The Vessel Podcast: Season Three Announcement

My October Surprise

I’m very excited to announce the long-awaited return of The Vessel: A Space Horror Series. Watch the trailer below:

The Vessel: Season Three Announcement Trailer

Back by fan demand, Section Three continues the popular space horror podcast right where it left off. The Vessel is an audio drama series written and produced by Brian Martinez, author of The Mountain and The City and the Bleeders books. Section One is performed by Jason Hill, narrator on shows such as Knifepoint Horror and The Simply Scary Podcast. Sections Two and Three are performed by Erik Peabody of Viking Guitar Productions, and narrator on various shows including Horror Hill. The Vessel has amassed over 100,000 downloads and received attention from podcast enthusiasts and science fiction/horror fans alike.

The Story

The far future. Earth has become inhospitable, with the climate ravaged and disease and famine spread worldwide. After the oceans rise, the people of Earth send a massive ship out into the stars to find a new home. Dubbed Ark One, it is mankind’s greatest accomplishment, a veritable living planet housing ten thousand people both living and cryogenically frozen.

When a single man is woken up with no memory of who he is or how he came to be on the ship, it sets off a chain of horrific events that may threaten the future of Ark One, along with every living being unlucky enough to be a passenger.

New episodes of The Vessel begin 10.22.24, but you can catch up on all 20 episodes right now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and other major podcast carriers. Be sure to follow the show so you don’t miss an episode.

And Now, A Brief History of Time Getting Away From Me

The Vessel has been through a fittingly long journey. Believe it or not it started around seven years ago, as a web serial. Inspired by the underground success of stories like Worm by John C. McCrae, I decided to try my hand at publishing a weekly story online. Sadly it didn’t make much traction, reaching a handful of people at best. Luckily, though, its failure in one form wasn’t its end.

In 2018, the horror narration channel Chilling Tales for Dark Nights adapted my story The Body Farm to audio. For the first time, I fell in love with how one of my stories sounded read aloud, due in no small part to the narrator, Jason Hill. His performance was so darkly satisfying that I reached out and told him what a fan I’d become. Through our following conversations, I sent him The Vessel and asked if he thought it would make for a good serialized podcast. He replied, to my utter shock, by offering to narrate it himself.

I was ecstatic. The terror didn’t set in until Jason sent me ten episodes worth of recorded episodes, and I realized I had no idea what to do with them. I knew from Chilling Tales that music and even some ambient sound could add to the effect of an audio story, and I had some limited experience editing video and sound. But I also had zero knowledge of how to produce a show, or even how podcasts worked. So I did what I’ve always done: I researched, read and watched a few things on the subject, and then I just started messing around. I’ve always maintained that kinda knowing what you’re doing is the sweet spot for creativity.

I released those ten episodes in 2019, and to my surprise a bunch of people listened and liked and followed the show. The same story that landed with a splat as a web serial somehow took off as a podcast. Of everything I learned about making The Vessel, that was possibly the biggest lesson I took away: sometimes it’s the right story, but the wrong format.

As time moved on, it became apparent that a combination of Jason Hill’s personal and professional schedule meant he didn’t have time to come back and record more episodes. I don’t think a month went by that I didn’t receive an email, comment or direct message asking if the podcast was getting more episodes. For a while it looked like the show wouldn’t go on, and though I knew I could find another narrator, I didn’t like the idea of carrying on without the voice that felt so integral to what made The Vessel work. Luckily I was proven wrong about that by Jason himself, when he suggested the narrator he felt should replace him. That turned out to be Erik Peabody, who aside from having a similar enough voice to Jason to not be a jarring change, is also a phenomenal performer and just about the nicest, most dependable person I’ve ever worked with. Together we made ten more episodes that came out in the hazy pandemic times of 2021. People liked them. The beast was fed.

Then, time moved on again. Other projects came and went. And again, those messages came in from fans of the show, people who nudged me and made me swear not to give up on The Vessel before it was done. It gnawed at my feet until I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to run. And so here I am, keeping my promise to all those people who pushed me forward, maybe even a few of you reading this now. Thank you for your shoves. They mean more than you know.

If you like The Vessel and want more like it, be sure to subscribe to this Substack (if you haven’t already) for access to stories and serials written by the same guy.