Regarding audiobooks/regular books I can make a reccomendation.
Gideon the Ninth is a very fun peice of space fantasy that has a great mix of humor, worldbuilding, characters, intrigue, and drama.
Every few generations the greatest necromancer and the greatest swordfighter from each of the nine planets are summoned to an ancient palace to uncover the mysteries that are contained within. Gideon the Ninth is the story of one of those events, told from the perspective of the person who is by far the least qualified to be there. The main character is a lesbian, and there are a couple of other gay characters as well and it takes place in a world where being gay is NBD. The author, Tamsyn Muir, is a lesbian.
Spoiler-y Content Warnings
___Major character deaths occur as well as the deaths of a few children, however I think the author handles the subject carefully. There are some depictions of disability as well as terminal illness, IIRC there is some drug use and alchohol, a little bit of sexual themes too but nothing explicit.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (a pseudonym for Senan Mcguire) is a suspensful cryptid horror story about a bisexual marine biologist that seeks the truth of what happened to her sister, who was attacked by mermaids.
A little bit Jurassic Park a little bit Atlantis: The Lost Empire and a little bit X Files. It's at times very tense, a little goofy and always pretty nerdy (to be clear its a "scientific journals and cosplay" nerdy rather than "bazinga and funko pops" kind of nerdy). Overall the story is a romp and I read it in like three days.
Content Warnings
Major characters die, the hunting and killing of animals is portrayed, people are drowned, ableism, meat is eaten in some scenes, theres a few segments where the reader takes the perspective of someone who struggles and dies, there's some depictions of past ableist and homophobic parental abuse. Thats all I can recall off the top of my head.
(Sorry for the word vomit, I wanted to talk about a couple of my favorite books)
Addendum:
In Into the Drowning Deep there are a pair of deaf characters. I am not deaf and I can't judge whether or not those characters (written by an author who is also not deaf) are good portrayals. However I want to mention this because those two characters, and the scenes from their perspectives were some of my favorite parts of the novel.
I can definitely say that the rest are pretty good, if not better in some ways. I can't say anything about the plot without spoiling but Harrow the Ninth is partially written in second person, like "you did this" and "you felt that" and it can be really offputting but once you figure out why those chapters are written that way it's a really cool twist on the story. Nona the Ninth is also good! I haven't finished it though, it has a very different tone from the other two books.
oh I meant I haven't read the other books you suggested.
I will recommend the entire Locked Tomb series to anyone and everyone. Harrow absolutely was a bit weird to get into because of the second-person writing style, but it slowly became obvious why it was in second person throughout the book, and then on subsequent rereads, I've actually thoroughly enjoyed the strange perspective it offers.
Drowning Deep is cool and funny, I like that adding lesbians (ONE OF WHOM IS AUTISTIC WOOOOAH) to a Resident Evil style b-movie shlock horror story improves it considerably. I think it fails basically as horror but is worth the read.
I think Drowning Deep succeeds at horror if you have related phobias. Deep water, submerged objects, and being on boats all scare the shit out of me so I was sweating the whole time lol.
Oh yeah water I guess it bugs me that the prologue has a broad daylight description of its signature monster, but damn I'm kinda surprised you made it through if you have those phobias. Grats!
Regarding audiobooks/regular books I can make a reccomendation.
Gideon the Ninth is a very fun peice of space fantasy that has a great mix of humor, worldbuilding, characters, intrigue, and drama.
Every few generations the greatest necromancer and the greatest swordfighter from each of the nine planets are summoned to an ancient palace to uncover the mysteries that are contained within. Gideon the Ninth is the story of one of those events, told from the perspective of the person who is by far the least qualified to be there. The main character is a lesbian, and there are a couple of other gay characters as well and it takes place in a world where being gay is NBD. The author, Tamsyn Muir, is a lesbian.
Spoiler-y Content Warnings
___Major character deaths occur as well as the deaths of a few children, however I think the author handles the subject carefully. There are some depictions of disability as well as terminal illness, IIRC there is some drug use and alchohol, a little bit of sexual themes too but nothing explicit.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (a pseudonym for Senan Mcguire) is a suspensful cryptid horror story about a bisexual marine biologist that seeks the truth of what happened to her sister, who was attacked by mermaids.
A little bit Jurassic Park a little bit Atlantis: The Lost Empire and a little bit X Files. It's at times very tense, a little goofy and always pretty nerdy (to be clear its a "scientific journals and cosplay" nerdy rather than "bazinga and funko pops" kind of nerdy). Overall the story is a romp and I read it in like three days.
Content Warnings
Major characters die, the hunting and killing of animals is portrayed, people are drowned, ableism, meat is eaten in some scenes, theres a few segments where the reader takes the perspective of someone who struggles and dies, there's some depictions of past ableist and homophobic parental abuse. Thats all I can recall off the top of my head.
(Sorry for the word vomit, I wanted to talk about a couple of my favorite books)
Addendum:
In Into the Drowning Deep there are a pair of deaf characters. I am not deaf and I can't judge whether or not those characters (written by an author who is also not deaf) are good portrayals. However I want to mention this because those two characters, and the scenes from their perspectives were some of my favorite parts of the novel.
Thank you, I will see if I can find audiobooks of those, they both sound very interesting. This isn't word vomit at all
Big recommend on Gideon the Ninth, haven't read the others but I bet they're good.
I can definitely say that the rest are pretty good, if not better in some ways. I can't say anything about the plot without spoiling but Harrow the Ninth is partially written in second person, like "you did this" and "you felt that" and it can be really offputting but once you figure out why those chapters are written that way it's a really cool twist on the story. Nona the Ninth is also good! I haven't finished it though, it has a very different tone from the other two books.
oh I meant I haven't read the other books you suggested.
I will recommend the entire Locked Tomb series to anyone and everyone. Harrow absolutely was a bit weird to get into because of the second-person writing style, but it slowly became obvious why it was in second person throughout the book, and then on subsequent rereads, I've actually thoroughly enjoyed the strange perspective it offers.
Drowning Deep is cool and funny, I like that adding lesbians (ONE OF WHOM IS AUTISTIC WOOOOAH) to a Resident Evil style b-movie shlock horror story improves it considerably. I think it fails basically as horror but is worth the read.
I think Drowning Deep succeeds at horror if you have related phobias. Deep water, submerged objects, and being on boats all scare the shit out of me so I was sweating the whole time lol.
Oh yeah water
I guess it bugs me that the prologue has a broad daylight description of its signature monster, but damn I'm kinda surprised you made it through if you have those phobias. Grats!