Recommendation: Dead Belt: True Tales of the Gasping Frontier

[merrileemakes]

Dead Belt: True Tales of the Gasping Frontier is a space-folk horror anthology podcast of strange happenings on the fringe of settled space. Close encounters, weird happenings, narrow escapes, and lonesome deaths far beyond the stars we know. Drawing on old mariner's tales from the oceans of Earth, filk tradition, and the superstition and ghost stories of the American West, Dead Belt is written for those that know that when we push out among the darkness between the stars, sometimes it pushes right on back.

Dead Belt is inspired by the tabletop RPG of the same name by A Couple of Drakes.

I cannot recommend this podcast enough. The worldbuilding and production values are top tier, and it boggles the mind that it's a one-person passion project. The host's delivery is also perfect, in a southern twang with a heavy gilding of vocal fry, and peppered with belter slang that works perfectly.

The horror is pretty light, there's no real gore or jump scares. It's more the horror of surviving in an environment that absolutely wasn't made for you, whether that's the rim of a black hole or a post-capitalist hellscape where you have to pay for own air.

Even if you're not a fan of the setting I would strongly recommend the first episode, which is a poem about surviving in this world. One of the best podcast episodes I've ever heard, in any feed.

Sadly, the feed has done dark the last 6 months. Hopefully the host 'ole Chariot is just taking a breather.