I recently had the pleasure of being transported to an alternate reality, courtesy of the podcast series Earth Eclipsed. Broadcast on Apollo (and other podcast providers such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts) a fiction podcast network, this series has an impressive list of awards under its belt, including the Best Drama Podcast-Gold award of the 2021 NY Festivals Radio Awards, and the Best International Podcast-Gold award for the 2021 New Zealand Podcast Awards. Once I’d experienced all eight episodes, I can see why the series received this impressive list of prizes/ nominations. This science-fiction podcast series takes place in a world immersed in space travel, planetary alliances, and political and corporate betrayal. And no, that was nowhere close to being a spoiler.
The series provides an excellent futuristic feel accompanied by various aspects of radio broadcasts/ serials of the 1940s before the popularity of television. This presentation starts us off right at the beginning of a galactic scandal, in which one of the universe’s most brilliant minds of the era is completely blindsided during what should have been a pioneering interview. From that moment, we are permitted to glimpse the reality of this utopia for humanity within a chain of planetary alliances.
This podcast series shows you the ugly truth and the price exacted for such a society to exist. Listeners will not be able to stop themselves from falling in love and cheering on the main characters involved in the story, as they follow the cast of characters through their individual journeys. These very characters are faced with a variety of challenging questions. Questions about loyalty. Questions about their self-imposed missions. You can’t help but invest emotionally into these characters’ plight and actions.
The writing by Alexa Polivka comes off as world-class. The scripts are wonderfully done and have a very natural and believable flow. Listeners will genuinely believe that such a world does and can exist as the story is presented with a great amount of clarity. In addition to the writing, the different and excellent choice of voice actors help to bring the story to life.
This series could give the Star Trek universe a good run for its money. I was provided with the right amount of drama mixed with laugh-out-loud humor. The only issue I have with this podcast is that only eight episodes exist, and I was left wanting more. I guess I’m just a needy reviewer.
This is one podcast that I would recommend to anyone that loves to be whisked away into far-flung futuristic worlds, that still bear some resemblance to our own.
Judith Joachim-Swanson is an aspiring writer. She is an independent, freelance blogger, and you can find her other work here. She is also a self-published indie writer of Cigarette (The Catcher Series Book 1) which incorporates a steampunk Sci-fi theme.
