Chris and Jesse are BACK! And the lads return with the first episode in Chris' series called "This Came From That?" where we consider both a piece of source material and its later adaptation. For our return we go back to one of our favorite works way back in Season One: Andy Weir's fantastic novel Project Hail Mary. The question we'll be asking throughout the five episodes of this series is primarily about the relationship between source and adaptation, and we kick things off by looking at this 2026 film starring Ryan Gosling and Sandra Müller. Does the film stand equally alongside the book? We have a Patreon! Please support us. And a Discord! Join us!

We go all the way back to episode 17, in honor of the release of the major motion picture, starring Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace. Our part 1 was originally titled Bromancing the Stone Carapace, perhaps the single greatest podcast title in history. Many many many many writers take on “hard” science fiction, and get lost in the science, leaving behind such niceties as plot, character development, human insight, or deep emotional stakes. Somehow, Andy Weir imagines a thrilling and scientifically plausible adventure, that’s really just about friendship in space. Amidst the ammonia, burritos, and penis blood, sits a tale that brings both Dukes and Bagg to occasional tears. So much so that Bagg wonders if this is the “perfect novel” for our time.

Isaac Asimov doesn’t PERFECTLY predict today’s era of anxiety and excitement around AI. But he does pretty well for somebody writing eighty years ago. In this 1990 collection of Asimov’s classic robot stories, we see corporations trying to make money while navigating human anxiety around robots, and humans trying to determine whether robots should have human rights, and whether it’s OK to be friends with a robot.  Bagg was busy for this one, so we’re joined by friend of the show Justin Reich, host of the Teachlab podcast, and a frequent collaborator of Dukes.  We have a Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/upper_middle_brow And a Discord server!https://discord.gg/h734EZ3hBU Join us!

The second half of Feinstein’s book of minor league baseball stories and characters feels very much like the first half. The reporting is extensive, and Feinstein has a knack for the well described scene, brief characterization, and finding the drama in the everyday. In spite of those virtues, the book continues to overwhelm the reader with names, numbers, and anecdotes, until they all blend together into something rather soupy. It’s not unpleasant, and it certainly has wonderful moments, but the UMBs conclude that the book fails to transcend the category of good sport reporting.  We have a Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/upper_middle_brow And a Discord server!https://discord.gg/h734EZ3hBU Join us!

John Feinstein’s baseball writing is as sharp as ever, the anecdotes of Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in the Minor Leagues of Baseball portraying a desperate but determined subculture of professional baseball. The many characters of Feinstein’s book hunger to make it to the bigs, whether they are past their prime, approaching that point, or beginning to suspect that their prime won’t be good enough for that callup. It’s a heartbreaking and affecting yarn, but does some of the impact fade into a forest of similar stories?

In the second half of Halberstam's nonfiction account of the 1984 sculling Olympic trials, we go to the Olympics, to see how Biglow, Lewis, Wood, et al fare at the world's most famous sports event. 5 major characters each have big stakes, and while the actual events cluster together, Halberstam keeps the reader focused on the drama. The results are predictably mixed, and one wonders if the work these Olympians go through is worth it. Structurally, the second half of the book remains tight, perhaps even tighter than the first half, and all of the loose ends, questions, and promises of the first half are fulfilled in the second half. It's not entirely atisfying, but neither, as we learn, is amateur athletics in a low-glamor sport.

We continue Bagg’s “Revenge of the Jock-Nerds” series (the last series of Season Three!), with David Halberstam’s The Amateurs, which tells the story of four men competing for the single solo sculling spot on the 1984 Olympic team. Halberstam, who usually worked on more popular sports and in bigger political arenas, offers a nuanced glimpse into the small, hermetic, oral world of American rowing, where athletes compete in a sport where “the rewards cannot justify the efforts.”

On October 6th, Dukes and Bagg invite you to join us for the Season 4 Live Draft. We will tape an episode live on a video call, and you can join as our loyal live audience. Drafts are where we choose the next fifteen or so books or movies we'll discuss (nearly a year's worth of episodes). Dukes and Bagg each pitch eachother four series, and then each choose two. We will have doorprizes for EVERYBODY who comes, and you'll have a chance to vote on a Listener's Choice series. To join the video call, RSVP here, and we'll email you the link.

Tim Krabbe's novel is barely a novel. It is a thinly veiled autobiogrpahical essay, with fictional details and composite characters, allowing the author to navigate his story just to one side of the fiction/nonfiction divide. The lads ponder why it does not fall into the "bike porn" genre, and why the images of teeth and glass continually emerge.

The lads wrap up Cixin Liu’s sprawling and massive Three Body Trilogy, building something that somehow seems to transcend traditional literary structures and devices. We look back at how far this particular plot has wandered from whence it came, and both Jesse and Chris are impressed at Liu’s ability to continue adding obstacles and stakes without letting the book fall apart. Still, there is a lot of plot to find a way through—does the grandness of the project match the execution?