Found Audio

By: N.J. Campbell

Narrated by: Will Tulin, Joel Simler, Sharmila Devar

For the first time ever, Found Audio presents a complete transcription of the unsettling audio recordings of a mysterious unnamed adventure journalist and his decades-long pursuit of the Borgesian "City of Dreams," alongside analysis from audio expert, Amrapali Anna Singh

* A Best Book of 2017—Writer's Bone

"[A] mysterious work of metafiction... dizzying, arresting and defiantly bold."—Laura Pearson, Chicago Tribune

Amrapali Anna Singh is an historian and analyst capable of discerning the most cryptic and trivial details from audio recordings. One day, a mysterious man appears at her office in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, having traveled a great distance to bring her three Type IV audio cassettes that bear the stamp of a library in Buenos Aires that may or may not exist.

On the cassettes is the deposition of an adventure journalist and his obsessive pursuit of an amorphous, legendary, and puzzling "City of Dreams." Spanning decades, his quest leads him from a snake-hunter in the Louisiana bayou to the walled city of Kowloon on the eve of its destruction, from the Singing Dunes of Mongolia to a chess tournament in Istanbul. The deposition also begs the question: Who is making the recording, and why?

Despite being explicitly instructed not to, curiosity gets the better of Singh and she mails a transcription of the cassettes with her analysis to an acquaintance before vanishing. The man who bore the cassettes, too, has disappeared. The journalist was unnamed.

Here—for the first time—is the complete archival manuscript of the mysterious recordings accompanied by Singh's analysis.

©2023 N.J. Campbell (P)2023 Spotify Audiobooks

fun twisty slow burn

overall an interesting concept of a story in a story with the plot being a slow burn of one person's journey into the unknown. the character transitions were easy to follow, but I felt it was lag in some places that should have fed to the third and fourth act. if you enjoyed left right game from the original creepy pasta, you'll enjoy similar shifting vibes

Terrible ramblings

Think of the worst person you knew in college. They ranted on and on about change, but then never voted. They claimed their religion was the sunrise while rock climbing, or some equally dumb shit. They blamed their ex for everything wrong in their life, and they could totally get her back. That person is who rambles on for four hours in this book. You’ve been warned.

None ever wished it longer than it is

Pointless and droning. This was bad--not fun bad, excruciating bad, and I'd be very skeptical of even a two-star review.

An intriguing, and inventive narrative.

Found Audio is quite different form anything else I’ve experienced on Audible.
It’s like an old radio drama, with hints of HP Lovecrafts The Dream Cycle.
Def worth a listen.