The Magnus Archives
Produced by the Rusty Quill
This is a podcast, not a book, but I devoured and adored this podcast as if it were a book. Instead of a podcast of two lovely women breaking down the latest episode of the Bachelor or two men discussing secret snakes, the Magnus Archives is a project in fictional storytelling.
When I was ten, I learned that there used to be radio shows that told a story, complete with sound effects that made you feel like you were listening to a recording of actual events. Have you ever heard of the War of the Wars radio drama? It was a radio show people confused for being real news coverage of an alien attack. I desperately wanted to listen to a radio drama like that, but at the time I had no clue how to find one because that year the radio only played songs like Hollaback Girl and Breakaway. Even today the radio is, regrettably, mostly commercials. But through podcasts, I found my ‘radio’ drama in the Magnus Archives.
The Magnus Archives is an episodic story with 200, 20-minute episodes. Each episode follows the same format. An archivist, typically Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Archives, is at work and records himself reading from a submission to the Magnus Archives or interviewing someone with a tale to tell. The Magnus Archives, based in London, is an institution dedicated to collecting and storing stories of the supernatural. The stories might be about ghosts, mysterious pits, a missing neighbor, uncanny students, or spiders, but they all have an element of spook. One by one, Jonathan and his team collect and record these stories, but as they do, strange things begin happening in the archives themselves. Until the horror stories are no longer just stories.
If you adore the creativity of a scary story, self-contained episodes that add to greater plot, compellingly layered lore, a larger mystery, and characters who you can’t help but adore, then this may be the podcast for you. The sound mixing adds a whole other dimension and puts you right into the action. Listen to the Magnus Archives. You can start from the beginning or do what I did and find a list of the best episodes, get hooked, then go back and start from the beginning with an understanding of the magnitude of the events about to unfold. I’ll even give you a list of some of my favorite (less spoiler-y) episodes. I hope to find another ‘radio’ drama program to love, but dang, did the Magnus Archives set the bar high.
Amber's Magnus Archives starter pack:
Do not open 2
Across the street 3
A father’s love 9
Piecemeal 14
Lost john’s cave 15
Freefall 21
Anatomy class 34
We all ignore the pit 97
A matter of perspective 106
https://rustyquill.com/show/the-magnus-archives/