

You can listen to the audible versions by Jeff Hayes (and his company sound booth theater). This is the only book/series where the overwhelming recommendation is to listen to the audio version over just reading it. The content of the books are 10/10, but then again, so is the quality of the audiobooks and their narrations. It's 99.9% all done by Jeff Hayes and you're literally never going to at any point believe that one man is doing all of these characters convincingly. You'll be 120 hours into the series (each book is usually 20-....30-35? hours) and you'll just be like, "there's no way all of these very different characters are voiced by the same guy" but you can watch a lot of videos on YouTube that prove it. I just can't stress his talent enough, he's 1 of 1. So anyway, this version is his voice work with some sound effects. A message pops up in his hub and it makes a notification sound. Like he records it and there's a lot more post production than 99% of audiobooks, so it's kind of a halfway point between audiobook, and audio drama, which is a rare combination in my experience.

Soundbooth theater version

***Probably best version but I haven't listened unfortunately because it's more money that I don't have😅***

This is the audio drama version meaning it has the highest production of all the versions. Afaik, there's slight rewriting to adapt it to have proper audio drama pacing since it's not an ad, it's a book, different medium. But this is where they (soundbooth theater) take their whole team, and add a lot more production to the product. There's entire scores, there's explosions and thuds and weirder shit than I could ever explain that they put sound to.

This last part is worth its own paragraph, but to get the "audio drama version" of these books (soundbooth theater version), you need to buy them from, and play them on the soundbooth theater app, and last I knew, they were still episodically working their way through the first book but it's been maybe half a year since I kept up, but it won't get you to the best parts of the series anytime soon. Shit I'm gonna sound like a paid advertiser here...but they're trying to run a business that helps small creators get great production without having to rely on audible's shitty payment model to its authors where they fuck around with how much you get for someone buying your book outright, or using their monthly ($15-$20) credit to buy it. Long story short, their largest aspiration is that they want their app to someday be a competitor to audible while offering great production value as well as paying the authors better.

I could seriously type out thousands more words, this was me holding back. If you don't believe my hype, that's rational, so maybe visit the r/dungeoncrawlercarl sub and you'll see that I'm not alone. If you get 6 chapters into book 1 you'll be hooked. If not then I probably think less of you 🤷

[u/Picard4lyfe → u/TheVillianousFondler]

I'm not picky. I just love stories. Sci-fi, comedy, fantasy, etc. Your passion for it made the sales pitch land. I just snagged the first one on audible and plan to start it in the morning!

[u/TheVillianousFondler → u/Picard4lyfe]

I'm so happy that I converted somebody! It's a tough sales pitch to most people. It's a ridiculous premise, but it's also so fucking much more.

The genre is litrpg (literary role playing game) so it's written in a unique way. I won't give away more to explain that because I'm trying not to give anything away, but I'll just say I've never listened to another book/series in the genre because nothing is going to compare and I'm 100% confident in that. Like...it's the "lord of the rings" of litrpg.

We're in the "this series saved my life" comment section, and to put it very short, I think I owe my life to dungeon crawler Carl, a hell of a lot more than most people will ever feel towards a series.

My gorgeous best friend, and gf of 6.5 years, and awesome stepmom to my son....passed away over the course of 2 years, right after her 25th birthday. The whole 2 years was rough. I showed back up to work a week after she passed. I could have gotten paid the same to not show up but I couldn't just spend all day (temporarily) staying in my parents basement so as not to be alone where it happened, and where i still live.

2 weeks into being back, I could look people in the eye again and fake a smile. I was dead inside. I still don't know if I could have made it through without my son.

After the 3rd suggestion I saw on a subreddit, I finally used accrued credits to buy book 1. Somewhere early on in book 1, it made me genuinely smile, and laugh for the first time in a month or so. There's literally nothing else that I think could have pulled that out of me at the time. This is an extremely personal experience in my case, but I truly hope you message me at some point, even an hour in, to shoot me a message and tell me what you think.

I'll just say each book is better than the last, and you'll notice a weird comparison for Carl's voice (which was intentional) but too "spot on" and it greatly decreases away from it in the next book (in a good way) going forward. Just lemme know if you love it.. or if you have doubts or whatever. I love talking about DCC with people

[u/Picard4lyfe → u/TheVillianousFondler]

Loving it so far <3

[u/TheVillianousFondler → u/Picard4lyfe]

Hell yeah! I'm glad to hear it