#ffye future

[fears-for-your-ears]

Hearthbound

Official Website Listen on Spotify Created by: Jo Chiang, Stray Lungs Aired: 2025 Episodes: 10

Odessa's just trying to get home to her wife, but along the Loneliest Road in America, she'll encounter strange hosts, stray souls, and echoes of the past she's running from... or running towards.

Hearthbound is an award-winning folk musical audio drama, set across a post-apocalyptic Great Basin. It's a road trip, a queer love story, and a ballad for ecological restoration. You coming our way?

Hearthbound is basically if you re-imagined The Odyssey as a cozy, post-apocalyptic musical road trip. It begins with flavors of Alice Isn't Dead - a woman on the road, hoping to pick up her long-lost wife (Penelope) on her CB. But despite the "something horrific has left America a scattered wasteland" setting, the tone is very chill and hopeful.

Perfect if you're looking for a gentle story about people connecting and reconnecting, and/or you're a fan of folk music.

[fears-for-your-ears]

Hello from the Hallowoods

Official Website Listen on Spotify Created by: William A. Wellman Aired: 2020-- (ongoing) Episodes: Approaching 200

Come walk between the black pines! In this award-winning queer horror podcast, a cosmic narrator follows the increasingly connected residents of the forest at the end of the world. It’s a bittersweet story that explores queer identity, horror genre tropes, and finding hope in humanity’s last moments. 

A voice broadcasting into our dreams tells snippets of stories: supernatural, sometimes creepy, sometimes melancholy, from the titular Hallowoods and its unusual inhabitants. It gives off strong WTNV vibes from the start, and it isn't until you get through the first dozen eps-ish that the stories and characters start to strongly connect into an overarching story.

Perfect for those looking for notes of hope in their horror, or enjoy a story slowly building on itself through interconnected threads.

[fears-for-your-ears]

The Hyacinth Disaster

Official Website Listen on Spotify Created by: David Carlson Aired: 2017 Episodes: 7

The crew of the MRS Hyacinth rush to survey a Jovian asteroid, hoping it is worth enough to ransom the crew of their sister ship - the Corvus - before the deadline hits.

A small but talented cast of actors play out the drama of a crew of space-fairing miners. They're racing to mine a huge payload from an asteriod in order to pay off a ransom on one of their colleague's ships, as wild as that sound. But of course things go awry.

Perfect for anyone wanting a tightly paced sci fi thriller, especially if you're ready to be BROKEN.

[fears-for-your-ears]

The Madness of Chartrulean

Official Website Listen on Spotify Created by: Packhowl Media Aired: 2022-- volume 2 in the works Episodes: 13 + extras

Imagine that the next messiah doesn’t come from religion, but from the tech world. Are his choices destined to save humanity—or doom it?

After ending a war, Chartrulean rises to power and ushers in a new technological era, rekindling hope while deepening political divides. As his influence grows, he grapples with identity, leadership, and the weight of his relationships.

The Madness of Chartrulean is a character-driven sci-fi epic for fans of Dune, Foundation, and Game of Thrones. Blending political drama, Shakespearean tragedy, and mythic futurism, it explores the moral ambiguities of power, and the hidden dangers of progress.

A dense, political space opera with a sprawling cast and tons of lore. There is a lot to keep track of, with episodes set aside just for exposition. Like the blurb itself says, perfect for fans of old school space epics like Dune.

[fears-for-your-ears]

Janus Descending

Official Website Listen on Spotify Created by: Jordan Cobb, No Such Think Productions Aired: 2018-2019 Episodes: 14 (there's also a sequel now)

ANUS DESCENDING is limited series, science fiction/horror audio drama podcast, follows the arrival of two xenoarcheologists on a small world orbiting a binary star. But what starts off as an expedition to survey the planet and the remains of a lost alien civilization, turns into a monstrous game of cat and mouse, as the two scientists are left to face the creatures that killed the planet in the first place. Told from two alternating perspectives, Janus Descending is an experience of crossing timelines, as one character describes the nightmare from end to beginning, and the other, from beginning to the end.

Has the unique premise of telling its story chronologically and reverse-chronologically at the same time. It bounces back and forth between two POV characters, presented in different orders, to tell the story of a space mission on an alien planet gone wrong. There's also a sequel series, Descendants, on the same Spotify feed.

Perfect for scifi fans interested in non-linear stories.