In this episode, the devious, uncanny Spiders examine Mother Night, a solid and thought-provoking novel from the oft-overrated Kurt Vonnegut.

In this episode, the Spiders discuss the novels Watchers and Abduction, by Dean Koontz and Robin Cook respectively, to see what bad writing is all about.

In a departure from the general format, the Spiders take on the broader question of the relationship between AI, writing, literature, and other forms of creative arts (especially film). A snapshot of a moment in history, posing questions which will soon be answered or made irrelevant, but pretty interesting in spite of that.

Works Cited:
Max Read: “Drowning in Slop” (published in New York magazine 9/25/24)
Max Read: “People prefer AI art because people prefer bad art” (published via Substack 11/22/24)
Kelsey Piper: “There’s a fix for AI-generated essays. Why aren’t we using it?” (published on vox.com 9/7/24).
Megan Herbst: “Nanowrimo said it was classist and ableist to condemn AI. All hell broke loose.” (published on wired.com 9/4/24).

In this episode we discuss the lesser known works of Melville, what they say about his style outside of Moby Dick, and how we define greatness. 

In this episode, the Book Spider hosts discuss Flicker, a huge novel that delves into the golden age of films and a strange conspiracy involving a Medieval Catholic sect.

In which the Spiders tackle Omensetter's Luck, a set of prose poem loosely organized by the subjectivity of a mad preacher, which somehow briefly acquired a reputation as one of the most significant novels of the mid 20th century, and is now mostly lost to history.

We revisit one of the earlier podcast subjects and come away a little bit underwhelmed. That said, this is still a magical and strange piece to be nearly a hundred years old, and there are incredible parts. 

In this episode, the Spider hosts discuss the shortcomings of Sayaka Murata's Earthlings.

The Spiders encounter Mary Shelley's The Last Man, in which grief is transfigured into a radically inventive and astonishingly bleak post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel whose impact and legacy are undone by a complete lack of editing.

In this episode, the Spiders discuss the heady and intriguing His Master's Voice, a first-contact novel that turns the trope upside down, to good effect.