The 8 Best Sci-Fi Podcasts for Stories and Audio Drama
A bored communications officer picks up a signal he can’t explain. A diner opens its doors somewhere else in the universe. An artificial intelligence wakes to find humanity gone. Science-fiction podcasts can take you a long way from your commute, whether you have time for one short story or a whole season of audio drama.
These eight picks focus on fiction you can listen to: narrated stories, scripted dramas and an improvised space comedy. For a continuing story with an ending, try Wolf 359. For standalone fiction, start with Escape Pod, Clarkesworld or Ash Tales. Each recommendation below includes a specific first listen and explains how the rest of the show works.
Ash Tales is our own podcast, which I host. I’ve included it for listeners drawn to the apocalyptic and unsettling edges of science fiction.
| Podcast | Choose it for | Format and listening order |
|---|---|---|
| Wolf 359 | A space-station crew caught in a larger mystery | Completed audio drama; start at episode one |
| Ash Tales | Short apocalypse stories | Narrated fiction; standalone episodes |
| Escape Pod | Different writers and speculative ideas | Narrated fiction; choose a story, checking for multiple parts |
| Midnight Burger | A diner travelling through space and time | Continuing ensemble drama; start at chapter one |
| Clarkesworld Magazine | Literary science fiction in audio | Narrated fiction; choose by author or premise |
| DUST | An AI revenge story after humanity’s extinction | Anthologies and serials; try season three in order |
| DERELICT | Claustrophobic science-fiction horror | Audio drama; begin with season one, FATHOM |
| Mission to Zyxx | Space comedy and disastrous diplomacy | Improvised serial; start at episode 101 |
1. Wolf 359
Wolf 359 begins aboard the U.S.S. Hephaestus, where communications officer Doug Eiffel would rather avoid work than search for alien intelligence. A mysterious transmission interrupts the routine. The small crew, an artificial intelligence and the isolation of the station give the story room for both workplace comedy and mounting danger.
Choose it if you want to spend time with the same characters and follow a mystery to its conclusion. The series is complete, with roughly forty hours to explore. Its official starter guide also explains an important change in tone: the early episodes are lighter than much of what follows. Expect the story to grow beyond its initial comic setup.
Begin with episode one, “Succulent Rat-Killing Tar”, which introduces Eiffel and the station in about nineteen minutes. Continue in numerical order; the bonus episodes are optional additions to the main story.
2. Ash Tales
The Ash Tales podcast is back with original short stories about the end of the world. This is the pick for a complete story in a short sitting: one narrator, a new predicament, and no season of plot to catch up on. Its territory includes ruined worlds, survival and encounters with things people would have been better off leaving alone.
The emphasis is on the writing and the people living through catastrophe. The Guardian called the show “a small, interesting British show that’s worth supporting.”
Try Point Nemo, in which a salvage crew makes a discovery beneath the remotest part of the Pacific. It sits on the border between speculative fiction and cosmic horror, so choose it for dread and discovery. The episode runs 11 minutes and 36 seconds and contains strong language, violence and horror. You can also read the story.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or add the RSS feed to your podcast app.
3. Escape Pod
Escape Pod works like a science-fiction magazine for your headphones. Authors and narrators change between stories, so you can move from one imagined society or technological problem to another. The story text accompanies the audio online, making it easy to switch between listening and reading.
It’s a good choice if the premise is what draws you to science fiction: an unfamiliar custom, a strange invention, or a familiar human failing under very different circumstances. Choose by the episode description rather than starting at the beginning of the archive. Some longer stories run across several episodes, so check for a part number before pressing play.
Start with “A Struggle Between Rivals Ends Surprisingly” by Oliver Buckram, read by Laura Hobbs. Negotiating with aliens becomes a problem of music, performance and cultural understanding. This edition runs 27 minutes and 38 seconds: a compact introduction to the show’s interest in what happens when humans encounter a different way of thinking.
4. Midnight Burger
In Midnight Burger, a diner travels through time, space and dimensions with its staff aboard. Gloria arrives for a job interview outside Phoenix and finds considerably more than a waitressing job. Her colleagues include a theoretical physicist, a galactic drifter and a sentient old-fashioned radio.
The diner gives this ensemble drama a useful constant: however unfamiliar the surroundings become, there’s still a workplace and a group of people trying to get through the shift. Choose it for a mix of science-fiction adventure, conversation and comedy, with characters you can follow across many chapters.
Start with chapter one, “The Transdimensional Haboob”, roughly forty minutes long. Gloria’s arrival is your introduction too. Follow the numbered chapters in order; jumping straight to the newest release means missing the relationships and discoveries built up along the way.
5. Clarkesworld Magazine
The Clarkesworld podcast brings the magazine’s science fiction and fantasy into audio, with readings by Kate Baker. It’s a natural next stop if you enjoy speculative short fiction on the page: prose, character and ideas remain central, and the written stories are available alongside the recordings.
Begin with “Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard, read by Baker in about forty-one minutes. On a space station shaped by its relationship with a dominant culture, technology helps people alter how they appear and behave. The cost of that adjustment reaches into identity, family and the sense of belonging.
That makes it a useful introduction if you want science fiction that asks social questions through its inventions. You can read “Immersion” as well, then choose another author or premise from the catalogue. There is no overarching podcast plot to learn, though individual stories may share a fictional setting.
6. DUST
DUST offers several ways into science-fiction audio. Horizons collects separate stories; Flight 008 connects different stories through a flight that arrives in the future. For Ash Tales readers, the strongest fit is its third season, Chrysalis: an artificial intelligence awakens after humanity’s destruction and takes revenge into space.
Choose Chrysalis for a sustained story about extinction, artificial intelligence and the consequences of vengeance. Its fourteen-part structure gives you a defined series to work through, and you can begin there without listening to the earlier seasons. The wider DUST feed is an archive to explore, rather than a promise of new weekly fiction.
Start with “Chrysalis, Part One: Awake”, performed by Matthew Wolf. It runs about eighteen minutes and establishes the AI’s discovery of a devastated Earth. Follow the numbered Chrysalis instalments from there.
7. DERELICT
DERELICT begins with FATHOM, its first season. An enormous door lies on the ocean floor, and a corporation has built a research base around it. Scientists and engineers are supposed to discover what it holds. Their employer is losing patience; the signal coming from the structure suggests that opening it may be a terrible idea.
This is the choice for science-fiction horror: a confined setting, corporate pressure and a mystery with dangerous consequences. J. Barton Mitchell’s drama uses a cast, music and sound design to stage the events. If Point Nemo leaves you wanting a much longer encounter with something beneath the ocean, this is a fitting next listen.
Begin with “FATHOM E1: In the Dark We See”, allowing roughly an hour. Listen through FATHOM before moving to season two, which carries the DERELICT name and shifts the story into space.
8. Mission to Zyxx
Mission to Zyxx sends an ill-equipped diplomatic crew into a galaxy of strange planets and worse decisions. The performers improvise the episodes, which are then edited and given detailed sound design. Guest comedians supply new inhabitants for the crew to encounter.
Choose it when you want science fiction to be funny. Its ambassadors, droids and talking spaceship turn the familiar machinery of space opera into opportunities for misunderstanding and bureaucratic disaster. The original five-season story has a finale, so there is a complete main adventure to follow.
Start with episode 101, “All Hail the Federated Alliance!”, about twenty-seven minutes long. A diplomatic mission goes wrong almost immediately. Continue in order to follow the returning characters and accumulating jokes; the first episode is numbered 101 because it opens season one.
Choosing your first sci-fi podcast
For a single sitting, try Ash Tales, Escape Pod or Clarkesworld. For an extended story with an ending, choose Wolf 359, DUST’s Chrysalis season or the original Mission to Zyxx run. Midnight Burger offers a continuing adventure with a comic premise; DERELICT takes you towards confinement, discovery and horror.
If the end of the world is what interests you most, explore our best post-apocalyptic podcasts. For complete stories across more genres, try the best short story podcasts for adults. You can also browse our original apocalypse stories when you’d rather read.
For the darker side of speculative fiction, explore our best horror podcasts, covering standalone anthologies, connected mysteries and cosmic horror.