Auditory Anthology

Exiled Martian dictator Marcius Kemble, maddened by defeat and banished to frozen Pluto, believes he has secured an escape ship from the mysterious native inhabitants, only to discover too late that his vengeful return to the inner solar system is foiled by a fatal design flaw: the ship is made of mercury and will melt under the heat of the sun.

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The late-night technician at an outdated TV station discovers a mysterious phantom channel that broadcasts a live, eerie feed of their town, only to realize the footage isn’t showing the present, but the immediate, inevitable future, with predictions that quickly turn from strange coincidence to terrifying catastrophe.

Tales From The Blue Line: Every morning at three, Mason and Ally ride the Blue Line into downtown Chicago together. The train brings out its own brand of weird, which has led to Mason and Ally trading spooky stories to help their commute pass a little faster.

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Back in January of 2024 when we launched Auditory Anthology, one of the first short stories we shared was The Lights on Precipice Peak by Stephen Tall.

Here’s a link to that episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7IDdvopOUIyvGjaVvxKjp4?si=f09f5d43000e411b.

This is another story that was originally featured on the 1950’s radio drama X Minus One. It was one of my favorite episodes and I was very excited when I found the short  story. We’ll be back with our normal original content on Tuesday and Thursday, but for now here’s the X Minus One episode Lights on Precipice Peak, which originally aired March 13th 1957. We hope you enjoy it.

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bored with the comforts of 25th-century civilization, a famous adventure novelist and his bride convince a drunken friend to use an experimental teleportation device, the Cosmic Express, to send them to the primitive, wild jungles of Venus, where their romanticized notions of "back to nature" are instantly and miserably crushed.

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The night shift at the hospital is dramatically altered when the staff discovers that the old, untrustworthy vending machine, an office joke, starts dispensing eerie and hyper-specific fortune tea bottles that accurately predict everything from missed birthdays to patient emergencies on their floor.

Tales From The Blue Line: Every morning at three, Mason and Ally ride the Blue Line into downtown Chicago together. The train brings out its own brand of weird, which has led to Mason and Ally trading spooky stories to help their commute pass a little faster.

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Back in January of 2024 when we launched Auditory Anthology, the first short story we shared was $1000 A Plate by Jack McKenty.

Here's a link to that first episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xTy4mKQao1eAjvmt5gkMb?si=e54ccfd5e23a4b7f

This is another story that was originally featured on the 1950’s radio drama X Minus One. We’ll be back with our normal original content on Tuesday and Thursday, but for now here’s the X Minus One episode $1000 A Plate, which originally aired March 21st 1956

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a couple rookie Inter-Planetary Patrol officers a legendary pirate, they realize their mundane “asteroid fishing” equipment holds the secret to defeating the outlaw’s superior defenses.

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After calling a customer support line for his broken streaming box, Evan is horrified when the voice on the other end begins using an unnervingly cheerful tone to reveal private memories, predict his immediate future, and ultimately prove she knows more about his life than he does.

Tales From The Blue Line: Every morning at three, Mason and Ally ride the Blue Line into downtown Chicago together. The train brings out its own brand of weird, which has led to Mason and Ally trading spooky stories to help their commute pass a little faster.

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A few weeks ago, on our classic sci-fi series we shared the story “The Outer Limit” by Graham Doar. It was originally published in The Saturday Evening Post in December of 1949, but I originally heard it on an episode of the 1950’s radio drama X Minus One. I mentioned in the episode that Darren and I were unable to find a copy of the original story, so we actually adapted the original radio drama script into a short story version.

Here's our version from the September 25th episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4IlfSzOLj4RZw9patUvE7x?si=f1f4d5c593b04e46

I thought it would be fun to share the original X Minus One episode. It aired on November 16th 1955. And if you’d like to hear more audio drama versions of the short stories we’ve shared here on Auditory Anthology, we’ll have a poll on our Substack, so let us know if you like this sort of brief diversion from our normal short story content

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crouching on an alien desert, a man must quickly identify a sixty-foot-tall, seemingly indestructible monster that appeared from nowhere after it kills two of his crew, only to realize the terrifying creature is not a product of alien evolution but a powerful, localized psychological weapon.

If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the series, you can visit https://submissions.soundconceptmedia.com/

You can support the show by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack: https://auditoryanthology.substack.com

By becoming a paid subscriber you can listen to every episode completely ad-free!

Curator: Keith Conrad linktr.ee/keithrconrad

Narrator: Darren Marlar https://darrenmarlar.com/

Other shows hosted by Darren:

Weird Darkness: https://weirddarkness.com/

Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag

Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors

Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio

Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.