I’m not naturally attracted to suspense stories, though I appreciate some forms of horror (the world-building and inventive dread of Lovecraft and his ilk), and the craft that goes into top-flight suspense yarns (e.g., Alfred Hitchcock). But by-and-large I don’t get a huge rise out of being kept on the edge of my seat, and the longer it goes on, the larger the payoff has to be to work for me. Since I think this puts me at odds with what writers of suspense stories are trying to do, that means this genre is not generally for me.
That said, I’ve accumulated a number of suspense and horror podcasts that I listen to regularly, each with a rather different flavor. Not all of them are suspense in the sense I describe above, but I think they’re adjacent, at least.
Reminder: I’m a bit over 2 months behind listening to audio dramas which are still ongoing (longer for a few I’m catching up on), so some of my comments might seem dated to people who are all caught up.
- I Am In Eskew: A horror series (with occasional Lovecraftian overtones) about a man who lives in the city of Eskew, location undetermined. Strange things happen to him and other people in the city, and there’s a dreamlike – often nightmarish – quality to the story, with the constant sound of rain in the background. Genuinely creepy. I’m several episodes behind, but the story is starting to branch out to the world beyond Eskew, and I’m very curious to see where it goes.
- Six Minutes: An adventure serial about a girl who isn’t what she seems. Holiday is found in floating the water during a boating trip, and, amnesiac, is adopted by the family who found her. But her new parents seem to know things about her, and her new brother and sister help her try to find answers. As the title says, each episode is about six minutes long, and typically ends on a cliffhanger. The production values are very high, though I find the teenage hijinks of Holiday and her siblings to get a bit tiresome and I wish they’d get on with the story. I infer that Six Minutes is aimed at an all-ages audience which is why some parts of it drag for me. But overall I’m curious where it’s going – I just with it would go there faster.
- Moya: A one-man podcast about an inspector in the fictional nation of Moya who is sent to an outer district during the winter to investigate a homicide. Moya feels like a sort of alternate England, perhaps set around the 1950s, with undertones of 1984. The narrator has a strong – but not thick – English accent, which gives the story an unusual feel. Fundamentally the story is a police procedural set in a remote and uncaring land. I found the ending of the first season a little abrupt, but I’m curious to see what happens next.
- Blackwater Falls: A young man goes to the town of Blackwater Falls, Vermont to look for his missing sister, and finds that there are a number of strange disappearances in town, as well as other problems. I’m not very far in, but it’s intriguing. There’s not very much about it online that I can find, so the audio must speak for itself.
- Welcome to Night Vale: This is seemingly the most successful audio drama out there, and it spawned the Night Vale Presents network. I jumped in without catching up shortly before episode #100, and I found it… okay. The town of Night Vale is a place where all sorts of fantastic things happen, as told (mostly) by the local radio host voiced by Cecil Baldwin (who is great). The stories are dark and often nonsensical, and it’s heavy on humor and wordplay, but frankly I don’t find that a lot of those elements work – it’s not nearly as smart or clever as it thinks it is. Certainly I’ve never felt the urge to catch up on earlier episodes.
- Alice Isn’t Dead: I’m partway through its third and final season, and I think this is the best of the Night Vale Presents offerings. Keisha becomes a trucker to take her away from memories of her wife, Alice, who disappeared, but who Keisha suspects is still alive. Keisha uncovers a broad conspiracy involving manlike monsters and sinister organizations, but at its heart the story is a travelogue of the eerie bywaters of the United States. Jasika Nicole is great as Keisha. Might appeal to fans of Tim Powers, or Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.
- Station Blue: A young man is hired by a company to staff a station in Antarctica for 6 weeks. I had expected this was going to end up being some sort of cosmic horror story, but it’s mostly been about the anxieties of this guy living alone in the middlest of the middle of nowhere. I’ve been waiting for more information about the company he works for, what’s happened in the past at the station, and so on, but that doesn’t seem to be what the podcast is doing. So it seems the podcast is not a great match for me.
- The Archivist: A story about the end of the world, told through audiocassette recordings made by a young man named Cash during the event, and played by an artificial intelligence sometime in the future. It’s fundamentally a suspense/survivalist story, and though the precipitating events are fantastic, the story by and large is pretty straightforward. I recently finished the first season and despite a little bit of timey-wimey stuff, I’m not sure there’s enough going on to bring me back for a second season.
Next time I’ll wrap up with a few more audio dramas which don’t really fit into any of these categories.