Listen to the Signal

Rob Dircks
  • 5.0 (21)
  • SCIENCE FICTION
  • UPDATED MONTHLY
Listen to the Signal

Listen to the Signal – and find #1 Audible Bestselling Author Rob Dircks on his quest for answers to questions like "What would happen if a smartphone game was so addictive EVERYONE played it at once?" or "When we discovered Pluto's new moon Nix in 2005, did we catch someone discovering us?" Every month (or so), he writes an original science fiction short story and narrates it for your listening pleasure. ENJOY! You can find Rob and connect at listentothesignal.com, robdircks.com, on Twitter at @RobDircks, and Facebook at facebook.com/robdircksauthor.

  1. JAN 15

    “One Inch From The Sun” • Written and Narrated by Rob Dircks

    Hey, Rob here. I don’t have a lot of background for this story, but here’s how it started: I was talking to a friend, and she mentioned going on vacation somewhere super hot, and she said “It’s like one inch from the Sun.” And I immediately thought, “Oh my God, that’s the perfect title for a story.”  So this popped out, and at the end I have a question for you. Also, it is not lost on me that I coincidentally finished this story a year later exactly when the fires are raging out in California. I was going to postpone it, but then I thought, you know, this might be the right time to explore themes and questions like this. I don’t know...

    16 min

  2. 02/06/2024

    “The Grove” • Written and Narrated by Rob Dircks

    Hey, Rob here. As you might know, some of these stories are better served if I talk about them after you’ve listened or read them, not before – and this is one of them. What I can tell you is that it’s been kicking around in my head for a couple of years, begging to get finished and out there. It’s the story of Ava, a dreamer. But not the kind of dreamer you might think.

    39 min

  3. 03/29/2023

    “Carbon Monoxide Detector” • Written and Narrated by Rob Dircks

    Hey, Rob here. I don’t have a lot of background for this story, but here’s how it started: I was talking to a friend, about how when I heard the carbon monoxide detector beep because it needed a new battery, I thought we were going to die, and she said, “hey, that would make a great beginning to a story.” So here it is…

    14 min

  4. 04/07/2022

    “Hole In The Wall” • Written and Narrated by Rob Dircks

    Hello, Rob here. I hate to do this, but I really can’t say anything about this story up front without giving it away, except that it’s about someone who volunteers for a test, not knowing much about it...

    15 min

  5. 12/28/2021

    “Father Tim” • Written and Narrated by Rob Dircks

    ORIGINALLY WRITTEN/RECORDED 03/2020. Hey guys. I’ll tell you right up front, I struggled with the idea of even posting this story, because, yes, it’s a plague story. It’s a very common theme in sci-fi, the plague-that-wipes-out-humanity theme, but I’ve never written one, so it just kind of popped into my head a few weeks ago, before the poop really started to his the fan, as my subconscious had already started working overtime on this whole Coronavirus thing...

    21 min

  6. 11/24/2021

    “This Is Only A Test” • Written and Narrated by Rob Dircks

    Hey, Rob here. For a long time now, there’s been the awareness that what happened to the dinosaurs – an extinction-level event caused by an asteroid impact – could happen again. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be a matter of if, but of when. A hundred years? A thousand years? A hundred thousand years? In the movies Armageddon and Deep Impact (both strangely released in the same year, 1998), we triumph over the threat by nuking a huge asteroid into pieces. In reality, a nuclear explosion as a planetary defense is potentially unpredictable. What if the asteroid doesn’t break into the pieces we’d like it to? So… fast forward to yesterday, November 23, 2021, and NASA launched a different kind of test: slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid to deflect its path, just a fraction of a percent, but enough to make a difference. The asteroid they’ve chosen is, unsurprisingly, not on a collision-course with Earth, so it poses no threat. I repeat: it poses no threat.

    13 min

  7. 10/26/2021

    “Hart Island” • Written and Narrated by Rob Dircks

    Hey guys, Rob here. Happy Halloween! So a friend of mine texted me and he’s like, “Dude! Do a story about this creepy island I’m working on!” Usually I’m like okay, great, thanks, whatever, and then I do what I want. But this time he got me. See, his job is to map areas, and he told me about Hart Island. It’s a tiny island off the coast of the Bronx in New York City, in the Long Island Sound, and it’s basically a giant mass grave. It’s where all the people who become the responsibility of the city are buried: the homeless, stillborn children, people who can’t afford any kind of burial, and bodies that are unclaimed. There are a million people buried there, with more every year, making it the largest potter’s field in the world. And on top of that, it’s got an abandoned psychiatric hospital, and even old cold war missile silos. Wow. Seems like the perfect creepy Halloween setting, maybe for a zombie story, or nuclear zombies, even better! But then this story spilled out of my head, the story of a woman named Ruth.

    14 min

  8. 04/13/2021

    “Swatch” • Written and Narrated by Rob Dircks

    Hey guys, Rob here. As you might know, I’m into the whole Mars rover thing, and I was psyched to find out they included an extra little package inside it this time — a helicopter. And even cooler, they fastened an actual swatch of fabric from the original Wright Brothers Flyer to the underside of its solar panel! So that got me thinking: I know they’re super careful about not letting bio material contaminate the moon or Mars, but what if, for this tiny swatch, they sort of forgot to check? What might happen?

    10 min
See All (16)

    5
    out of 5
    21 Ratings

    About

    Listen to the Signal – and find #1 Audible Bestselling Author Rob Dircks on his quest for answers to questions like "What would happen if a smartphone game was so addictive EVERYONE played it at once?" or "When we discovered Pluto's new moon Nix in 2005, did we catch someone discovering us?" Every month (or so), he writes an original science fiction short story and narrates it for your listening pleasure. ENJOY! You can find Rob and connect at listentothesignal.com, robdircks.com, on Twitter at @RobDircks, and Facebook at facebook.com/robdircksauthor.

    Information

    • Creator
      Rob Dircks
    • Years Active
      2016 - 2025
    • Episodes
      16
    • Rating
      Clean
    • Copyright
      © 2023 Rob Dircks
    • Show Website
      Listen to the Signal

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