Absolutely love The Earth Collective, it has a very compelling story, great character development, excellent pacing, and wonderfully moody but understated sound design and music. It is a real gem in its fifth season that I can’t believe took me so long to find. Sci-Fi novel readers, in particular, should really enjoy this one as I am getting vibes here and there of everything from Hyperion to Mortal Engines to Archive 81.Now, normally I bypass the found recording trope. It’s been overdone and often has real narrative limits with the trying to justify the recorder all the time but The Earth Collective does something very clever with it. It builds economically but very organically into a multi-cast, richly-layered adventure tale in a mysterious world. The narrative is both expansive and intimate.I had been searching for something to hook me after coming off two strong but only 1 season-long audio dramas, Bridgewater and Cascadia, and I couldn’t hook into any other multi-cast shows right away. It's like I wanted something more intimate. I took the now-for-something-completely-different, or so I thought road, via a Spotify recommendation and I'm glad I did. If you are generally not a single-narrator type listener give it some time as the cast and world grow at a good but never rushed pace and the story engages you very quickly, the mystery increasingly more intriguing. I haven’t been this impressed with an audio drama in a while - doing what was done before but taking it to that next level.Production and story-wise I think it is a masterclass for other creators who wonder how to set off a big story from a small entrance letting your narrative window expand steadily but economically over time. The Patreon strategy here is really smart too in seeing how the right premise can lend itself to a solid sidetrack of desirable supporting material. The creator Mike Troup builds a world you want more of! Personally, I think it’s the name that undersells it and doesn't quite convey the imaginative really otherwordly SciFi premise going on here. For me, it was a don’t judge a podcast by its title. There is much more here than the name suggests. It’s one of my new favorites!