Friday Fiction: The Mark in The Garden
There are not many answers. There’s a quick shift in tone. And we never learn anyone’s name.
By Brandon Scott on Aug 2nd, 2024
There are not many answers. There’s a quick shift in tone. And we never learn anyone’s name.
By Brandon Scott on Jul 17th, 2024
“Breaking Ground” is another exposition episode, mainly serving to establish a few more pieces of information about the “Protocol” that we’ve heard so much about. This doesn’t make it a bad episode—or even a mediocre one—just that it doesn’t have much in the way of a self-contained story. It doesn’t have the time to build to much tension.
By Brandon Scott on Jul 12th, 2024
“What?” I asked the figure, not sure what I was hearing. “What do you mean—?”
There was a rush. The ground met me, and I kept going.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 19th, 2024
“Social Stigma” is a great episode that not only entertains by itself but redeems the previous episode “Hard Reset.” I like to think of them as a two-parter now. We get a ton of buildup to that strange Isaac Newton stuff, and then a payoff with an extended conversation.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 10th, 2024
“Hard Reset” is a weird, kind-of-bad episode. It’s obvious that it has great plot importance, and the few snippets of context we do get for “The Protocol” are interesting—but for the majority of the listening experience, it’s more befuddling than enjoyable.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 7th, 2024
A warning, dear reader. This story contains spiders—and if you have arachnophobia, at all, you may not want to read this one.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 3rd, 2024
“Solo Work” is a fantastic episode. The horror is weird and cosmic. The character work is great, and we get a lot of it—and there’s a cameo that made the ending all the better.
By Brandon Scott on May 27th, 2024
“Saved Copy” is a setup episode. It’s clearly about one plot point, and plants ideas for that plot point—and that’s the whole point of it. There are barely any asides that don’t deal with the concept.
By Brandon Scott on May 20th, 2024
To review “Anti-Social,” I need to make some assumptions. I need to assume our main character, Madam Electrum, is an accurate representation of a type of internet personality/celebrity.
By Brandon Scott on May 13th, 2024
“Well Run” is a chaotic, disjointed, flawed, but ultimately enjoyable episode of The Magnus Protocol. The main horror story is riffing on a classic concept that’s been explored in many other places but is still effective for a reason.
By Brandon Scott on May 6th, 2024
“Pet Project” is so short. I’m convinced that it exists to introduce one piece of lore and that’s about it. Time will tell, but this is likely the most succinct review of an episode I’ll maybe do for the whole series. What is there to say about this little vignette besides that it was, indeed, a horror story?
By Brandon Scott on May 3rd, 2024
Spookiness abounds, dear reader.
Something is in our reality that wasn’t there before.