Listen to 10 Minutes of J. Michael Straczynski’s Audio Drama ‘Earthlight’

Babylon 5 mastermind J. Michael Straczynski has a new science fiction audio drama coming out later this year. Earthlight, a near-future tale of high-stakes international politics and outer space combat with the fate of the world in the balance, will be released by Random House Audio this summer. Before that, however, Collider can exclusively reveal a first look at the audiobook’s cover, and a first listen to its gripping first ten minutes.

Earthlight takes place in the near future, where Vladimir Putin‘s successor as Russian President is forming an Eastern Alliance to take on the West, threatening to plunge the world into a third World War. To combat the Eastern Alliance’s growing threat, NATO turns to the top-secret Project Earthlight, an experimental program that will take warfare into an entirely new battlefield: outer space. Project Earthlight’s commanding officer, Colonel Scott Dane, must rally his team and master their strange new spacecraft in order to stave off annihilation.The excerpt below starts off with a collection of news reports on the new Russian President’s rise to power, then segues into Colonel Dane’s challenges with his new personnel and their high-tech craft. Earthlight will be read by a full cast, and will be available for purchase on July 9, 2024.

Who Is J. Michael Straczynski?

Originally a journalist, Straczynski began writing for animation in the 1980s, scripting series like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, and The Real Ghostbusters. He then shifted to live-action TV, penning episodes of Murder She Wrote, the 1980s Twilight Zone revival, and the short-lived sci-fi series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. The latter proved to be a springboard to creating his magnum opus, the syndicated science fiction drama Babylon 5. Set on a space station centuries in the future, Babylon 5 was serialized in a way that was pioneering for TV of the time, and would be much emulated in the years to come. After Babylon 5 ended, he co-created the Netflix series Sense8 with Lana and Lilly Wachowski, and scripted the feature films Changeling, Ninja Assassin, and Underworld: Awakening.

Straczynski recently returned to the world of Babylon 5 with Babylon 5: The Road Home, an animated film that reunited the series’ surviving cast members. He is also working on a reboot of the original series on The CW.

Earthlight will be released by Random House Audio on July 9, 2024. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates, and listen to the first ten minutes of Earthlight above. Excerpted with permission of Penguin Random House Audio from Earthlight by J. Michael Straczynski; Read by a Full Cast © 2024, J. Michael Straczynski, ℗ Penguin Random House, LLC.