Ready Player One. Narrator is Wil Wheaton

I loved that book. Slow start and the references felt a little tedious and/or gratuitous at first, but once it got going it was awesome.

I keep hearing this book mentioned, I think I will add it to my check out list

I have about 2 hours worth of commuting every day, so I go through a ton of audio books. Here are a few that stood out to me that fit your genres:

Hard Sci-fi:
Seveneves - the moon randomly explodes and earth needs to be evacuated. Starts out as a fairly realistic space program to kick-start a civilization in near earth orbit, then jumps ahead several thousand years later to when the humans are beginning to return to earth.

The Mote in God's Eye - first contact with an alien civilization. The worldbuilding (there are tons of other books in the same universe) is phenomenal if you like political science/ anthropology/military history.

Blindsight - really distopian view of the future. Alien first contact. There's a bit of horror to it (especially because you don't know what the monsters are our what to expect), but that's not really the focus. the scariest parts were mostly because of the really plausible but depressing insights into the human condition. The implications in the ending left me messed up for days.

Leviathan wakes - follows two main characters, a washed up detective and a spaceship captain, as they do things. It's a bit like firefly but with breaks for noir. Also has some horror (sci-fi zombie virus). Really convincing universe without resorting to crazy technical leaps that break the internal consistency.

Fantasy:
Dagger and the coin series - medieval banking vs traditional fantasy power structure vs order of priests that can both manipulate and sense peoples perception of "truth". Really great worldbuilding and convincing characters.

Paranormal:
Dresden files - a wizard works as a detective in modern Chicago. the audiobook performance is superb. I actually hate the the characters (I'm in the minority there though), but I'm up to book 5 now just because the narrator does a great job and I like listening to him.

Thanks for the recommendations! All seem pretty interesting!

I also noticed your profile says you like politics and science, so you may enjoy Interface. It takes place at some indeterminate period in the 90s and follows a bunch of different characters during a presidential election. A governor who has a stroke, a guy who invents a portable polygraph, a genius pollster, some illuminati type people in a bunker, etc. They all end up interacting with each other in different ways without anybody being a true main character. I loved it just because it shifted from believable to completely off the rails in the end, but did it so subtly I never even noticed the transition. Just be warned that the first hour or so is a bunch of rambling about the governors family history, which isn't terribly important and is kind of boring (though every time I listen to the book I catch some new detail that actually had bearing on some other event in a very minor way).

Not heard any good horror novels lately, but I recently listened to both Limetown and The Black Tapes podcasts.

Limetown is a short-ish series about a journalist uncovering the mysterious disappearance of 300 people from a secretive town in Tennessee. Spooky atmosphere, mysterious. I had a blast with this one; kinda hoping for a part 2 so I can get more answers! http://www.limetownstories.com/

The Black Tapes is a 2 season (so far) series about another journalist exploring the lives of various people, which quickly becomes an investigation in to the life of world-renowned paranormal skeptic Dr Strand. The idea being that he's very quick to dismiss paranormal stuff, and keeps all his case files in white VHS cases, except the few he couldn't disprove, which are kept in black cases (hence Black Tapes). Alex and Nick, the host and producer, follow Strand as he lets them investigate said black tapes and what they mean.

30 minute episodes (with the occasional ad-read, typically in character), plenty of spooky moments and strange meta lore. Generally just good atmosphere and interesting characters. Some biblical-themed horror, which is always a plus in my books. http://theblacktapespodcast.com/

Hope these are a decent alternative to horror audiobooks. They're both great fun, even if they're kind of a different format. Both are more documentary-styled than prose.

Oh those sound interesting! Kinda like an old school serial radio drama? Def interested

I suppose yeah they're radio drama of sorts. The black tapes joke about it a bit because nobody they interview knows what a podcast is lol

Give the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne a shot. There's some really top notch writing in those... not to mention they're narrated by Luke Daniels. The first few books are available on youtube, if you want to listen to the first bit and see if they're for you :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TW3jaQbNBA

Have you ever heard of podiobooks.com serialized audio books that are free. I've listened to a handful and go back occasionally to see what's new

No, but I'll take a look!

let me know if you find anything. Like I said, I enjoy some of the books on it.

I've spent time reading "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman. Although I've never listened to an audiobook I'm pretty sure it's good.