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Auditory Anthology
Glow Worm by Harlan Ellison
After a nuclear war wipes out all life on Earth, Seligman — an experimental soldier engineered to survive the unsurvivable — finds himself the planet’s sole occupant, marked forever by a strange green glow that clings to his skin. Alone and searching for any remaining trace of humanity among the stars, he begins to realize that what was done to his body may have cost him something far more permanent than he first understood.
Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) was one of the most prolific and celebrated writers in science fiction, winning eight Hugo Awards, four Nebula Awards, and five Bram Stoker Awards over a career that spanned television, film, and prose. “Glow Worm” was first published in the February 1956 issue of Infinity Science Fiction, early in a career that would go on to include work on The Outer Limits, Star Trek, and the acclaimed anthology series Dangerous Visions.
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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
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Gravit by K.C. Ozden
09:42|Ash has spent three days convincing a skeptical partner to search a stretch of empty ocean for a shipwreck he swears is carrying something impossible: cars made of a rare element the world thinks was mined to extinction decades ago. When their meter finally comes alive, it turns out Ash’s “story” might be worth more than either of them imagined. K.C. Ozden delivers a tight, tension-filled treasure hunt with a sharp sci-fi twist.We love bringing you stories from listeners just like K.C. — if you’ve got a tale of your own itching to be told (sci-fi, horror, supernatural, or anything in between), we’d love to hear it.
North Sea Retrieval & Maiden Voyage - Chapter Five: The Pitch
17:14|On the maiden voyage of the MV Atlas, the world’s largest cruise ship, a ghost operative team attempts a silent extraction of a high-value defector carrying an impossible secret: an ancient, non-human artifact. Hidden amongst twenty-two thousand passengers and stalked by an elite foreign intelligence network, the team must execute a precise, high-stakes tradecraft operation in international waters — one wrong move could blow their cover and trigger a confrontation that could break the global order.Our companion short story, “North Sea Retrieval,” pulls Mercer, Novak, and a salvage specialist onto a listing, half-sunken supply ship to recover a mysterious sealed case — and into a locked compartment that shouldn’t be making any sound at all. It’s another quiet thread of the unexplained running underneath this world, tangled up with a job that’s already dangerous enough on its own.
Home Is The Spaceman by George O. Smith
22:59|After becoming the first human to travel faster than light and vanishing for eighteen months on what was supposed to be a twelve-hour mission, test pilot Billy Enright finally returns to Earth — only to find himself hauled before a Board of Inquiry demanding to know exactly what took him so long. His explanation is one of the great punchlines in classic pulp sci-fi, and it turns a “missing persons” story into something far funnier and stranger.
Pulling the Plug by Tony Tidwell
08:28|When aliens who secretly engineered human evolution announce they’re shutting the whole experiment down, world leaders and scientists gather at the UN with nothing left to offer but excuses. Tony Tidwell delivers a sharp, darkly funny fable about squandered potential — and what happens when the universe finally decides humanity has run out of chances.
X Minus One: Early Model
22:16|Unfortunately we were not able to put together our normal Sunday episode with Chapter Five of Maiden Voyage, our audiobook for paid subscribers on Substack. We’ll have that for you next week, but in the meantime to tide you over, here’s one of my favorite episodes of X Minus One, the series that inspired our podcast. It’s “Early Model,” an episode that originally aired July 11, 1957, based on the short story of the same name by Robert Sheckley
Welcome to Paradise by Allyn Donnelson
25:51|A spot welder’s late-night mistake at a Chicago factory sends him somewhere no one could have expected — and pulls him into a top-secret discovery so significant, the government isn’t sure it should ever come to light. Told through a series of increasingly earnest letters to the President, “Welcome to Paradise” is a warm, funny slice of 1950s pulp with real heart underneath the gags.Allyn Donnelson is known today for a single published science fiction story, “Welcome to Paradise,” which appeared in the September 1954 issue of Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy. Beyond that, virtually nothing is known about the author — but it’s a story that’s stuck around and found new fans for a reason.
The Luddite Contingency by J.T. Shannon
17:00|Long after humanity has vanished, an automated global manufacturing system keeps grinding on — building, shipping, and consuming with no one left to use any of it. But when a single broken machine exposes a gap nobody programmed for, the system’s last-resort protocol sets off a chain reaction with nothing left to stop it. J.T. Shannon delivers a darkly funny, quietly devastating post-human parable about automation, purpose, and what happens when a machine keeps doing its job long after the reason for it is gone.We love bringing you stories from listeners just like J.T. — if you’ve got a tale of your own itching to be told (sci-fi, horror, supernatural, or anything in between), we’d love to hear it. Submit your story at submissions.soundconceptmedia.com and you could be featured right here on Auditory Anthology.
Wake Up & Maiden Voyage – Chapter Four: The Opportunity
11:42|On the maiden voyage of the MV Atlas, the world’s largest cruise ship, a ghost operative team attempts a silent extraction of a high-value defector carrying an impossible secret: an ancient, non-human artifact. Hidden amongst twenty-two thousand passengers and stalked by an elite foreign intelligence network, the team must execute a precise, high-stakes tradecraft operation in international waters — one wrong move could blow their cover and trigger a confrontation that could break the global order.Become a paid subscriber at https://auditoryanthology.substack.com/ to hear Maiden VoyageOur companion short story, “Wake Up,” follows nine-year-old Elena as a warning arrives in the middle of the night from someone who shouldn’t be able to reach her at all. It’s a quiet, personal story — and the earliest thread yet in the strange, unexplained current running underneath this world.