Popular Reviews of VAST Horizon

This story is a bit tough to get into at first but the foley and background sounds are epic.

A really good listen. Something I will have to revisit as well, because there was so much I am sure I missed things the first time through.

I love a problematic protagonist, sentient AI, and sci-fi political problems amazing

This show is centered around one woman’s struggle to survive alone in the middle of vast space. This by itself impressed me because making a plot with just one person is difficult to keep interesting. The writer(s) overcome this challenge by including flashbacks and giving Nolira an AI to talk to. The voice actor for the AI did a great job!

Excellent soundscapes, thrilling story telling. I listened to each episode with baited breath, hoping beyond hope that Nolira would make it through the ship alive. I love me a good scifi and this is a great one!

I loved every minute of it. At some points literally holding my breath in anticipation. I hope to hear more.

This one will surprise you! While the story of a woman trapped aboard an abandoned ship might seem like the usual sci-fi-horror fare, there is a deep story of political intrigue, galactic world-building, and familial ties lying just underneath. Definitely a slow-burn worth settling into.

I must admit that Season 2 of VAST has totally blown me away! S1 was great, but I really like the more mystery and added characters in the new season. This gives the story a depth and promise of so much more to come and I can´t wait to find out!This entire production oozes quality and it´s a truly impressive cast and crew, counting a lot of my favorite actors and creators.A special kudos to the way the commercials are presented: That´s really clever, and I almost didn´t realize it actually was commercials until several seconds in!

Hits you like a ton of bricks. It made me feel things I have never felt watching a movie. Vast Horizon does what the best audio dramas do - pull you in and keep you captive. The fear and discomfort are real.

I'm 3 episodes in and I give up. The main character is so so whiny. She's on the verge on tears all the time. And even in her memories and recordings of past she's doing nothing but whine.

The story is ambitious. Waiting for season 2.

very good, why have I only just found this.sound , story & production are great.

An amazing deep and layered fiction podcast. Requiring the listener to listen to the top level story that is happening now, while frequently dipping back into memories and events with characters who are not always fully explained. The story is also happening in a world not entirely populated with accents from one narrow region of the world. Relying the listener tolerating ambiguity at various degrees, because when it transition between scenes there is no heavy exposition or a gong and announcer saying now we are at . . . For me it is totally paying off.

Follows the main character's (Nolira) trials and tribulations as she attempts to survive and make sense of her situation. She acts pretty realistically; even when doing brave acts, she's terrified and crying. This can be uncomfortable to listen to. Some dialogue is in Mandarin, which is cool and doesn't hinder understanding the story, but without knowledge of Mandarin I feel like I'm missing out. At some points I wish the jumping from present to past was indicated more clearly. Much of the conflict revolves around the protection of embryos, which while I understand are important for their potential in the entity raising them, my personal belief that hundreds of them are less important than a single human life made it a bit difficult to connect with the stakes behind them in the first season. The story shifts from survivalist horror to cosmic horror following the first season. Some interesting character dynamics, especially that between the two main characters as the entity relates to Nolira and uses her as a moral compass. I liked the ending.

I started listening to VAST horizon because of the White Vault (absolutely love it). I get that the White Vault is a newer podcast and the creators have gained more experience since. I was born in China but have been in Australia since age 6. Firstly unlike the White Vault, English translations of the Chinese are not supplied and you actually miss a fair bit of interesting commentary and words if you don't speak any Chinese.Secondly - all respect to the main actor who lived in Taiwan and learned Chinese. She certainly is more fluent than the average Mandarin Chinese learner and has worked hard on it clearly. However listening to main character Nolira speak Chinese is absolutely exhausting. I don't understand around 1/3rd of it due to the imperfect intonantion. Chinese has 4 tones so if you're consistently not perfect tonally it's really hard to know what is being said. One or two mistones and there is still enough context to understand. But not here. If I had to rate the Chinese - if 0 was the cast of Firefly attempting to speak Chinese (un-understandable) to fluent native speaker (10), Nolira's Chinese is a 3.5. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is an 8, and Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment is a 4. I have no problems listening to any of the other actors (native speakers) speak Chinese. It's only Noliram but because she is a main character it's jarring and exhausting instead of a relaxing experience. To the creators' credit they had a native speaker in White Vault S2 and it was very relaxing to listen to from a language perspective so looks like they took on feedback. But if you're a native Mandarin speaker be prepared to use up extra mental energy to listen to Nolira speak.I still appreciate this podcast lots. It's just harder work for me to listen.

In a world filled with franchises, it's good to encounter some original science fiction. I particularly appreciate how the writers had the vision from the start to keep the podcast going beyond the first season's 'lone woman struggles to survive on an abandoned spacecraft' and move beyond that into a wider world... with a very unsettling revelation about who's been behind the whole thing. Recommended.

I couldn't make it through this one. The production value is as high as ever, but I found it harder to follow the goings on than F&S's other shows - it felt less like an audio drama, and more like the audio track of a movie I couldn't watch. The flashbacks I'm sure eventually become meaningful, but early on they're dull, distracting, and seemingly inconsequential. It was an early quit for me.

There are times when the storyline drags a little or gets confusing jumping between a couple of different time frames, but there are some really interesting character dynamics and it sucks you in and makes you want to know more. I'm really enjoying it.

Just not for me....

After the first maybe 3 or 4 episodes I started wondering if there is a point to this story. Then a couple episodes later I still couldn't figure it out. It's basically about a woman waking up on a spaceship that has gone through some catastrophic event, with her seemingly being the only survivor. She then goes (literally) from A to B, then to C, then to D, and so on. The only other elements are various obstacles on the way there, and some flashbacks to her previous life that may or may not relate to her current situation. Oh and there are also random interjections in Chinese for no apparent reason. They certainly don't make the main character more believable or relatable. Seriously, this is really messy writing.