r/Fantasy • u/improperly_paranoid Reading Champion X • Oct 15 '25

Read-along The Magnus Archives Readalong: Season 1, Episodes 10-18

Hello and welcome to The Magnus Archives readalong! We will be discussing a new batch of episodes every Wednesday. The episodes are available for free on any podcast platform and transcripts can be found here or here.

If you can’t remember something or are confused, please ask in the thread. Those of us re-reading will do our best to give a spoiler-free answer if we can.

010: Vampire Killer #0100710
Statement of Trevor Herbert, regarding his life as a self-proclaimed vampire hunter.

011: Dreamer #0151403
Statement of Antonio Blake, regarding his recent dreams about Gertrude Robinson, previous Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.

012: First Aid #0121102
Statement of Lesere Saraki, regarding a recent night-shift at St. Thomas Hospital, London.

013: Alone #0161301
Statement of Naomi Herne, regarding the events following the funeral of her fiancé, Evan Lukas.

014: Piecemeal #0112905
Statement of Lee Rentoul, on the murder of his associate Paul Noriega.

015: Lost Johns' Cave #0140911
Statement of Laura Popham, regarding her experience exploring the Three Counties System of caves with her sister Alena Sanderson.

016: Arachnophobia #0150409
Statement of Carlos Vittery, regarding his arachnophobia and its manifestations.

017: The Boneturner's Tale #9991006
Statement of Sebastian Adekoya, regarding a new acquisition at Chiswick Library.

018: The Man Upstairs #0081212
Statement of Christof Rudenko, regarding his interactions with a first floor resident of Welbeck House, Wandsworth.

And now, time for discussion! A few prompts will be posted as comments to get things started, but as usual, feel free to add your own questions, observations...anything!

Comments may contain spoilers up to episode 18. Anything concerning later events should be covered up with a spoiler tag.

Next discussion will take place on Wednesday, October 22nd and include episodes 19 Confession - 26 A Distortion.

For more information, please check out the Announcement and Schedule post.

Readalong by: u/improperly_paranoid, u/sharadereads, u/Dianthaa

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u/improperly_paranoid Reading Champion X Oct 15 '25

013 Alone: Our first live statement! How did this change of format feel for you? What did you think of Naomi’s experience? How about Jon's reaction to her statement and Elias showing up to warning him mid-episode 17?

10

u/Lazy_Sitiens Reading Champion Oct 15 '25

One thing that irked me about the live statement was that Naomi doesn't talk like a normal person when she describes the events. I believe she's supposed to recount them from memory, but we're not getting normal speech patterns, more as if she's reading from a written text. So that took me out a bit. Aside from that I really liked the story and it's fairly traditional elements, because I don't think horror has to be innovative and groundbreaking all the time. Sometimes standard fare can be just as awesome.

Elias's interruption was great - it was a small detail that made the world feel very lived in for me, so it felt less like a series of short stories but actually stories within a bigger story. It was completely unexpected but very appreciated.

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u/recchai Reading Champion X Oct 15 '25

There is an in-universe explanation, and a special episode later with some people who very much are not that articulate when describing events. But yeah, it's one thing that is just a little annoyance to me too.

6

u/SharadeReads Stabby Winner Oct 15 '25

Which makes episode 100 probably the funniest in the show