I read the first of The Three Body Problem trilogy in print, and then listened to audiobook versions of the second & third books. Only they weren't audiobooks. I downloaded PDFs and then used a mobile app (Librera, I believe) to "read" them to me while I exercised. The benefit is that it allows arbitrary text to be converted to audio, but the downside is that it's only able to use your device's TTS voices, and there aren't any AI smarts built-in, so it was like listening to the Google Assistant read an audiobook. It got the job done, but now I have a somewhat visceral reaction to that Assistant voice having associated it with Chinese sci-fi for several weeks.

Something better would be very much appreciated. It's still not a replacement for high quality, professionally narrated audiobooks, but -- like you said, it's not just books that I'd like to consume this way.

Those are some good use cases. I only really listen to full-length audiobooks and not podcasts. An AI voice is probably sufficient, especially for niche content, but I would MUCH rather listen to a book narrated by a human. There are nuances to pacing, tone, and voice that I don't think AI will ever be able to fully grasp.

What are your favourites? A podcast curating great short stories sounds interesting, done well