Science Vs.: Comparing what people think or do vs. what science says or knows, and science doesn’t always win. The “Science vs. Marajuana” episode had so many reefer puns in it they have a running tally. Fun but scientific.
Myths & Legends podcast: Retelling, yes, myths and legends with a modern voice. This is about the only time I understood what the heck the deal was with the Norse myths. Ends with “creature of the week” where some magical beasties from all over are described.
Fictional: Same guy summarizing fiction, so like Cliffs Notes with personality, or Thug Reviews without explaining the underlying meaning. Just stories retold in a modern voice. They just finished up Count of Monte Cristo, which I could never get interested in, but summarized this way made me at least get why it was popular. Ends with a bit about old comic book heroes or villains that had no right existing because of how strange or pointless they were; very funny.
Lore: If you need to get depressed that what we believe in magic and monsters making us humans into monsters, this is the podcast. It deserves its high rating and Amazon Prime short series, which turns something dark into something dark with dark visuals and holy crap we did not come from a nice past. Entirely European and American, tho.
That’s all I listen to non fiction. I should listen to 99% Invisible, considering how much I bang on about design.
Speaking of banging on, here’s my list of current fiction podcasts!
Welcome to Night Vale: You all have read me praise this greatly. It’s Lovecraft by way of A Prairie Home Companion (now Welcome From Here), where black secret sheriff helicopters and unknowable blood stone circles are pretty much the norm. Mostly just silly, in a very off kilter way, but also heartwarming.
Alice Isn’t Dead: A woman becomes a trucker to find her missing wife and stumbles into a conspiracy far, far beyond her. Done by the same people as WTNV, but is about the loneliness of life on the road. Third and final season starts this year.
Within the Wires: Another WTNV production. WW2 left two thirds of the world dead and a new single world society has been formed from the destruction to stop it from happening again. The story is told via cassette tapes from a single speaker and it is strange and compelling and strange and amazing that it could be done. Season One is abosolutely worth listening to. Season two is more standard of a story, but has more world building in it.
Our Fair City: The remaining population of the known world of our near future is holed up, quite literally, in an insurance building in Hartford, Connecticut. Originally written as a series of slightly connected short for, stories, it has become a giant multi season epic tale of humanity in exactly what you’d think an insurance company as humanity’s caretakers would look like. Post-apocalyptic dystopia epic. Hartlife: The only life you ever need.
Sayer: I find new podcasts from the Q&A episodes of other podcasts. This one was from Our Fair City. Also a short form podcast, tho some seasons are more story arc than others. An asteroid hits Earth and a company launches it back into space to orbit Earth and be a staging ground for humanity’s leaving our now understandably dying planet. Be assured: There are no bees on Typhon.
The Orphans: This one I got from the Sayer crew. Far future survival story of a crashed ship on an almost abandoned planet. Season one serves as world building, and I’m hooked. Beautiful sound.
Edict Zero - FIS: How to describe this? Far future police procedural on a planet that we colonized after fleeing a dying Earth. The world feels like a world, though, messy and nuanced. Everything else would be a spoiler, except that one of the characters can be hard to take. The sound is not mixed awesomely, but the production complexity of this show is insanely great.
The Liberty Podcast: Speaking fleeing a dying Earth, this series takes place on an Earth colony in the middle of terraforming, and after a civil war a hundred years ago. It’s mostly about the safe and wealthy area which is for once not a classist high society utopia/dystopia, but a social machine that people live within. The area outside is filled with roving gangs and cannibalism because they don’t have the infrastructure to stay alive. Lots of lore, lots of world building, a nice and not black-and-white take on the order vs. chaos sci-if trope.
Wolf 359: This series was hard to finish listening to for the same reason Battlestar Galactica was: It is non stop pain to the protagonists, but the writing is solid and the voice acting is superb. Well, except for the fake Russian accent. Series starts as strange events on a space station around Wolf 359, and ends with a conspiracy against humanity by the company that sent them there. I feel this was a bit of back peddling, because this happens pretty close to or at modern day, but I think they pull it off well. Yes that’s a mild spoiler. So very mild.
The White Vault: A found footage Lovecraft story in modern day, featuring isolation and architectural discovery. Slow but well told.
Limetown: Staged as an NPR series, tho feels less fake than others I’ve tried. (Stage actors, stop being stage actors for these please!) After a small private laboratory town disappears in violence, one reporter follows the threads to find what experiments were pushing human understanding and ability.
The Bright Sessions: Another show that starts off as recorded notes, it does escape the “log” format to do more with the series. Takes place in a psychiatrist’s office where she helps troubled young adults deal with their psychic abilities, and how to hide it from the world. Takes powers as a physiological condition and not just magic brain juju. It does fall a bit to the “conastant suffering of characters” from time to time, but it’s well done so I forgive it.
Thrilling Adventure Hour: Olde Time Radio Shows done on stage with tongue placed firmly in cheek, done for comedy value. My favorites are “Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars” and “Beyond Belief”, but they’re all fun. It’s too bad to miss on some of the visuals, mostly actors reacting to other actors, but you’re not missing anything much from it. The audiophiles will recognize some voices.
Decoder Ring Theatre: Black Jack Justice: 1940s detective noir radio show starring “Black Jack” Justice and his partner, NOT SIDECKICK OR GIRL FRIDAY, Trixie Dixon Girl Detective. There hasn’t been anything since 2015, 67 hard-boiled episodes in, but oh is it worth it. Then there’s the audio book of how these two first met, which you should absolutely wait until you’re done with the 67 episodes.
This was the first podcast I ever listened to, discovered on the midnight audio theatre of my local NPR station.
And that’s what I listen to, @Sonder. Aren’t you glad you asked?
![😕](http://musoapbox.net/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f615.png?v=4vfms5ns7sl ":\")
Once I'm driving again, I'll probably listen to more. Right now I usually listen to them while on the bus home, but I've almost missed my stop when the former happens or I find myself reading websites when the latter happens.
