When you make an AI too smart, you also give it anxiety and depression and an appetite for serialized television. These are the things that motivate Murderbot, the protagonist of the many Murderbot Diaries stories that Martha Wells has released in the short time between 2017 and now.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
Percy Jackson and his pals are back in another mythology-packed middle-grade adventure story, this time (mostly) patterned after the voyages of our old pal Odysseus.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
Mssr. Merseault only likes a few things, unfortunately he must live his life doing plenty of other things for people he doesn't particularly care about. Such is the story of this seminal work of 20th-century fiction and absurdist philosophy. Join us as we grapple with an indifferent universe (and a compelling translation by Matthew Ward).
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
What if a dog was your POV character? What if that dog's owner was JACK THE RIPPER? What if there was a game but you didn't know who was playing? All of these questions and more get asked in our Spooktober bonus episode.
To join us for future bonus recordings, head to patreon.com/overduepod.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
We joined Melody and Sabrina for episode 300 of Heaving Bosoms, where we all chatted about the made-to-order, big-on-TikTok, new-adult romantasy that is Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing. (It may be about the fourth wing, but it's the first of a planned five books).
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
For this new show-within-a-show, Craig and Andrew will be revisiting Ancient Greece through Emily Wilson's new translation of Homer's The Iliad. We'll be reading it a few books at a time and having a more in-depth chat about it than we do about most books.
This episode is a free teaser for our Stop! Homer Time project. Patreon supporters can get new Stop! Homer Time episodes monthly (Episode 1 is up right now!), but every two months we'll combine them for general consumption.
On this episode, you'll hear us discuss the background of the Iliad and Wilson's great-as-usual Translator's Note.
Find out more about how to get these episodes monthly at patreon.com/overduepod.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
Based on the hit film—just kidding. Blatty's novel was swiftly turned into a landmark film adaptation just a few years after its release. And it's easy to see why: hauntings, sad priests, the patriarchy's fears about the social mobility of women. People couldn't get enough of that stuff. So let's dive in and hope we don't get possessed!
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
How would the "breakdown" phase of an apocalypse novel function if the characters involved had already survived through multiple apocalypses? That's the perspective that this week's book brings, in addition to the subtle spooks that come from anticipating the end of the world.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
What if H.G. Well's classic tale of humanimals created by a mad scientist were recontextualized in southeast Mexico? Would you find yourself saying that the Yucatan is less an island and more of a peninsula? Sure, you might say that - but why waste time on pedantry when you can engage with Moreno-Garcia's themes of colonialism, paternalism, and class conflict!
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org
If you've ever done surgery on a dog to make it more like a guy, only to set it loose in the wilderness and gradually watch it shift back into being a dog, maybe you'll have some sympathy for Doctor Moreau. Otherwise it's pretty hard to get fully onboard with his whole badly-make-animals-into-people gambit.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org