A discussion of Jeff Vandermeer's Authority, the second book in the Southern Reach Trilogy. The spiders find that it strikes an uncommonly good balance between that which is understood readily and that which can't be understood at all.

A discussion of Jeff Vandermeer's novel Annihilation, in which the Spiders can't help comparing it to Alex Garner's film adaptation, in particular the ways in which one character's arc turns her outward while the other's turns her inward.

In which we finish the Underworld Triptych. 

In this episode, we navigate the challenging and beautiful middle sections of DeLillo's Underworld. Before that, though, we listen to an excerpt from cohost Patrick Barney's new novel, Gusano. 

The first in a three-parter in which we tackle DeLillo's meganovel, Underworld. In this episode we discuss just about the first third of the novel. And: We crack ourselves up imagining a Werner Herzog baseball documentary.  

In this episode, the Spiders try to analyze Elias Khoury's Gate of the Sun, a harrowing novel of the decades-long occupation of Palestine by Israel. However, the challenge is overwhelming, as it appears that violence may not be interpretable.

The spiders consider the novella Pafko at the Wall, the first fifty pages of Don DeLillo's Underworld. Does its careful examination of its period kitsch reveal a deeper thematic weight? I mean, probably.

In which we struggle to talk about a text that is famous for generating endless discussion about how to talk about it. 

In this episode, the spiders discuss Julia, by Sandra Newman, which is a retelling of 1984, by George Orwell. Julia tells the classic dystopian tale from the perspective of the original's main female character, and in so doing, retcons the original in both positive and negative ways.