The End #18 | Birds of Empire & The Designated Mourner +9 recently complete stories & 3 with new seasons coming soon!

Greetings, fabulous fan of fiction podcasts!

Before I get to the stories — and there are some great ones today — I’m going to bring up sponsorship and individual support. Yes, again.

Big thanks to Radio Drama Revival for becoming the Presenting Sponsor of the “coming soon” section, something new we cooked up together. See? I’m flexible! Many more options are available if you too wish to support The End and the service provided, now reaching more than 900 audio fiction lovers just like you every week!

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Featured Complete Audio Fiction

As always, some personal recommendations from me. I loved these shows. Perhaps you will too?

Birds of Empire from QCODE Media

• Dramatized scifi fantasy
• 🦅🐻🐺🐏
• Season 1 finale dropped 22 Dec 2022 with 8 episodes
• Season 2 starts Apr 2023
• Listening time: 4h 18m

New Dakota: 15,000 CE, thousands of years after the fall of civilization. The Earth has reclaimed the cities and glories of the modern world, reducing humankind to prehistoric tribal life. The old world is known only through myths and fables handed down through lost generations. Having barely survived, humanity has returned to a way of life more closely resembling civilizations of the ancient past: The Bears, The Rams, The Birds, and The Wolves. Book 1 — The Dawn Age serves as an introduction to each of the four young people from the clans as we chart the rise of the first empire of the new world.

The Designated Mourner from Gideon Media

• Dramatized drama
• 🎭🍿🌃
• Series complete as of 25 Jun 2021 with 6 episodes
• Listening time: 2h 49m

As Jack’s country descends into violence and authoritarianism, Jack himself plunges into his own parallel decline, a chilling abdication of everything he once valued. Gideon Media brings a modern stage classic from Wallace Shawn to the world of podcasts.

Recently Complete Stories

Each week, we highlight audio fiction that recently (?) wrapped at the season or series level. Interested in sponsoring this section? Yeah, you can do that!

Cooking (With) The Smiths by Ted Heavner

• Dramatized horror comedy
• 🩸🥩🍽️
• Series complete as of 2 Jan 2023
• 8 episodes
• Listening time: 1h 24m

A horror fiction podcast about murder and home cooked meals.

Written by Ted Heavner

Edited by Emma Nicolaou, Cordelia Wolf, and Ted Heavner

Starring the voices of: Alyssa Roldan, Jamie Mouratov, Ted Heavner, Pollux Centers, Gigi Ceconi, Kit Paterson, TJ Schulmeister, Emma Nicolaou, Emile October, Megan Nicolaou, Iliad Ether, Elliot Browne, and Vincent Lagrant

Cover art by Alyssa Roldan

Music by Ted Heavner

Transcripts written by Elliot Browne

The Creepy Quadrant by Jana Roach

• Dramatized/narrated horror anthology
• 🔦👀📻
• Season 1 finale dropped 30 Dec 2022
• 6 episodes
• Season 2 starts Oct 2023
• Listening time: 1h 21m

This fall, let’s get spooky, let’s get weird. Let’s get creepy with… The Creepy Quadrant.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality by Dom Guilfoyle

• Narrated horror anthology
• 🫠🤖🧚‍♂️
• Season 5 finale dropped 30 Dec 2022
• 52 episodes
• Listening time: 24h 48m

Hello, and welcome to the Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality. The Audio Tour Guide will be your window into the history of the museum and its exhibits today.

Please note, that if you notice your version of the Audio Tour Guide behaving oddly, kindly ensure that you dispose of your Audio Device in the nearest incinerator at the earliest convenience.

Oblivity by Rob Stringer & Joe Carr

• Dramatized scifi comedy
• ☄️🎖️😂
• Season 2 finale dropped 28 Dec 2022
• 13 episodes
• Listening time: 8h 43m

Commander Falconer is missing the war…

Following years in front line combat, a decorated hero is posted to the remote ice plains of Pluto on her toughest mission yet: to oversee a small, dysfunctional research team.

Oblivity is a comedy science fiction audiodrama about family, isolation and meteorites

Finding Satan from Black Cat Collective

• Dramatized horror
• 🔍😈🔪
• Season 2 finale dropped 6 Dec 2022
• 26 episodes
• Season 3 starts Oct 2023
• Listening time: 11h 14m

Good Omens meets The Black Tapes in Finding Satan, a Texas Gothic docudrama about a young woman searching for evil; she wants to see it, touch it, prove that it’s real. She wants to find the source of all evil and look Him in the face.

One More Turn from Dan Quick

• Dramatized comedy
• 🙂😄😮
• Season 9 finale dropped 21 Nov 2022
• 123 episodes
• Season 10 starts Sep 2023
• Listening time: 18h 05m

One More Turn is a dramedy where geeks deal with non-geeky problems. Part of Civilized Communication.

Up a River from Aural Stories

• Dramatized comedy
• 🚢🍾👯‍♀️
• Season 1 finale dropped 26 Aug 2022
• 8 episodes
• Listening time: 2h 00m

Lisa Cathcartt, believes in big, beautiful, ecstatic love. Correction: she believes in the kind of love that is big, beautiful, and fart-free. Her husband died when they were young, so she only got the very best of him. After his death, besides taking care of her kids, she relied on romance novels, specifically ones by lauded and bawdy author, Candace Bigbush, to scratch her romance itch. So, when her adult children gifted her a cruise on the Romantic Rhine — with the famed author who will show her and fifty others the amazing locations that inspired her seminal book, The Hero and the Heroine — she can’t turn it down. The romantic Rhine and little push from the author help Lisa open up to new possibilities, new places, and potentially new love: like the tall, dark, handsome Captain Dalton. Dalton, until this point, has been married to the sea — or river — depending on what ship he’s piloting. Yet, as retirement looms on the horizon he is forced to think about what is beyond the bow for his life. Could it be love? Could it be Lisa? Could it be tying himself to an anchor because getting old sucks?

Harbor by Faraday Roke, Tartarus Jenny Studios

• Dramatized ubran fantasy
• 🌲🌈😈
• Season 2 finale dropped 26 Mar 2022
• 20 episodes
• Season 3 starts Dec 2023
• Listening time: 14h 48m

The Greer siblings have a lot on their plate- stressful jobs, southern heat, small town politics AND Cryptids with personal problems. Remember, normal is what you get used to.

Harbor is an audio drama intended for mature audiences with instances of language, violence and implied sexual situations. Listener discretion is advised.

Let Me Tell You About My Murder from Voyage Media

• Dramatized mystery thriller
• 🌆😢👮
• Series complete as of 21 May 2021
• 5 episodes
• Listening time: 1h 20m

Based on a true story: when her daughter dies of a drug overdose, a mother suspects there is more to the story and launches her own investigation. Taking great risks and diving into the underworld, the mother confronts the criminals who led her daughter down a tragic path and discovers a powerful truth. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY MURDER is a scripted audio drama with an original score and immersive soundscapes, uniquely narrated from beyond the grave. A production of Voyage Media.

New Seasons Coming Soon

Presented by Radio Drama Revival, one of the internet’s longest-running anthology audio drama shows, with the goal of showcasing the diversity and vitality of modern audio fiction.

Petrified by Peter Dunne / Liam Geraghty

• Dramatized horror anthology
• 💀 😱 🇮🇪
• Returning 11 Jan 2023 for season 3
• 16 current episodes
• Listening time: 8h 8m

Petrified — a horror fiction anthology podcast from a darker Ireland.

Petrified tells the chilling tales of ordinary people encountering the supernatural, and their terrifying fates.

Written and directed by Peter Dunne. Produced by Liam Geraghty.

A Walk with Ghosts from Bone13 Productions

• Dramatized drama
• 🕶️🎭🥰
• Returning 25 Jan 2023 for season 3
• 30 current episodes
• Listening time: 3h 22m

Breathing Space from Law of Names Media

• Dramatized scifi anthology
• 🌈🚀🤠
• Returning 3 Feb 2022 for season 3
• 30 current episodes
• Listening time: 21h 03m

A bi-weekly anthology Science Fiction audio drama, telling the stories of the people of the Sol System.

Want to see your completed fiction podcast — either at the series or season level — in a future issue? It’s free! Just submit your show to us at TheEnd.fyi, and we’ll get it in!

See you next week!

The End sends you weekly updates of complete audio fiction — either at the series or season level — ready for you to listen to and enjoy at your pace. If you love fiction podcasts, audiodramas, radio plays, or even audiobooks, this is what you’ve been waiting for!