podcast recommendations

I am finally talking about podcasts! This is the latest of several attempts to get back to blogging, and a good way to do that is by writing low-stakes posts full of my opinions! How long has this been sitting in drafts, you ask? ^[1]should I have published this during October? Quite possibly! Don’t worry about it!

Most of the past decade listening to “radio programs but like on the internet” has consisted of big, non-fiction names like Comedy Bang Bang, WTF, My Brother, My Brother and Me, The Dollop. Comedy was how I was introduced to this medium. It makes sense I’d have stuck to mostly comedy podcasts.

Then of course I got angry and bitter, and listened to more leftist shows like Eat the Rich, the Insurgents, Knowledge Fight, Well There’s Your Problem, etc which are all excellent but also depressing a lot of the time! My need for escapism (especially while at work, where earbuds are so crucial) has led me to dive deep into audio fiction lately. ^[2]Earlier experiences with it left me less than impressed. Needless to say, there are a lot of artists using podcasts as a fantastic storytelling medium today.

My preference for fiction podcasts is usually for horror or suspense. If you enjoy these shows and have suggestions for others I might like, hit me up!

The Magnus Archives
Status: complete

Magnus Archives is a horror anthology that focuses on records of unexplained events. The new head archivist reads statements of various horrors and becomes obsessed with discovering the truth behind all the strange occurrences.

Old Gods of Appalachia
Status: in progress

This is another anthology horror series within a gorgeously rich setting of historical Appalachia, weaving magic and folklore into fascinating tales. I am admittedly a sucker for a late 19th century setting!

The White Vault
Status: complete

A horror podcast that follows a team sent to investigate records from a repair team at a research station in Svalbard. This is my favorite of the series from the Fool and Scholar Productions team, and if you enjoy this I would absolutely recommend Vast Horizon (a space thriller) and the Liberty podcast (contains multiple sci-fi series set in Liberty, a world plagued by civil wars and strangeness).

Specifically, the sub-series Tales from the Tower, the anthology horror series set in the world of Liberty, has some of my favorite Fool and Scholar ^[3]A truly standout podcast production company! episodes. Check out Mines and Mysteries (a 4-part series where a group of friends, stuck in lockdown, play the Atrian version of D&D) and The Tower (5-part series about a creepy apartment)

The Lovecraft Investigations
Status: complete (?^[4]omg we may be getting a new season… )

This BBC series is an adaptation of several Lovecraft stories set in present-day, where a team of podcast hosts gets sucked into unraveling conspiracies involving witchcraft and cults. It is so well done that it managed to suck me into Lovecraft’s writing, which led me to some of the below horror podcasts, and a new world of horror short stories. (If Lovecraftian madness is up your alley, I also enjoyed the Call of the Void very much!) I re-listen to the whole series on the regular, I love it so much.

A Voice From From Darkness
Status: on-going

This podcast is a call-in show where parapsychologist Dr. Malcolm Rider (voice artist Kristin Holland) advises listeners on how to deal with their supernatural horrors. Like if Dr. Frasier Crane was set in Innsmouth instead of normie Seattle. If you become as enamored with Holland’s vocal talents as I have, you simply must listen to the next podcast as well!

Nocturnal Transmissions
Status: on-going anthology

A spooky anthology podcast where voice artist Kristin Holland reads dark tales. Some are from familiar horror lit icons (Poe, Bierce, Chambers, Lovecraft, etc) plus plenty of modern indie authors.

Night Light Podcast
Status: on-going anthology

This horror anthology pod features scary stories from black creatives worldwide. Legit creepiness and all original work! The creator of Night Light recently crowdfunded the first season of Afflicted, which sounds like a perfect blend of Lovecraftian horror and southern folklore. I am stoked to check it out!

Dark Histories
Status: on-going non-fiction

This historical podcast covers many older, lesser-known mysteries (hauntings, locked room murders, unidentified creatures, disappearances, and the like) going back beyond the 19th century. Many of the tales are ones I, with an interest in the creepy and off-beat, had never heard of ^[5]and because this is my blog, dammit, I can mix mostly fiction podcasts with one non-fiction one!. Host Ben Cutmore does fantastic research compiled from contemporaneous sources, so this is no “reading a wikipedia page” pod, no sir.