World Series of Audio Lit

Well, it’s not that dramatic. But I’m having a hard time deciding my next major read.

First I gotta finish my PJF experiment. Which means I have about 3.5 medium-sized Philip Jose Farmer novels to plow throw. Maybe another month at the rate I’m going. Then, since I finished Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels a week or two ago, I want to mosey on into a western or two I have on the shelf behind me.

So … around Memorial Day, I want to start a long, luxorious, and completely absorbing, overwhelming adventure in an audio CD, one I can read along with.

I have two choices that I am on the fence on.

The hometown favorites, and the team with the best regular season record, is –

Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

The upstart contenders, their first series championship in thirty years, is –

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

Now, though they’re really different, they both have their pros and cons for me. For the Stephenson book, every single review I’ve read indicates to me that it is a phenomenal trip into a completely new world, where science, religion, and mysticism are blended and an entirely knew culture arises. Oh, and there’s some sort of crazy apocalypse facing this brave new world.

Dickens is an exact, one hundred eighty-degree twist. Never liked him as a student, but – lo! - Great Literature is Great, capital-G great, because it draws you in … especially when you’re not a student! Dickens was always a foe to me in my school days. Cheated on Tale of Two Cities thirty years ago. Re-read it a decade ago and was floored. Similar thing for Great Expectations, which I’ll go in to, if and when I re-read it.

So, that’s my dilemma.

And now I ask you:

Who will win?