The Stephens (and special guest Matt) discuss living in a world of electronic self-publishing. How do readers cope when the world is the slush pile? What role do bookstores play? They also tackle the problem of dealing with hard-to-pronounce na

011: Steven Brust Interview

Aug 16th, 2012 54m 21s

Steven Brust worked as a musician and a computer programmer before coming to prominence as a writer in 1983 with Jhereg, the first of his novels about Vlad Taltos, a human professional assassin in a world dominated by long-lived, magically-empo

010: Westercon 66 Co-Chairs

Jul 29th, 2012 35m 52s

Kevin Roche and Andy Trembley are co-chairs of WesterCon 66, to be held July 4-7, 2013, in Sacramento, CA. We talk , amongst other things, about how a joke bid became a real one.

009: Howard Tayler Interview

May 13th, 2012 45m 48s

Steve L. treks to the Dragons Keep comic book shop in Provo, Utah to interview Howard Tayler, the creator of the award-winning web comic Schlock Mercenary. (Also, incidentally, the creator of our podcast logo!) He has been nominated for his fo

008: Interview Scott Sigler

Apr 3rd, 2012 39m 58s

Scott Sigler is a New York Times best-selling author and award winning podcaster. His novel EarthCore was the first original podcast-only novel way back in 2005. Since then he has continued to release his novels as free podcasts. He writes a b

007: Nerd Month

Feb 21st, 2012 36m 26s

January was Nerd Month at JackalCast Headquarters. The Stephens recount their astonishing adventures at CES, MacWorld/iWorld, FurCon, the Nerdist Podcast, and w00tstock, and make an exciting announcement about Convolution.

006: Tim Powers Interview

Feb 3rd, 2012 38m 48s

Tim Powers writes secret histories– novels that take characters and situations from “real” history and give them a slight supernatural supernatural twist. He is the author of, among other things, The Drawing of the Dark, The Anubis Gates, On St

005: Geeks Shall Inherit

Jan 19th, 2012 27m 10s

Is 2012 the year that being a geek goes mainstream? Was this the apocalypse predicted (or not) by the Mayans? The Stephens discuss the upcoming reality show “Fandom Rising” and the Nevada brothel Alien Cathouse.

004: Christopher J Garcia Interview

Jan 5th, 2012 52m 31s

Hugo award winning fanzine editor Christopher J Garcia joins the JackalCast for an often hilarious, occasionally surreal thing that vaguely resembles an interview. Major topics of conversation include AquaMan, the Computer History Museum, his s

003: Star Wars Holiday Special Exegesis

Dec 22nd, 2011 57m 18s

The Star Wars Holiday Special– the 1978 holiday variety show that has the death sentence on twelve systems. What was it? Why was it made? Who was responsible? The two Stephens, with help from special guest Meredith Branstad, try to explain this

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