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This Epic 50-Hour Fantasy Audiobook Is the Best Possible Use of an Audible Free Trial
Posted
: Aug 14, 2026 10:31pm UTC
There are a lot of great fantasy audiobooks out there, but if you're looking to make the most of an Audible free trial, there's only one I recommend. The Wandering Inn series is one of my absolute favorites of the past decade and it has the added benefit of having an unusually lengthy first audiobook. At nearly 50 hours of listening time, it's the best possible bang for your buck.
The Wandering Inn is considered to be a part of the LitRPG genre, which is very similar to Dungeon Crawler Carl. At its heart, however, the story fits very snugly within traditional fantasy. There's magic, dragons, goblins, and even the occasional ogre. The audiobooks feature terrific narration from Andrea Parsneau and are definitely worth your time.
The Wandering Inn
The average length of most audiobooks is between 10 and 12 hours long, so why is The Wandering Inn almost 50 hours long? The answer lies in the nature of how the LitRPG genre got its start. Many of the best stories were originally published as web serials first before being adapted into other forms. The Wandering Inn in particular has an extremely lengthy intro into the series that was never intended to be contained within a single audiobook. The series has only recently received a paperback release and has had to split this first book into two separate parts. Surprisingly, the second audiobook entry is actually even longer at just over 61 hours.
I had a chance to interview the author of the series earlier this year and they discussed the move from web serial to audiobook: "I believe I was around Volume 4 when I received an email in my inbox from Podium asking if I was interested in an audiobook deal. I had turned down every single offer before that, but I had just watched The Martian in movie theatres and I thought that I had to give the audiobook company that published The Martian a chance," said Pirateaba. "All of that was luck, and many amazing things like Andrea Parsneau becoming the first narrator of the audiobook were all due to chance."