Undertowers Podcast

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a manga and anime that has quickly become a modern classic. It tells the story of an elf mage who outlives her companions after their great quest, and then begins a quieter, more contemplative journey through memory, grief, and what it means to value the fleeting lives around us. The guys get together to discuss Frieren in both its manga and anime forms, unpacking the themes of time, legacy, and fri...

Peace is a novel by Undertowers favorite, Gene Wolfe. It was his 3rd full length novel. The guys get together to discuss and try to make sense of what they just read. The pleasure of a Gene Wolfe work is in thinking about it and discussing it with friends. 

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In this episode we bring to you, our intrepid listeners a series of recommendations, an eclectic series of things we are enjoying. 

You’ll hear about Dragon Quest, Indiana Jones, and the Oblivion remake, as well as The Night Manager (2016), and Squid Game. We run through audiobooks, especially The First Law world of books, the recent Andy Serkis Middle-earth narrations, the Astral Codex Ten Substack based blog and similarly the Ast...

We are delighted to welcome Mike Kearns of the excellent booktube channel Mike’s Book Reviews to the podcast this week. We talk through a current dissatisfaction in the current fantasy and science fiction psychosphere as well as what it’s like to be an established and successful booktuber. You can find Mike’s excellent channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@mikesbookreviews Give us a like and subscribe! You can follow us on x / tik...

We are revisiting our tropes discussion, this time with a twist. We each prepared lists of tropes we are recently enjoying and some we are tired of but as we pick them to discuss, each of us will take turns steelmanning the opposite of our baseline positions. Led to a fun and hilarious episode and discussion. 

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We have a wide-ranging conversation covering the totality of the books we’ve read in our book club thus far. What was the funniest moment? What counts as grimdark? We wind down with a speed round of favorite moments and look at what we are most excited to read the rest of the year. 

OUR COMPLETED NOVELS:

2023 -

1. THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER by Gene Wolfe
2. THE CLAW OF THE ...

We are back! In this episode we dive into Robert Eggers’ 4th feature film, Nosferatu. We thoroughly enjoyed this film, both on the immediate level and ruminating on the themes and ideas the film presents. Where does the film stack up against Eggers’ previous work? Is Eggers’ our most Wolfian director?

You can watch the 1922 Nosfertu in full on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OZ5Wam2_Uc&t=3s 

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The once and future king has come again to your ears as the round table boys are discussing TH White’s Arthurian masterpiece The Sword in the Stone being the first of the four books compiled as The Once and Future King. The book is so full of magic, humor, and heart that it was impossible to not have a delightful conversation about it. We dive into some speculative 80s era casting for a film that never was as well. 

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Spirals and giants galor! We explore the wonderful and terrible worlds of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki and the excellent Attack on Titan. While very different in approach and scope, there are some very interesting parallels to explore and are otherwise but exemplary in their storytelling and overall effect. 

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Prepare to make a circle and focus all your aura into your ears as we are diving DEEP into the wonderful worlds of Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (published 2001-2010) and Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi (published 1998-present). We also dip into the anime adaptations of both stories, both the 2003 FMA and Brotherhood and the 1999 and 2011 HxH. 

Next week we will dig into Attack on Titan and Junji Ito’s Uzumaki. 

An...

Travel back in time with us to both the 19th and 6th centuries as we discuss Hank Morgan’s exploits in the dark ages of ye olde England in Mark Twain’s masterful science fiction satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. One of our most fun conversations yet. 

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We welcome back author and friend of the pod, JB Jackson to discuss his recently released novel, Ursula of Ulm, the second installment in the De Re Doridica series of which five are planned. It’s hard to adequately express how much we’ve enjoyed getting to know JB through these interviews and dive even deeper into the weird world of 1977’s Fort Worth, TX. We absolutely adored Ursula, the sequel to Shagduk. The novel is a clear step...

In this episode we dive into the horror filled 14th century French landscape that is Between Two Fires. We conduct a thorough plot overview and then work through themes of the book. 

This episode was dedicated to the memory of our dear friend Alyssa Lokits, who we toast at the beginning of the episode. Please support The Mary Parrish Center in her honor: https://maryparrish.kindful.com/ 

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Sir! It is time to have passing good cheer ‘round the (small) round table as we dive head first into the vast plentitude that is Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. This conversation twists and turns into many a blind alley as we reckon with the mighty weight of Malory’s telling of the birth, life, and death of the Once and Future King. Morte is the first known telling of the entire story of King Arthur and we had a blast diggin...

We wanted to take a moment to highlight Samaritan’s Purse and the work they are doing to help the recovery in Eastern Tennessee and North Carolina after the devastating flooding that took place. Donate here: https://www.samaritanspurse.org/article/pray-for-those-in-helenes-path/ 

Also, all proceeds from the sale of these shirts available from the Bitter Southerner will go to disaster relief: https://bsgeneralstore.com/products/sout...

From the confines of Smoker’s Abbey in East Nashville, Steven and Daniel (Sam is unfortunately away for this one) discuss Robert E Howard’s Sword & Sorcery masterpiece The Tower of the Elephant and then Gene Wolfe’s Six from Atlantis which is an homage to Howard and collected in the Sword & Sorcery anthology. 

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In this episode we each reveal our authorial Godhand, giving the thumb, index, middle, ring, and pinky (basically a Berserk themed “top 5”). As we share a universal love of Tolkien and Gene Wolfe, those authors were highlighted by left out of the exercise (our Guts and Skull-Knight you could say). 

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