The Lads finish out James S.A. Corey's 2011 novel Leviathan Wakes, a huge success that powered The Expanse, the SyFy and then Amazon Prime space opera. Bagg and Dukes talk about whether or not you can

Leviathan Wakes is cracking good solar system space opera, combined with very strong elements of noir. The lads think that at moments, the prose is reminiscent of Raymond Chandlers lyrical voice, but

The lads continue to admire China Miville's genius premise for this novel, but will the second half of the book escape the issues we've seen in the noir and noir-adjacent works the UMBers have read?

We invite podcast buddy Leah Jones from Finding Favorites to follow up on a recommendation she made to Dukes last year: to watch the film M3gan. We thought it would be fun to talk about films and book

The City and the City has a wholly original premise, and the pleasure of the book comes from the dawning realization of exactly what is going on between the two adjacent cities, Besel and Ul Quma. Ch

The boys hop to it, chum, and talk about Dashiell Hammett's 1929 debut novel Red Harvest. While the socialist connotations of the title never truly materialize ("Communism was a red herring"), leaving

Dukes and Bagg were both a little disappointed with how LONG the second half of The Long Goodbye is, with a rather Byzantine and confusing series of plot machinations that only slightly support the en

The lads kick off this series of Chris' called "Relativistic Noir" with Raymond Chandler's remarkable 1959 The Long Goodbye. Both Chris and Jesse are rendered somewhat slack-jawed at the sheer audacit

Gary Shteyngarts overtly Chekhovian novel ends in a distinctly nonChekhovian manner, with hope. However, the hope is dearly earned, as one of the country friends sadly does not survive the second ha

With a small but loyal Zoom audience, Dukes and Bagg propose TWELVE new series, and pick five, including a LISTENER'S CHOICE series. Throughout, they kibbitz, lobby, and respond to chatted questions f