Book Spider

Dec 29 2024 113 ep. 63 mins 29
Book Spider Podcast artwork

Book Spider (previously known as The God Setebos) is a book-of-the-week podcast primarily covering novels, with the occasional detour into nonfiction, literary criticism, poetry, and music. We pride ourselves in running a smart podcast for the discerning listener, and we strive for the highest level of intellectual rigor. Our mascot, the book spider, sits in its cold corner, gathering its web of text, looking at the world with its calm, chilly eyes.

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S4 Ep60: AI, Writing, and Literature (with a bit of film thrown in)

Dec 29 2024 73 mins  
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

S4 Ep59: Uneven Greatness in Melville's Billy Budd and Piazza Tales

Dec 25 2024 60 mins  
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.

S4 Ep58: Apocalyptic Conspiracies: Theodore Roszak's Flicker

Dec 03 2024 64 mins  
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.

S4 Ep57: Omensetter's Luck and the Demise of Hard Fiction

Nov 10 2024 77 mins  
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.

S4 Ep56: Somewhat disappointed by, but still finding enchantment in, Mikhail Bulgakov's almost-100-year-old novel: The Master and Margarita

Oct 27 2024 52 mins  
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.

S4 Ep55: Sayaka Murata's Earthlings Is One-Dimensional

Sep 17 2024 53 mins  
In this episode, the Spider hosts discuss the shortcomings of Sayaka Murata's Earthlings.

S4 Ep54: Pacing and Tragedy in Mary Shelley's The Last Man

Sep 02 2024 61 mins  
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.

S4 Ep53: Gelatinous Eggs and Dead Anti-Worlds: The Mystery of Stanisław Lem's His Master's Voice

Aug 24 2024 63 mins  
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.

S4 Ep52: Despicability and Empathy in Patrick Barney's Gusano

Aug 06 2024 73 mins  
In this episode, the hosts of Book Spider, along with special guest Eddie Kim, discuss the recently released horror novel Gusano, written by founding spider himself, Patrick Barney.

S4 Ep51: Accepting the mushiness of Jeff Vandermeer's Acceptance

Jul 21 2024 54 mins  
In which the Spiders consider Acceptance, the third book in Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, and a step down from the focused mood and mystery of the first two installments -- though not without its virtues.