19 Fiction Podcast Debuts: February 2020
February’s fiction brings light upon the shores.
2020 continues to serve genuine and fascinating fictions from all over the genre map, and in February, historical fiction, Shakespeare, and darkly comedic realism were particularly shining shores. The number of fiction podcasts being produced at an independent level every month continues to grow in surprising ways, as genre gaps from prior years are finally filled — romance, for instance, and stories grounded in the real world. You’ll find all that and more this month in these 19 imaginative and enrapturing tales.
(For more debuts, check out last month’s list.)
His Royal Fakin’ Highness
Marissa Tandon, Alex Whisenhunt, Kelly Gregg
From Tandon Productions (Super Ordinary, The Sword & the Stoner) comes this modern-era romantic comedy reimagining of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet’s rise to the throne is halted by an odd loophole about needing married heirs, which favors his uncle. But don’t worry, Ophelia has it in hand; after all, she’s just informed everyone that she and Hamlet are engaged! This is a hysterical comedy that leans lovingly into the enemies-to-lovers trope, but keeps everyone’s humanity and relationships in the forefront.
Lady Lucy
It’s the month for Shakesperean-era fiction, this time with a historical fiction about Lucy Negro, otherwise known as Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Lucy is a madam who runs a brothel masquerading as a tavern in the London district of Clerkenwell under the name of Black Luce, and she is struggling with men, money, and murder. Lady Lucy is vibrant, with a transportive soundscape and phenomenal storytelling that puts front and center the Black women who are often erased from history.
Verity Weaver
David McCormack, Nina Sarkozi, David Holdsworth
Verity gets twenty minutes a day in the experience machine to go on an adventure with her companion, Fable Norwood, into the farthest reaches of space in a rickety spaceship. The rest of the time, she’s one of billions of miners stuck in a horrible life of mining, breaks, sleep, and more mining. Would you take the option to escape that life if it was handed to you? Verity Weaver is a truly incredible piece of immersive science fiction, with vast soundscaping and questions with no easy answers about the link between reality and experience.
Captivated
Amy Francis Wright, Ana Worrel
Barry the Beast in the Morning is a small-town radio show that ends up on everyone’s minds when a wildly unprepared gunman takes the three hosts hostage live on the air. Sisters Cara and Violet are arguing over the dial on a road trip, and they end up listening to the hostage situation while figuring out their own entrapment. Captivated is a darkly humorous, absurd trip down the rabbit hole, at gunpoint.
Folxlore
Ross McFarlane, Bibi June, Syd Briscoe, David Devereux
Folxlore is a three-part poetic horror by and for queer people, set in a Glasgow, where an otherworldly strangeness is reaching through a rift and touching the lives of ordinary people. Braced against the stormy and experimental sound design of David Devereux, these performers and writers will wreak havoc on your senses and on your heart.
Asking for It
Drew Denny, Kaitlin Prest, Rider Alsop, Christina Gaillard, Harry Knazan
Drew Denny’s debut podcast, produced by Mermaid Palace in collaboration with the CBC, is a heart-wrenching agony of sound about the cycle of domestic violence in queer relationships and the force it takes to break free. Audiences exist in the space alongside Goldie as she tries to fulfill her musical career and lead fulfilling romantic adventures, and that space is rough and tumultuous. The audio is raw and realistic, with the semi-improvised performances driving directly into the complex natures of violence, forgiveness, friendship, and trauma.
Menlo Park
Alfonso Latorre, Ana Alonso, Roberto García
Si conoce la historia de Tomás Edison, sabe que Menlo Park, California, es donde instaló su laboratorio, y donde instaló luz eléctrica en la calle por la primera vez. Menlo Park empieza en Nochevieja de 1879, la noche de la inauguración de esta calle y su iluminación por bombillas eléctricas. Esta ficción histórica sigue eventos inesperados que empiezan esa noche cuando descubren que alguien en ese centro de investigación no es quien dice.
Discovery Park
Sean Keeley, Lucy Pearce, Dave Lindsay
When she wakes up, she doesn’t know her name. All she knows is that she’s abandoned in the middle of a park, and she’s got a whole lot of weird items that spell trouble and a mysterious voice on a payphone. Discovery Park depicts the looking-glass life of someone who doesn’t know what vast secrets she carries, and the odd interactions she has with people she swears she doesn’t know, but who know her.
Less is Morgue
Henry Galley, Alexis Bristowe, Shaun Kingham, Uri Sacharow, Meg Molley Tuten, Scott Thomas, Gus Martin Zagarella, Charlie Porritt
When Riley gets hungry, they tend to eat their favorite comfort food: human flesh. But as a ghoul, they aren’t really up on all the rules for haunting, which is how they end up with the ghost of Evelyn attached to them. Less is Morgue is a light-hearted buddy comedy of a ghoul and a ghost making a podcast together despite differing opinions on Nickelback, getting into trouble when Riley jumps the gun and eats someone, and interviewing the oddball and totally ordinary creatures of the night.
One More Night with Meera
One More Night with Meera is a six-part play about the night when Neel, Meera’s ex-boyfriend of six years, shows up in her presence without warning, and with something to say. This is a conversation that is in turns rough and gentle, about memories and relationships, about what happens to memories when relationships go bad, and what happens to relationships when memories are all that’s left.
Megaton Girl
Austin Lee Matthews, Mark Allen Jr.
Connie Opland is Megaton Girl, a superhero in a world full of superhero celebrities who are all lorded over by the corrupt and arrogant hero, Captain Valiant. With the help of her publicist/girlfriend and her mentor, Connie is going to take Valiant down while making a name for herself. Megaton Girl’s pilot is the perfect shade of humorous extra that superheroes can hold up on their own.
Deactivated
Deactivated is a baffling, wild journey through a satirical and outlandish cyberpunk world, in the city of Altimore during the third weekend of February 2021. Altimore thrives under the technological ingenuity and watchful eye of Claudius, whose company revitalized the area. This soap opera goes from zero to sixty on a layered bed of sound and music and meaning, and will not give you a seat belt on the way down.
The Ritual
Grayson Leder, Brandon Bodien, Corey Goldberg, Forrest Leder, Madison Paridon, Mariah Leder, Tristan Leder
This 5th edition D&D podcast starts with six, well, we’ll call them heroes, who wake up with no memories of who they once were, and who have to reconcile their potential future with the past they’ve left behind. These players delight in dispelling with their histories, but still playing through a personality informed by their pasts and guided with glee by their DM. Between a cleric whose healing word is salutations (said in a drawling Southern gentleman’s accent), a human with a glaive and nothing else, and a monk with a creepily excited voice in her head, saving the world is going to take just a minute.
Pearlfire
Aron Pickering, Claire Ellerhorst, Sarah King, Cameron King
Pearlfire is an actual play of a homebrewed storytelling RPG that follows a trio of impromptu monster hunters who seek peace after magic and monsters of myths were unleashed upon their world one destructive night. Cleverly, the GM explains the rules as the characters run up against the need to do an action and produce a change, creating an easy learning period.
The Societies
Kevin Perjurer, Disney Dan, Alicia Stella, RobPlays
If you’re a theme park and roleplaying nerd, The Societies is the actual play-slash-audio drama podcast for you, created and narrated by Kevin Perjurer (Defunctland). Disney Dan, Alicia Stella, and RobPlays navigate a world inspired by theme parks of Disney, Universal, Cedar Fair, and more — except it’s a world with technology stagnated in 1920. I’m not a theme park lover, but The Societies is hilarious, with players who haven’t really played RPGs before and are gung-ho about everything, their moves and rolls highlighted with comedic sound effects.
Otherworld Fiction
In the city of Tenneris, in a land where magic has been absent for so long it’s forgotten, a rebellious princess witnesses the opening of a portal that causes an influx of refugees. The quest into the south-east to close the cosmic gate to another realm, spearheaded by the princess and a mage who has never used magic, is outlined by a deft and committed narrator.
Magic of the Mind
Magic of the Mind uses the power of fantasy fiction to talk about the science of the human mind. In the fantasy story, sixteen-year-old orphan Eve wanders the Forgotten Realms in search of a place to call home. Every episode is paired with an actual interview conducted by creator Morgan Sweeney with a different scientist (all women) about the topic in cognitive science that Sweeney has interwoven into the story. This podcast harnesses the powerful tools of fiction and podcasting to bring science and wonder in an easily-digestible package.
Putting 2&2 Together
Putting 2&2 Together is the spinoff of the play Two and Two Together, a comedy edged by the serious, about a comic book artist disgruntled with his life dealing with the abrupt re-entry of his boyfriend’s father. His boyfriend, also known as his sister’s ex-boyfriend. It takes place in the three-year gap between Scenes 5 and 6 of Act II, and depicts the hurricane mess of people trying to become their best selves.
Dark Fortunes
Johnnie Pittman, Rory Thomassen, Michael Hunt, Vee Mus’e, Joe McCaffrey, Joey Barranco
Dark Fortunes is a D&D Humblewood oceanic adventure with would-be pirates in the Bay of Paluche (and I am always on board for more pirate stories). Game Master Johnnie Pittman helps every character shine in their roles and sets up gorgeous, fleshed out scenery. Each of the first few episodes is an introduction and adventure with each character and Johnnie as they arrive in the city, all backed by the calming rush and ebb of the ocean.
This playlist was sponsored by Podchaser. Check out Podchaser’s Creator Profiles to find your favorite podcast hosts, producers, editors, guests, voice actors, and more!
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