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Well, Adventurers, we made it to 100 episodes. In this "part 2" to our 99th episode, we continue discussing our podcasting journey and reflect on our -- and your, the audience's -- top and favorite moments.
Our website: www.thesidequestpodcast.com
Our website: www.thesidequestpodcast.com
Discover Side Quest: https://linktr.ee/asidequest
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(00:00) Intro
(01:29) Nostalgia and Reflection on 100 Episodes
(03:49) Honorable Mentions and Favorite Moments
(07:16) Exploring 'It' by Stephen King
(15:27) Guest Appearances and Insights
(19:17) Cost Analysis and Financial Insights
(22:09) Audiobooks and Immersive Experiences
(24:33) The Lies of Locke Lamora
(29:30) Upcoming Reads and Recommendations
(32:56) Short Stories and Podcast Format
(36:21) Top 5 Most Popular Books
(41:12) Favorite Moments
(42:06) Eye-Opening Literature Experiences & Outro
Creators and Guests
What is The Side Quest Book Club Podcast?
Join Slava and Jonathan as they discuss the books they are reading. Explore world-building, characters, and story development—and share some laughs along the way. Side Quest Book Club — a literary adventure podcast.
100 What Have We Learned: Top Momement from the Last 100 Episodes
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Jonathan: Happy New Year, Slava.
Slava: Happy Hanukkah.
Jonathan: Yes, one of the two. it is December 31st, but, you know, maybe Hanukkah falls at this time
Slava: It doesn't. First night of Hanukkah is the 25th, actually, or the 24th
of December this year. seven days plus the 24th. That works.
Jonathan: It works. because 24 plus 7 is 11, which would be 31.
Slava: Look at us doing math.
Jonathan: The math is, well, 4 plus 7 is not 31, but, 24 plus 7 is 31. I think. Mm.
Slava: Well, either way, whatever the math is, we're not mathematicians. Today, we are explorers. Today, we are explorers.
Jonathan: Mm hmm. Nice. Nice. That's good.
Slava: Today, we are wanderers. We are taking a trip back in time. Should we do that
Jonathan: Today, today we, uh, I mean, I don't know, the outtakes are kind of fun. Today we saunter back into the past, where we explore and wander through the previous days, times, and hours of things that you've already listened to. Why? Because who doesn't love a little nostalgia on New Year's Eve?
Slava: we're taking a trip down memory lane as the holidays wind down We want to talk about all the good memories we had Nostalgia, as you put it, Jonathan, our little journey or a big journey over the last hundred episodes.
Jonathan: 100 is a lot of episodes. It is a lot. And today's episode is about the journey. It's not even the destination, because I don't think either of us thought about like, well, can't wait till we make it to 100 episodes, because I don't think we were even considering making it to 50. But I think the 50 was kind of like a hump where it's like, Oh, all right.
For the most part, we have this like in a rhythm and you can even call this kind of a part two from episode 99, where last time we, we looked at our past episodes and talked about the learnings we've had along the way and helping you guys create your own podcasts. Cause that's a question we get a lot.
but now we're going to talk about some. Key moments that we've had along the journey, some of which we've mentioned before and some which might have drifted away into the great beyond that we may have forgotten about.
Slava: this is an apt conclusion to 99, because like you said, we talked about the process and now we want to reflect on what happened during the process. Some of the key events, key books, key episodes, all those, all those good things, But before we begin, be sure to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss a side quest.
Jonathan: Awesome. Let's move into our favorite moments. That is what we have spent a little bit of time preparing this episode for, where we look back at the last a hundred episodes and we pick our favorite moments. We also have a little bit of an audience favorite that we've pulled together that we'll get to about halfway through the episode.
before we get into that, I wanted to take some time with Slava and look at the honorable mention moments. Moments that didn't make the top list, but we still really love them and we wanted to share them with you and bring them back to chat about them. So Slava, let's talk about some of these honorable mentions. We both picked our top five, they're not necessarily in order, They're not necessarily in order, but let's go.
Slava: Let's do it. I know you really loved the clash we had on City and the City. You mentioned that numerous times, and my response is like, ooh, look at that, eye roll, Jonathan's right. But I really feel that you just have an irrational grudge against guys named China.
Jonathan: well, it's not an irrational grudge. It's not even a grudge. It's simply poor storytelling. So, it doesn't matter what his name is, to quote, what's that, what's that woman that you keep, you like to reread her blurb? Um, that Tolkien and Lewis made fun of?
Slava: Oh my gosh,
Jonathan: Mick, Mick, Mick Adams or
Slava: McAdams or McPhillan? I don't know. She's
Jonathan: yeah.
So, if I have an irrational grudge against China, then you hate all women. That's what I heard.
Slava: I really think your hate for China and you just calling me a misogynist is a master class in, in petty literary sabotage. I'm surprised you didn't rename the city into the city and who cares.
Jonathan: cause that's a terrible name and I wouldn't do a terrible name.
Slava: you're kind of like Gaz in The Way of Kings. The only thing missing here is you throwing the copy off a bridge and then going and bitching about it somewhere in the camp. Which you
Jonathan: Uh.
I did, I did complain about it, but the other thing that's, um, not missing to compare me with Gaz is that I have both of my eyes and I'm not some sort of a petty gambler, always two steps away from being hung.
Slava: Or a deserter.
Jonathan: or a deserter, although I do love dessert,
but sitting in the city was not a tasty treat for me. read it because you picked it, but did not, did not love that. Would not read again as anyone who's been here for more than two episodes will know that this is my favorite book to pick on because And honestly, it's because it was such a good concept that I'm so upset about it.
Slava: for me, somebody that loves speculative fiction that's why it took me so long to admit that it wasn't a great book. 'cause I love the concept. I love the genre. And I really tried liking the book.
Jonathan: You did. You, you gave it your, your full, full effort. 10 out of 10. Slava tried to like it.
Slava: I gave it the Kaladin try.
Jonathan: you, you, you survived the book. Didn't kill you and you just keep surviving, but all your friends die. Slava
Slava: I gave it the Lippin try. Came at it one armed.
Jonathan: that's okay. That's better. At least you gave it the her Dazian try
Slava: There we go.
Jonathan: the one arm salute. Actually. I think that's, I think that's a different thing. Nevermind, whatever,
Slava: But one honorable mention we both can agree on is it, you really enjoyed it. And for me, it was such a great time to revisit it and go through it with you. I thought that was a really great time.
Jonathan: Yeah. I've always. Had it on this sort of mental list of books where I'm like, Oh, Oh, it's a really popular book by King. I've never read it before. They've made movies on it a couple of times. I have a rough gist that it was like about a clown, a killer clown. but I didn't know it was as robust of a story as it was until we got into it.
And honestly, it really. Took me back to kind of like the nineties where I know it's set a lot earlier, but these, these moments where kids are riding bikes, right? And it's, and we've talked about this in the episodes where it's, you just step back in time and you go, Oh yeah, I remember when we were just like, Hey, you're not allowed to be in the house anymore.
You have to go play outside and you just grab your bike and you, you roll around and you find the local neighborhoods and you guys do whatever you hit the different spots in town. And. You have these micro adventures every day and your adult parents don't have any sort of concept of what's going on in the world that you're living in.
So super well written, knocked it out of the park, loved it a lot more than I thought I would. I didn't think I was going to dislike it, similar to City in the City, but I did. I was, um, hesitant in my thoughts on like, I don't know how much I will or would not enjoy it because I just didn't have, well, I mean, the, the, Synopsis of the book of like it being about killer clowns is not, it does not do it justice.
It's like, that's just the scratching of the surface. It's, it's actually not about that at all.
Slava: Right. I think some of the strengths of it, and this is me speaking as a fan of King, but more so a fan of horror. The strength of it is. The depth of the horror and the psychological roads, the psychological winding roads, if I may wax philosophical here, of the book, it explores fear, trauma, the human psyche, how it deals with those things. It's a great blend, I think, of psychological horror and supernatural. It offers rich material, robust, to use your word, for analysis. So us talking about it was so fun because we were able not only to think about our own childhood, our own experience as a kid, our own traumas, maybe, and how.
Each of the kids processed it a little bit differently, which of the characters we resonated with, and the timeless themes, right, the king's exploration of childhood, friendship, evil, I think it really resonates with audiences, it resonates with me, since that episode, I re read it twice already,
Jonathan: Oh, really?
Slava: oh yeah, it's such a good book, it's such a nostalgic book for me, for the reasons I already mentioned, of how King has impacted my childhood and my life, and how King has gotten to where I am today.
me through some difficult times in my life, especially in my childhood. Those themes are nostalgic. They're soothing to me. And we read a lot of series. So like Credo, Cosmere, we are knee deep in those, if not waist deep, but this one is a standalone and it's standalone impact is so powerful While it's part of King's larger mythos and world, if anybody is a Stephen King fan, there's a lot of connections from book to book in King's work, even some of his other works that kind of don't deal with the supernatural strictly, or that's not the focal point of the book.
Like, there's stuff from the Dark Tower that comes up in short stories, like Ur, and there's massive connections like that. I don't want to get into it here, because we'll be here for three hours, because that's such a ro robust, to use your word again, world, that King built, but it stands alone.
I think it's accessible, and by itself, It is complete with everything you need to truly be immersed into a book that has horror and has coming of age a powerful story where there's so much that you can unpack. And even if you're not on a podcast and discussing it with a bunch of friends and our little, what'd you call us?
A casual book club by itself. If you just read it by itself, by yourself, it is so immersive. Like you, you can get lost in that story. And to me, rereading it now, I think five or six times now, even it's. Nostalgic, but there's another word for it, where I know it's coming, and I want to relive the moment again.
Jonathan: Right. There's a word for that. I don't, I can't remember it though. I know what you're talking about. One of the elements that you talked about there a minute ago with the horror and psychological depth. 100 percent agree with, it's probably like a second or third. topic on my list for reasons that I really enjoyed it.
And the only reason it's not higher up is because it, it stood out, but it's not the thing that I remember when you go, Oh yeah, let's talk about it. The thing that I remember is being pulled back to childhood. It's been going, going and being like, Oh yeah, I jumped on my bike and we ran around and like, there was a bunch of stuff going on, not of the same nature because you know, this is a story and not real life, but it feels that way.
When you step back into childhood and you go, Oh yeah, there was bullies and there was Bike rides and gangs that we were a part of and we'd roll around the neighborhood. And to your point, this processing of trauma in, in your adult life, through the things that happened in childhood is, was done, I guess we'll say tastefully because some of the topics are really heavy and it was unpacked super well, which was just great.
Slava: I think him unpacking those things, and being a master storyteller, writing people well. We talked about Sanderson, and we had this conversation about, well, he writes women really well. you found a thread on Reddit where a woman said, yeah, that's because he writes people well.
That's why his female characters are so, are impactful and people can resonate with them. same thing with King. He writes characters really well and he writes children really well. He has a knack for capturing how kids talk, how they think, how they react and you can go, oh yeah, I know why Eddie's doing that because I did that.
I understand Eddie because I also had a mom who was overbearing and a recluse. And hated people and try to have me hate people. I understand Bill because I process things X, Y, and Z. I do, I react to things in this manner, or I really like Ben because he persevered over his, weight and he became successful and he is now able to deal with people completely differently than he would have if he didn't go through all, all the stuff that he did, whatever it was, there's, you guys can go to those episodes and, uh, hear us talk about it, but those things make this story, uh, Captivating.
It, I don't think there's another word for it. You're immersed into it. You're pulled into it and all the stuff from childhood, good, bad, and indifferent starts flooding back and you don't want to put the book down. Or at least for me, that's how it is.
Jonathan: Yeah, one note before we continue on, I forgot to mention is, if you wanted to listen to City in the City, that's episode 27, and the It series starts on episode 63, for the first episode, just in case you wanted to go back and listen to those. But, someone who should have processed their childhood, Maybe in the town of Derry, because perhaps they would have had a more, maybe they would have healed.
I don't know. Is, the guy from Survivor. I want to call him Citizen, but I know that's not his name. It's something dumb though. what's his name again?
Slava: Let's look it up.
Jonathan: You don't know either? All right. Okay. I'm like Citizen. It's Guy. It's Guy. It's something like super generic.
Slava: it is.
Jonathan: Welslav is looking that up because neither of us can remember his name. Survivor, if you want to go look at that book and listen to those episodes where we have Jess come on and guest star with us, yes, is episode 53 you can go listen to us talk about Tender and get Jess's hot takes over there in episode 53 for the Survivor series. But that was one of my highlights here, and Honorable Mentions was getting Jess on the show. I know we talked about getting her on the show before. She brought a lot of great insight, both from her personal life and applied to Chuck Palahniuk books, Palahniuk, Palah, Palah, how do I say it? Palin
Slava: I think it's Palinuke.
Jonathan: Pellinuke. Uh, you know, we went over this, I know during those, but it's been, it's been a few episodes since then, but she brought a lot of good insights that I really liked hearing about, especially from her life experience and, the times that she's read, not just this book, but a bunch of his other books and similar styled books and her compare and contrast of those things.
So really enjoyed having her on. And I'm looking forward to when she joins us again,
Slava: Yeah, she's joining us for Fight Club
Jonathan: which was an excellent book.
Slava: I haven't read it yet. I'm looking forward to it. I really enjoyed Palinuk Tremendously, so I want more so I'm excited for Fight Club coming up in a couple of months I think if all goes to plan.
Jonathan: Yeah, actually just before this episode, I was rearranging to pull fight club up, sooner, that will be on the horizon for us for sure. How did we choose survivor again? Did you choose it
or did she, did she, okay.
Slava: No, I chose it because We wanted to read a Palinuk book that neither of us have read before I think I asked her, Jess, I think I asked her, what would you suggest that's not
Fight Club? And she, I think she said Survivor. I looked it up and suggested it to you. if memory serves me, that's what happened.
Jonathan: That sounds right. So we read so many books and we have so much, going back and forth between, I think we're up to like 27 chats on WhatsApp, which is where we have our threaded conversations about special episodes and then general chat about the show and then planning for the next thing. And what's our graphic going to look like?
And here are analytics that sometimes I lose track of who said what, when. And how we got here.
Slava: Yeah, and we recently did, uh, An analysis of the podcast, specifically cost analysis, what have we bought for it, who's spending what money on what platform, just to kind of get a rundown of what this has cost us financially, and what can we do moving forward to save money? How do we slash those costs
down the middle? So it's, uh,
Jonathan: do you want to admit how we can save money? Slava
Slava: you know, stop buying audible books because when I looked at the cost analysis, both of those were like three times the cost of everything else. And I mentioned in 99, when I was ranting about some of the platforms don't work and my, my rant and my anger at that is because we pay top dollar money for top professional platforms for this stuff.
But nonetheless, even though we spend money on that, the biggest spend is on how many books we buy and listen to. And some of those will never get on the podcast. Some of those are just, well, let's try it and see if it's going to work. Some of those are definitely, we want this on the podcast, but given our schedule, it's not coming out till December of 25 or June of 26.
Whatever it is, we spend an exorbitant amount of books and we consume a crap ton of Audible. So Audible, if you want to sponsor us. This is your chance.
Jonathan: that, Oh, that'd be, that'd be good. I would, I'm down with that. Some audible books for free, but that's not what I was referencing. I was referencing the fact that, um, some of the tools we use to edit Slava has been overpaying for.
Slava: Oh yeah,
Jonathan: That's what I was talking about is he he's doing the month to month when it was a while ago when I was like, Hey, just pay for the annual plan because it's like 25 percent cheaper.
but yes, we, we've both spent, uh, honestly, I think I doubled your audible spend.
Slava: you did.
Jonathan: not that this is a, competition, but I've been doing Audible for, since 2011, I think.
Slava: yeah, you doubled it in a short amount of time because I've been with Audible since 2014. So for you to be only three years ahead of me and double the audio books you consumed, that's a, that's a feat.
Jonathan: Yeah. It's, it's just because when you, and this is why I love audio books. I, so we live in States that there's a lot of driving, both of us. And so it's like, music's fine. I don't dislike music, but if I'm going to do something, I'd rather be going on a journey or a, or an adventure, or I'd rather be thinking about, the latest business question that I have and reading a book on it, or, Hey, what personal reflection items do I need to go through?
If I'm going through like a Brené Brown or something like that. And you just have time to do that. If you're on Audible and you're driving around and you, you can be like, ebb in and out of the book. But then when people get in my car, cause the Bluetooth automatically connects and I listened to things on usually minimum two times speed, it goes and people are like, are you.
Learning how to speak in tongues. What, what is this? What, what are you listening to? And I'm like, don't worry about it.
Slava: a hundred percent. I recently listened to a lot of Words of Radiance and all of Carrie driving to Chicago for the wedding I had to go to. And I was able to get through like 20 chapters of Words of Radiance and a whole Stephen King book. Well, Carrie is shorter than most Stephen King books, but nonetheless, it was a great time. And to your music point, I took a break and listened to music for about a half an hour. And I'm like, Wait a minute.
I want to go back and see what Carrie's doing. And I just went back to reading the book.
Jonathan: Yeah. Because you get immersed in these stories and you, our minds are, are unique isn't enough of a word. They're complex. They can do more than we. Probably give them credit for, I know they do more than like, you and I are breathing right now because of our brains and we don't have to think about it.
Right. But then when you're driving, that becomes pretty mindless. You just like, is there any, is there any like imminent danger at the moment? Is anyone swerving? Is anyone like clearly not paying attention to the road? No. Okay, great. Then I can just like, let my mind drift into whatever world that I want to listen to and then be.
Not just entertained, but, but taken on that journey to, to quote you from earlier for talking about it, where it's like, you're immersed, you're taken in, and, you know, some people might say it's unsafe, but I don't think it is.
Slava: No, it's not. Because when you're listening to music, and you get pulled into a song that you like, or you're just in the zone, but if your eyes are on the road, and you're engaged in the driving, your mind can do two things at once. Like 99 percent of humans can walk and chew gum, right? So, the same 99 can drive and not fly off a bridge or drive into a barrier and listen to a book, be immersed in it, enjoy the story, listen to a song or three, and not swerve And that caused a major collision on the highway.
Jonathan: You ever met someone who can't walk and chew gum?
Slava: there's some people that I would bet money can't walk
Jonathan: Me either. Me either. And when you see them you go, nice bird asshole.
Slava: because they're usually carrying a bird and falling over themselves as they try to chew gum.
Jonathan: Yes, that's correct. My next honorable mention with that transition is You guys, I can't tell you the type of joy And the thing is Slava's a pretty stoic guy The type of joy after Slava was like four chapters in Maybe five For The Lies of Locke Lamora and he's like This book is my soul I want to go to this city, I want to meet these people, and I want to punch them all in the face, and then I want to steal from the higher ups, the nobility.
It was, I knew, I knew In my soul that he would, he would love this book. And that is the, I'm honestly surprised when I was like thinking through my ratings of favorite moments in the podcast so far that this didn't actually make top five because it was, it was just so much fun, to like pick a book that your friend reads and you're like, Oh, that was actually super good.
It's probably the same way you feel about me liking it.
Where it's just like, oh, good. I thought you would like it, but you like it more than I thought you'd like it. So that's, that's what we want.
Slava: yeah, and I made our top five list for 99 too. Well, your top five list, because this moment I think stands out in different ways. And this is a different rating system than we had for 99. But that aside, this is one thing that carries over for both of us. You loving my reaction to it. And me being. So enamored with the story.
Jonathan: Wait till book two. You thought the emotional journey from one was something? It, they're like, writhing in the echoes of the deaths of their friends. And then they start to get more hope back. And then, you know, other terrible things happen. So, it's a, it's a, It's a gut wrencher. It really sucks, honestly, for some of the characters, but it's so good.
it's one of my favorite things. and if you guys, here's the thing, audience, if you have come across a book that has a unique world because it pulled from something in history, like Locke Lamora did, where it, you know, he was building this on 15th century Italy, throw it my way, because there's very few books that are Honestly, so unique where we feel so immersed in the world aspect.
And it's like, Oh, but this is, this is pretty close to real because it's based on a very strong structure of, Hey, there were gondolas. Hey, there were people wandering through the city. It was a merchant town, et cetera, et cetera, man. It's it's just so good.
Slava: it is. It's a, another world that you can get immersed in and just like with it, and obviously other stories, Warbreaker, Way of Kings, Words Radiance, the world is interesting, the story is impactful because you are on an emotional journey, to use your words. you get taken on an emotional journey with the characters, especially the characters that you love or resonate with. But even some guys that you don't, or some girls that you don't, you're there and you don't want it to end.
Jonathan: it's why people are constantly tweeting and hounding Scott Lynch for details on when the next book's coming out. so it's supposed to be a seven book series, he says he's written book four and also two novellas between book three and book four.
the novellas are not required reading to continue the journey. It's just this delay. I know he definitely had some mental health stuff that he was dealing with, which caused part of the delay, which people were super understanding about. that honestly fades with time. even if the author is still dealing with it, the, the internet at large will become, A little unruly.
And then they will, the communities will almost even police themselves. I've seen some people in some of these subreddits where they're like, you know, this author doesn't owe you any more books talking about Lynch, talking about Rothfuss, talking about, Martin talking about Sanderson. They're like, these authors could just decide to not write the last book and they don't owe it to you.
And I'm like, well, that's true. They, you know, nobody owes us anything. But it is their livelihood and they're alive. So, to quote myself, if that's not, too silly for people, when I talked about Will White, like needing to write more cradle books, which is coming out soon, actually, he wrote a
series of shorts,
Slava: ordered.
Jonathan: you?
I should get mine Thursday because I did the Kickstarter. So you can't read it yet. Anyway, you have to get to book 10.
Anyhow, Scott Lynch has more books coming, super excited about them. yeah, this was certainly an honorable mention and I hope for us to find more of these. And actually I remembered a book, uh, as I was watching some Instagrams on like book, bookstagram, I guess I'll call it.
Cause it's not book talk.
Slava: they're called reels. Hashtag Boomer.
Jonathan: You feel good about yourself
right now? Okay. All right. Is The Night Circus.
Slava: Hmm.
Jonathan: it's a standalone book. It's supernatural elements. It's the circus. It's emotional, progress with characters. I think their last name is Morgenstein. They won some sort of award for it, but they've never written another book.
Thankfully it's a standalone. It's not part of a series, but, that's a book that I would say you. Is classified in the similar, immersive world to, the feeling I get when I read,
it's not the same world, but it is like the feeling, the same
feeling. So I'm going to throw that on the list at some point. I don't know anyone else who's read it, that I could bring on as a guest is what I mean, but everyone who's read it that I have talked to, they're just like, that was weird, but I really liked it.
And is there more in the world? Question mark. And it's like, nope, stand alone. Sorry.
Slava: Well, you had me at weird.
Jonathan: Yes. Just like those photos you took of yourself.
Slava: I sent them to you in, in confidence.
Jonathan: And I confidently shared them with our audience. There you go.
Slava: That either accounts for the downloads or Recently or the lack of engagement
Jonathan: Only Jews. It's a new website. We're starting
Slava: because you guys, we love you guys, but we really want you to engage with us more because yes, you know, two guys talking about books. They love great concept for a podcast, but for us to continue improving. We need to hear from you. So Instagram is where you do that. The DMS are open. The comments are open.
We want to hear books like this, like Jonathan just mentioned something off the beaten path. We have had a lot of good interaction with the horror, the fantasy, and which book would you reread? Because I put some polls out there, polls being a relative term, because just a graphic and a call to action. But I put out three.
Nope. I put about five, pulls out there. We're going to call them that. And the three that got the most engagement, a serious amount for the fantasy one, that's the stuff we need for you guys to do more. So send them our way. All your suggestions.
Jonathan: on that note. as I was rearranging the schedule, I bumped up shout out to two Instagram users, books and crannies, 2023, suggesting that we read the girl with all the gifts, the book track edition.
and so that's on the schedule coming up here soon.
And then the next one was Apocalypse Z. Suggested by not sure, 2090. And those are both on the schedule And we're going to see if they might even come on a little bit and give us a chit chat on why they recommended the book. We'll see if it happens. It's not a guarantee, definitely shout out to them for the recommendations.
So.
Slava: Hell yeah. that brings us down to honorable mention number one. And for me it was the same. I mean, all of these. One through five here is a collective honorable mention, but this one, absolutely one for one, we both agreed on this being the case. And I think we mentioned this in 99 too, but we tried short stories.
The first five episodes were short stories, but it didn't really work for the brand, the podcast or enjoyment of both us, and I think we can safely assume the audience, although there's a lot of people that go back and Download the very first one, which is, uh, silent. What, what is it?
Jonathan: Shadows of silence in the forest of hell.
Slava: that one, but as popular as that one is, I don't think we'll revisit short stories. Again, because that's one out of five, that's popular. The rest of them were downloaded during the first week and never revisited by our audience, which is fine. we realized that standalone books and series are what our audience wants, is what our audience wants.
Jonathan: So I just have to make one amendment We will probably do no short stories that are standalone short stories But I do actually see us doing short stories like I don't know how long Scott Lynch's novellas are right like and then Sanderson also still has more short stories that Um, we'll be fun information.
So yes, we won't do more short stories, but I don't think that they will be standalone short stories is, is my only amendment
Slava: Now that's a good amendment. I can even see if we take a series of episodes and cover an anthology, or cover a collection of short stories, that I see happening, and novellas are a little different, because The Mist is a novella, and we covered The Mist, and there was enough to unpack there. Novellas, long short stories, we'll still definitely cover true short stories, where they're like, you know, 100 pages or 50 pages, like it's like a 45 minute read, those types, I think is better to say for an anthology, or if it's part of a larger discussion, like Cosmere,
or The Cradle, or whatever, I Or the name of the wind is part of a larger series of books, a larger world.
And we insert a short story that's within that world. Yeah, that's definitely a,
not something we're going to drop
Jonathan: think short stories land in this, if we do theme episodes again, because what we really came down to, and the reason we made this decision was there just wasn't enough to talk about, it didn't make for a good episode. It wasn't good listening, to Slava's point earlier, we want to make sure that we're making things That you guys want to listen to.
I think monkey's paw is kind of a, a good example of like a short story that didn't have enough to discuss during it, where we ended up just kind of making a game up at the end where it's like, all right, you make a wish and then I'm going to ruin it. Which was fun, but like, it's not that fun.
It's not discussing the story, which, you know, as we continue to refine the podcast, we want to make sure that we're giving you guys what you want to listen to. So be sure to drop notes in the comments for us so that we know what you do and don't like. I think that's a great transition to take a little side quest here and talk about the five most popular books that we've had on our hundred episodes. And most popular is going to be rated through the metrics of total downloads. So Slava, give us, uh, give us the rundown of the books that all of our listeners have been really enjoying.
Slava give us a, give us a countdown five, four, three, two, one from the. Fifth one, all the way to the top most downloaded book or series.
Slava: So some of this is a surprise, and some of it is not. at number five, we have ghost water at number four. We have sky sworn.
Jonathan: Okay. So this proves a theory that I had, and, anyone who's in marketing, true marketing is experimentation. trying to understand what your audio audience wants. Well, when we first recorded Unsold, which shoot, I mean, that was a long time ago, but it was, I want to say in the, in the twenties for our episodes.
Let
me look. Yes, uh, 24. If you're looking to listen to Unsold, it's episode 24. oh, I forgot to, I'm like super bad at this moment. If you wanted to listen to Liza Locke Lamora, that's episode 55. sorry for people who stopped listening after I mentioned it, but it's there for you to listen to, uh, enjoy.
So, anyway, Unsold was 24, and I think it was when we were mid Dune, because we did that shortly after, and the numbers that I was seeing for Unsold were high. They were the highest of all the things that we had, barring the glitch that we had for, uh, studying Emerald. And I said, Slava, I think that we need to do the whole Cradle series.
Because I think that that's what people want to listen to. he did what he does. He hemmed and hawed and he was like, Hey, I don't know. Um, not that he disliked the book, but what we try and do is we curate this show to what we see you guys enjoying, and so we want to make more of that.
all that to say, I'm glad to hear that Cradle has made two of the top five books. books. Anyway, carry on. What's number three?
Slava: Number three is head full of ghosts.
Jonathan: Why?
Slava: And this is the surprise for me because I think a lot of people like it and they went in to listen to it,
Jonathan: Why?
Slava: but at the same time, they must have agreed with because this because this metric is aggregated across all the episodes per book So even the people who came to it may be thinking that oh, they're gonna talk about a book.
I like oh They're shitting all over it. Oh, I'll listen to number two and I'll listen to the recap episode So that was a surprise for me But I think there's enough people who also hated as much as we did to continue listen to it and those who liked it Or loved it stuck through our complaints about it because maybe they just are, free thinking people who were wanting
to listen
Jonathan: people.
Slava: to who wanted to listen to somebody who disagreed with them.
I don't know what it is, but Head Full of Ghosts is number three of the most downloaded books. So it's across all episodes of the books. This is not just one episode that stood out somehow or was an anomaly or whatever, but Head Full of Ghosts, number three downloaded and listened to book.
Jonathan: Did they send you postcards to let you know that they really liked head full of ghosts?
I mean, I know we have the numbers, but You guys, why? Is it the author? Does he like, does he write other good stuff? Like, just tell me, just tell me. I, okay, what's number two?
I can't even, I just,
Slava: Warbreaker is number two
Jonathan: that's right it is. Wait, why isn't it number one? All right, Warbreakers, number two, number two is fine, it's fine, we'll take, we'll take two.
Slava: and something that more than doubles. Warbreaker at number one, the most listened to book that we've covered so far, and these metrics are three days old since we were recording and we were recording somewhere in November. Stephen King's It is the most listened to and downloaded book on our podcast.
Jonathan: Yeah, it's got, like you said, almost triple the numbers, but that doesn't surprise me. Right? King, of these other authors, King has been around since the 80s. His name, notoriety as a writer, it has had the opportunity to spread longer. So this doesn't surprise me. Also, it is like a kicking book.
It's so good.
Slava: He's been around since the
seventies, Late 70s. Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah, but that doesn't surprise me. So these are your top five books, guys. These are the books that you enjoyed listening to. And we are. 100 percent doing the full Cradle series. we are doing the Cosmere slowly. cause they're larger books. It's mostly the Stormlighter because it's so, so large, but there are other books that are shorter that we will probably get to, we have more Stephen King lined up, we have, um, the Dark Tower at some point.
among other things,
Slava: and if you guys are enjoying this side quest Make sure to show your support by sharing this episode with a fellow book lover because every journey is better with friends
Jonathan: unless there's,
Slava: Unless they're Jonathan.
Jonathan: oh man.
So now we're here. We've arrived. Our top five favorite moments starting with number five, mine was the eye opening literature moment that I had with roadside picnic, it was one of those moments where I just didn't know what I didn't know. if you would ask me before reading it, like, well, do you know that there's literature and other languages that's really good?
And I would have gone, yeah, sure. Okay. that's the extent of it. But it was really after Slava was like, Hey, we're going to read this book finishing that where I thought, man, there's probably so much literature out there. That's really good. It's just in languages I can't read. And unless they translate it to English, like I just won't be able to enjoy it.
roadside picnic is still, I think my favorite book that you've had us read,
Slava: Nice.
Jonathan: I love the unique storytelling. I like the vignettes, but it's still an overarching story. you're starting to get me with the speculative fiction side of things.
certainly early on, I was looking for a neatly bow tied conclusion. Doesn't mean happily after after but it does mean like feels like all the threads are tied up for the most part But yeah, that's my that's my fifth. What about you? What's your fifth moment?
Slava: we got into it, realizing, oh, I have to push myself to do research, which that's my background. That's what I went to school for. I have a graduate degree that is half of it is adult education. It's a theological degree because I went to seminary, as most of, you know, research. And education is at the core of both of my degrees, bachelor's and master's.
And having to go back into it was really fun because I'm like, Oh, I need to do. almost the same amount of research, differently formatted, differently approached, but I still have to do research and I have to get to do it again. And so that was a fun moment. in that process, I realized, Oh, I also have to learn how to perform.
I have to switch from academic lectures to entertainment. And how do I do that? So I am, Still teaching the audience something because the edutainment portion of this podcast, but also engaging in Conversation not just here's what you need to know, papers due next Tuesday So that that moment which is spread across a good amount of months That realization that moment is where I found myself. How do I say this enjoying it? Yes, but I found Myself re immersed into my previous life, for lack of a better term, and having to re awaken, that's a good way of saying it, and having to apply everything I learned here, but with a twist. And those moments, like I said, spread across a considerable amount of time, they all kind of are encapsulated into one thing, where I'm doing what I like, but in a different world, on a different platform, no pun intended, and it's It was like eye opening and it was magical.
If, if I can be that
bold
for me. Yeah. I thought it was really fun, I'm enjoying that still because there's more for us to learn and more for us to improve as in everything. But that was my number five is my number five.
Jonathan: Well, you can start with number four then let you go at
Slava: Well, by number four is getting guests on. So when we first had Spencer on, then we had Jess on, then we had Matt on, it was really fun talking about a book, then having somebody else come in at the tail end and help us recap everything, put a bow on it or dive into a different aspect of the book that we didn't because we weren't.
Well read in that genre, for example, Star Wars with Matt or well, we are well read in Tolkien and we had Deborah on and then all of us nerded out about The Hobbit and then when Spencer came on and Took over it was fun watching him grow as a character Performer and it was a book that neither of us have read and the previous book that I have read by the same author Andy Weir, it was lackluster for me.
I was like, ah, this is nice. I watched the movie I thought I'd like the book The Martian, but it wasn't anything that I would wanted to read And maybe now I will go back to it because of the book that we, uh, went through with Spencer taking over Project Hail Mary. That was a fun moment for me too. I thought that was great because the book was so fantastic. It's one of my favorite books now. Really well done science fiction, a lot of emotional roller coasters in it. The ending is great and having Spencer take over and watch him. Improve from, from all the episodes he's been on. And it's no slight against Spencer, because again, we all can improve, but watching him kind of grow as a co host and being able to run the show, that was fun for me. And I think your number four is very similar to mine. Yours is guest related. Why don't you tell us that?
Jonathan: it. It is when we first started the podcast, didn't even think about this right away because we were just trying to get through, you know, how is this going to work? Can we do this long term? And then I somehow convinced you to read Way of Kings, which is honestly a hard sell for a lot of people because it's so long. And we chopped it up into 10 episodes because we were doing not chapter by chapter, but like, we, Divided it into segments so that we could focus on smaller parts of the story because there's so much going on. And I was thinking like, how do I throw Slava for A curveball at the end that's what I invited Spencer on I think I told you about it the day before or something.
It was like very short timing because I wanted it to be a surprise because I do enjoy surprising you even though you don't love surprises the same way that I love surprises We nailed it. We did it. We got Spencer came on, he had a good time So my number four is our first guest episode, I want to say it was episode 15 is my guess.
Um, ah, pretty close. Oh no, it was 15. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like looking at our old schedule here. at first I glanced at 14 and it was like the end chapters of way of Kings, but no guest episode was 15. I nailed it. Nice. And we did roadside picnic right after that 16.
I know I mentioned roadside picket a minute ago. That's episode 16 and 17. If you want to go listen to those, but yeah, that's my number four is first guest episode. again, your point about Spencer, like. Okay. Have just really enjoyed having him on. I've even pushed him to maybe even join as a long term co host, but we'll see about that.
Slava: Yeah. For rewards of radiance.
Jonathan: No, in general, I've, I've, uh,
Slava: Okay.
Jonathan: I
think, yeah, I didn't think you'd have a problem with it, I just think it'd be a lot of fun to have him on, I mean, we always enjoy having him on that extra voice, you know, that brings a difference, especially in, in things like when he was like, uh, told me. It would we do a couple episodes ago when he's like, yeah, I actually hated name of the wind.
And when you asked me to join you, I was like, well, I don't have the same opinion. I was like, that's perfect. Like, I don't want you to have the same opinion. I want you to bring the opinion you have because similar to, I tell people this about movies. Oh man, you got to see the latest thing. It's so good.
It's the best movie ever made. And you're like, yeah, but you liked this other dumb movie. So your opinion really doesn't hold any weight in terms of movies. And I think that this is where we've gone as a society, not to get too, uh, too in the weeds on this, but people just recommend something that they really enjoy because they want other people to enjoy it as well, which is not a bad thing.
That's not the issue here. The issue is that they don't know their friends well enough to recommend things that are good, that they will enjoy. Which is why, to the point earlier, you really enjoyed me liking it. And I really enjoyed you liking the Liza Locke Lamora because it's fun when your friends do like something that you like, because not everything that you like, they will like, because otherwise they wouldn't be your friend.
They would be you.
Slava: I know I've said this so many times, ad nauseum, I've mentioned this, my love for fantasy started and ended with Tolkien. And then when I read Warbreaker and then I read. Way of Kings, then read Lies of Locke Lamora not in that order. I was like, Oh, there are really good fantasy books outside of Grandfather Tolkien. you did well by selling them to me. I'm usually a little hard headed when it comes to some things.
The trust factor,
again,
a point, some things. Uh, the trust factor that comes with running a podcast, we talked about this in episode 99. I trusted you, I read it, and you have turned me into a Cosmerian, a baby Cosmerian at this point, but a Cosmerian, Nonetheless,
Jonathan: Well, you're, you're in for a nice ride. Uh, I saw Spencer on a Wednesday and we were talking about like, man, what's going to happen when the. When we reached the end of the Cosmere books and he, he responded with, well, we'll be old at that point, which is fair because we're only halfway through Stormlight Archives that released earlier this month and we don't.
Have the other five books on that and we don't have era three of Mistborn and we don't have a bunch of other stuff that We know that he's working on that. We don't know what he's working on.
And if you if you know that, you know,
Slava: I have an update for you on Mistborn. Mr. Sanderson, Brandon, did an interview recently, and said that the next Mistborn book is probably six years away. So, there you go.
Jonathan: oh, I know I'm aware so basically the gist of what's going on is he's just finished wind and truth, which is book five of the stormlight archives For those who don't know the stormlight archives is a ten book series with two main arcs You Main arc number one is books one through five main arc number two is books six through ten one of the reasons that he's so fleshed out in his writing is He write he's a chronic drafter and then he has beta readers and he has like basically chroniclers who help him Filter in and feed in to the story little snippets that seem like throwaway lines.
And so the reason that the next book for Era 3 Mistborn is six years away is because he is writing all three of those books first. And then he will start editing the first one because he wants a pretty fleshed out story. Because what happened in Mistborn Era 2, it was supposed to be, Mistborn was going to be a trilogy of trilogies.
So it was going to be three books, three books, three books. But, Mistborn Era 2, which is a western, bled over into a fourth book.
So it kind of ruined what he was doing originally, but it still feeds into like there being 16 books. I've can't remember all the details from the, from the, interview that I watched, he wants to not have that happen again, not that it was bad because we still got a lot of information, and it was a good story, but he wants to just make sure that he's.
His writing is more, uh, nipped in the bud, I guess we'll say, like, it's tidier, right? Like he, he knows what he's doing. And so he's writing all three of those books together. So that it, then it's honestly similar to how Tolkien wrote. He wrote all of Lord of the Rings. Together, Lord of the Rings, the two towers and the return of the king, that was all one book.
Originally, the publisher then chopped it into six books. And then eventually they're like, well, six books is too many. Let's just do, let's set them into two book, two book, two book. but he wrote the whole thing, start to finish. So he knew, and this, this is like really good for foreshadowing allowing your characters to develop is if you know where they're supposed to end.
Because you are, you've already developed that it's so much easier to revise. So anyway, that's me speaking for him based on the things that I know about him and, and, uh, the couple of interviews that I've seen, but yes, it's, uh, it's going to be a while until we get, more, big storyline Cosmere things.
but the thing is, Brandon has a, a line, maybe you've seen this in some of his interviews. He's like, there's always another secret.
Right.
So. He's released a bunch of secret projects lately, which is cool. He's not going to not release books in between the next six years. And he just has an inability to do that.
so what those are, I don't know what they will be, but he's not going to take six books or six years off of releasing books. I think that he already has books written like Nightblood. I bet he's, he's drafted Nightblood, which is Warbreaker's follow up just hasn't released it. And then he's got two people in his company who he has, bestowed the, authority to write Canon Cosmere books, Dan Wells and Isaac.
I can't remember Isaac's last name, but these people both work for him. And he's like, you're good enough writers that I will let you write a Cosmere book. And I wouldn't be surprised if they're series is
Slava: Hmm.
Jonathan: we have no information about either of them. In any interviews, and I bet that's for reasons, and I don't know if that's because they will happen later in the Cosmere timeline, or if they will happen in this break, right?
So, he's, he's always planning something.
Slava: Take note, Will White and Scott Lynch.
Jonathan: Okay, I just want to go on the record, like, that was him, not me.
Slava: But speaking of Warbreaker, that's your number three, right?
Jonathan: It is my number three. you keep looking at my notes, jerk. Yeah. My number three favorite moment of this podcast was pushing Casey, who was a new guest, so I didn't know if this was going to work out, similar to, to Locke and Jean, um, and this is kind of like a quote from book two. They're gamblers at heart.
And so I was just kind of taking a shot in the dark here of whether or not Casey would respond to my. pretty brash pushback on Warbreaker of his opinion of Vivenna and his, sheer lack of compassion for her. And I love, I love the way that he handled it. like, really, really enjoy when people can handle a little, a little prickly, prickly Jonathan. And, dive in, like, get, you know, tussle a little bit,
Slava: isn't that your gamer tag?
Jonathan: uh, tussle?
Slava: No, prickly Jonathan,
Jonathan: Um, no, that's not my gamertag. So I don't know who you're playing games with, but that ain't me. So, All those sweet nothings that you're getting whispered in here.
Slava: not you.
Jonathan: that's someone
else. It's probably that Nigerian Prince you keep playing games with and he wants you to send him money over to Africa.
Slava: Hey, I paid for his onsa surgery twice now.
Jonathan: Yeah. Didn't take the first two times. Probably not going to take the second time either, but yeah, Warbreaker was a, was a hot hit. What was it like for you on the episode? Listening to. that conversation with Casey Neistat.
Slava: Oh, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching it, listening to it and watching it. Cause we're all, you know, recording video, but put out audio. It doesn't matter. I enjoyed it a lot because I agreed with Casey, even though I came around later Spoiler alert, because I already said this once, so for the new listeners, spoiler alert, I really didn't hate Vivenna as much as I said I did, I hammed it up just because I wanted to annoy Jonathan, but I had the same complaints as Casey did about Vivenna, but I will admit that arc Is better one.
She fought for her arc for lack of a better term. And I do understand why she was the way she was. As much as I like Siri for the reasons I already said a thousand times, but watching you guys to answer your question, watching you guys was fun because I could see Casey straining and not in the sense that he didn't handle himself well, but I saw him strained to defend his position and you kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
And I thought that was, I thought that was a wonderful moment in the podcast because if you think about what we said in 99, some things are scripted that wasn't. But when you script a portion of your podcast and you say, Okay, even if you don't tell the other guests, well let's say, But it was sort of scripted, so you said, Alright, I'm gonna push Casey on this because it'll be a good conversation.
You took that gamble. And it paid off because it was a good conversation. And Casey wasn't offended at all that you pushed him.
Or
Jonathan: Yeah, he came back.
Slava: Yeah.
Jonathan: He came back. If you guys want to go listen to that, Warbreaker starts on episode 72. So you can go and enjoy that. If you're interested, but Slava, what's your number three? I, uh, I've taken a lot of time here. So what's your, what's your go to number three? Favorite moment from the show
Slava: Just like number five, it's a combination. You know. Cumulation?
What's
Jonathan: copulation.
Slava: No, no, no, no, no. It's cumulative. It's a cumulative. You okay there, buddy? you choking on your prickly johnson?
Jonathan: Wow. Okay. It's
fine.
Slava: of A bunch of events. But when these things happen, I enjoy them so much. It's when we get into Discussing which characters we resonate with, identify with, love, or hate. This goes back to the whole Vivenna Siri thing.
It goes back to Locke. The characters in it, when we had those discussions and we processed audibly which character I love, hate, resonate with, identify with, I think those conversations are more interesting than even some of the world building and some of the other segments we have about plot devices and all that stuff, that really gets into the meat of it, because you can discuss yourself, you can discuss the character, you can discuss the world, out of that flows Some of those segments because you can say, oh, see how Eddie does this, see how this is foreshadowed in Warbreaker, see how this is unpacked in Lies of La Clamora, and by this I mean insert any event where the character does something that you resonate with.
So when we do those deep dives. One of my favorite elements of a lot of the episodes. I love doing that
Jonathan: Yeah. That's a lot of fun. Um, I think that, um, and this, I think I've mentioned this, no, I definitely know I've mentioned this before is I am always thrilled at using literature to measure your own life because I think that there's just a lot, I don't think. I know that there's a lot of self to put it, both cheekily and in a true statement.
There's a lot of self in each of us that is untapped. frozen or, grayscale or not given time or energy or light that we just haven't experienced or tapped into, or even brought to light in a while to, to quote you of like, Oh, Hey, I've got to reawaken something. There's just parts of ourselves that we don't know about that honestly leave us less human than we are, invited into.
And it's, It's why I love reading books because there's parts of me that I haven't experienced yet. And, I read a, I think it was anonymous quote somewhere, you know, those little like fun quotes people give, that are like, so and so said this, whatever
Slava: on the Instagram.
Jonathan: No, I was, I was probably just on like actual quotes cause sometimes I hit those up.
It said something like, who reads books has lived a thousand lives and those who don't read books has only lived one. It was something like that. I saw it and I was like, yep, that is true. Because, and we've talked about this. I've been Linden, I've been yarin, I've been I've been, yes. The silver
spoon. Yes, yes, yes. I've been sson where I've been ignorant and people didn't tell me something and they, they hid knowledge from me. And I've been read where I thought I was doing something, but I was also kind of crazy. You know, I've been, Moriarty trying to discover the details of a crime per se and seeking it out.
Right? Like I've been these different people, both the good guys and the bad guys
throughout life.
Slava: sadist.
Jonathan: Well, most of them, I'm more tender than I am sadist anyway, but that's, you know, that's my little, I don't know if it's a tirade or a rant, what's the difference you tell me in the comments. Yeah. I love, I love that stuff about reading and discussing, you know, characters that you identify with and moments in stories like it.
it's a great way to connect, honestly, because connecting with humans is super important and it's also really difficult
Slava: Now it's interesting that my number two. Is your number three and listening to you argue with Casey about Ravenna was really fun for me. scripted versus unscripted moments where you're performing for a podcast.
And I said this in the previous episode, in episode 99, you have to. Work hard into creating an online public face and persona. And that's just part and parcel of any entertainment video, audio, radio, movies. When actors go on late night talk shows, there is a persona that you have to convey, you can't escape it, and some people are really good at scratch that, some people's private personas are so dynamic and charismatic that there's not a lot of work they have to do when they go in.
On a show or go anywhere,
but for the rest of us, we, maybe a lot of people would find Slava and Jonathan interesting, just having a beer with us and that's great, but when you're doing entertainment and. That's not me crawling up my own, but this is, any podcast is a form of entertainment.
You have to put on a bit of a show. And when you pull that out of the hat, I didn't see that coming. you orchestrated that. I thought it was a great moment for the podcast. It was great watching you push and Casey pushed back and then the back and forth. It was just fun to watch. It was a really good conversation.
It wasn't just, Oh, look, it's tension in the podcast, which is also great. The discussion that came from it was really good. I thought it went really well and I'm glad you did it.
Jonathan: Well, speaking of Spencer, he's my number two, I've replaced you.
Slava: Excellent.
Jonathan: Uh,
Slava: one.
Jonathan: um, know what? My wife doesn't listen to the podcast, so that's fine. That's that's fine. But, uh, no, my number two is Spencer doing the podcast takeover watching him step into a role of leading the discussion, especially having to hone us in a little bit, because we could be, full of ruckus and. pretty wild at times and watching him just go, okay, it's going to be a two episode thing. This is the book that I want to go over. Here's how I want to run it. And just seeing him, blossom just sounds too flowery, but like grow into and step into, a leader role because compared to the first episode he was on when he was on way of Kings and he was like, well, I don't want to talk over you guys and, and things like that.
And it's like, No, I want you to talk over us. It's, it's just kind of like, what's going to happen here. it's almost like watching Linden grow up a little bit where you're like, apologies, gratitude. And you're like, Hey, you're powerful now. So how about you be powerful? but I just really loved having him on the, on the podcast for the podcast takeover, sharing one of his favorite books that, to the point about it, that you talked about where you read it another two times.
I think he's read Project Hail Mary another two times since we read it. Together because
Slava: awesome.
Jonathan: his favorite books.
Slava: that brings us to number one, because Project Hail Mary for us was a new book altogether. And for me, the number one thing on this journey of ours is discovering new fantasy, specifically the Cosmere and Lies of Laclamora. I left over Name of the Wind because as good as it was, it wasn't as mind blowing as those two books.
Jonathan: No, right, right. the thing is it's different. It's actually quite unique. I would actually categorize name of the wind in a similar storytelling bucket as roadside picnic, because I have not ever read a story that was written, in present and past and just weaving in and in between the two of them.
And so like, there's a lot of unique things that. Name of the Wind deserves credit for, but I can understand why it wouldn't make your discovering new fantasy list, even though I know that you enjoyed it, and you didn't read book two yet, right?
Slava: I've started it, but it was a little dense, and I realized for me to truly get into it, I have to save it for a read in preparation for an episode,
Jonathan: Yeah, the world expands, in book two. I definitely understand the reason it's not on your discovering new fantasy list here. It does deserve its own honorable mention because of the organization of how the story is told. Like we know the ending of the story. And sure, other people have done that, but they haven't done it in this way.
a hundred percent credit to Rothfuss. It's a story that's a trilogy written over three days, present and past. And you already know the ending from the beginning. we'll just want to make sure that there's an audible mention for him there. But you know, you know that I love the Cosmere, you know, that I love Liza Locke Lamora and yeah, I've, I've just been laboring my, my love for these fantasy authors.
So, That's a great number one.
Slava: Well, let's stop belaboring. And move on, keep going if you will, to your number one.
Jonathan: my number one is actually not a book at all. One of my favorite moments is simply that we can record. An episode and like have bad episodes and fully throw that out. I'm thinking specifically just after we recorded variable man from Philip K. Dick, who, you know, is the first time we mentioned him this episode, but it was supposed to be episode 21, just after we read do androids dream of electric sheep. But. oh, and I forgot to mention this earlier, but Project Calamari, if you want to go listen to Spencer leading us through that project, Calamari is episode somewhere. Oh, it's 97. We just did it. It's a, you just released a few sessions ago.
So if you're here, you probably heard it. but episode 21 was supposed to be this episode of what is real, but we scrapped it because it was so bad. it was. Literally off brand. And it was, it was, I guess, a defining moment where it's like, can we do something so horrible after we've started?
Because we definitely, we've, you guys have heard us. We recorded name of the wind. We threw that out. We recorded warbreaker. We threw that out. We read warbreaker again. We threw it out again. Like. And then now, now we have it in the episode 70s, but we had to throw stuff out before we started publishing.
And so having to throw an episode out after you start publishing is a difficult thing. I will toot our own horn. It's hard to go, Hey, I know that we spent seven hours between recording, editing, listening, talking about it, prepping for it and going, no, we, no. I'm fine putting out garbage sometimes in the sense of like, Hey, it wasn't our favorite episode or like we could do these better, but it's literally just off brand.
It's just
not,
Slava: Yeah,
Jonathan: it's not it.
Slava: this goes back to my comments in episode 99, you have to put out something, even if it's quote unquote bad, you have to start somewhere. It's okay to put out B work, because B's still passing and passing well, but if it's a fail, That's when you redo it. And that episode was a complete failure and I'm glad we threw it out.
Cause as soon as we hit stop record, you're like, so that's not going out. And I was like, oh hell no, it's never going out. That was garbage. And it's not even the fact that we didn't know what we were talking about. It was because we were ill prepared and we went so far into the stratosphere. into philosophical and ethical and metaphysical discussions that some of it was probably not well informed,
Jonathan: Most of it,
Slava: whatever. Some of it, half of it, most of it was probably not well informed because we're still lay people when it comes to those topics. But the biggest failure Was so off brand coupled with the ignorant part of it went beyond F This was just like you're expelled from school. You did so bad that you can't come back to school that's why we decided to to scrap it,
Jonathan: Yes, we did. But those are our top five favorite moments from the last 99 episodes. Cause this is episode 100 we want to know like, what are your top moments? We definitely see what the top moments are for downloads. Hit us up Instagram. The poorly run TikTok because it's my fault. I want to know, did you really enjoy something that we didn't mention?
is there a guest you want to see back? I know that Debra is one of the guests that she wants to come back for Lord of the Rings. that's, three books that are all very heavy as well, and it's something we'd like to do, you know, there's so many books to, to my point earlier about, um, even just roadside picnic.
There's so many books that we'd like to cover. It, just takes time.
Slava: Is there a guest that you don't want to come back?
Like Casey, maybe
for his unwanted hatred of Ravenna or
Jonathan: well, she's coming back in Stormlight Archives under a different name, so
Slava: Nice.
Jonathan: ready for that.
Slava: No, I'm kidding.
Maybe,
Jonathan: I'm not. She is coming back. Also, I'm expelling you from the podcast. getting Spencer in to be my co host is just step one in my plan.
Slava: uh, treachery within treachery.
Jonathan: Yeah. Then you and Matt can go do your full send podcast of the dark side and we can have the light side and then it'll be a side quest clash.
Slava: Well, treachery within treachery is a Dune reference, but point taken.
Jonathan: It's all sci fi to me, but it's New Year's Eve guys. This is launching on New Year's Eve. 2024 has come to an end. And so I have a hard hitting question for you, for Slava, of all the books that we've looked at so far in 100 episodes. If you had the opportunity, where would you visit for holiday? Christmas, New Year's Eve, whatever. Halloween, Easter. What's your, what's your go to place? Mine would be a study in Emerald because I would love to just stroll down a boat side town and have just a couple tentacles reaching out or a portal open up and these just weird, Maddening creatures come out and snatch someone from the local pub and then have to go and investigate a crime in, uh, H.
P. Lovecraft meets Sherlock Holmes world. That's where I'd like to spend my, holiday. about you, Slava?
Slava: Well, I guess we both have a love for water I would visit the city of Camorra from Lies of Locke Lamora. Check out the nightlife, maybe catch a show, take a ride on a gondola, Rob the bourgeoisie and. Use the booty to gamble. Pretty fun weekend for me.
Jonathan: Well, gambling will happen in, uh, Tar Varal in book two. So hopefully you saved your couple of coins that they were able to escape with to, put a few pence down on the sins buyer
Slava: Well, you know what? There's always bourgeoisie to rob, so I'm good.
Jonathan: there are in every town. let me just tell you, they don't enjoy being robbed, especially when you're doing it honestly in front of them and telling them the whole time, is kind of what happens in book two.
Slava: That's great. Well, what's the next leg of the journey look like for us, Jonathan? The next hundred episodes.
Jonathan: Uh, well, the next hundred episodes, you could say, if you were going to be really simple, it's more books, more guests, more fun. we want to take the podcast to the end, the end of all podcasts, to quote Ethan. but to do that, we need to do with friends, similar to what you mentioned to us earlier.
And that's you guys. So in the next hundred episodes, we want to be more focused and more open to change the podcast in ways that you do and don't like, we want to make sure that we do less of what you don't like and more of what you do like, But that means we value your in, your input. We need to hear from you. We want to know what is working, what isn't working. We're super excited to do our first couple audience suggestion books. Finally, that's going to be exciting. we want to know, Should we just do hard fantasy? Should we just do speculative fiction?
Should we just make this a horror podcast? That's really what you guys want to hear. What is it? What are the things that you guys want to have us go over? We've even talked about, and Slava can tell you a little more about this, is reading popular books that became blockbusters.
Slava: One of my ideas is to read books like Jurassic Park, The Firm, Godfather, things that are in the zeitgeist because of the movies. There is a subsection of the population that really loves Crichton and John Grissom, Jurassic Park and The Firm, respectively.
And they've been made into movies because of their popularity, sometimes. Sometimes a guy reads it and goes, hey, this would make a good movie. And he has the ability to push it into the conveyor belt of Hollywood and make it into a movie. But. We won't touch the movie necessarily, but just read the book standalone, as we have with the book so far and discuss what we discussed about the Cosmere or Warbreaker or it, whatever the book it is, apply the same framework that we have to those books.
But apply them to the stand alone books that were around in the 80s and 90s that got made into blockbuster movies and see what the book is all about. That's one of my ideas. And if you guys like that idea, comments, Instagram, DM us. We'd love to hear from you.
Jonathan: Also, Slava has talked about doing an anime offshoot where he does a, a watch, uh, a watch through or a
reaction. Let's watch.
or a reaction video, possibly with some of the guests from cradle. If you want to see that definitely drop it in the comments, or if you want to see a younger Jonathan watching anime, doing let's watches, if you comment anime, we will respond.
And I will shoot you a secret link to where those videos live. and you can read all of the hate comments and see whether or not I've changed between then and now show
Slava: And for that anime idea, that would be in addition to what we're putting out. This would not take over SideQuest. The way I brought it to the team is one of the other guests, all of them love anime. One of the other guests and I would do a recording, a let's watch, respond to the anime as it's playing.
And you guys would. Would have to either own the anime or get it on whatever platform we're watching it on either be Apple TV or Amazon, because that's what I watch, you would play it. It started off like, Hey, 3, 2, 1, we're starting to watch Gungrave or whatever.
Try gun as two examples. And then you would watch it with us and listen to us react. That's an idea for a second. second show,
but it would drop under the umbrella of side quest If you guys want that let us know I really want that
Jonathan: and it wouldn't be an episode. If we don't jab at each other one more time before we call it a day. So I came up with a question, which is not really a question. It's more of like, uh, I'm accusing you of something. and that's what character are you most like from all the books that we've read so far?
And I have said that Slava is like lock. He's always got a scheme. He's constantly trying to steal from other people. He has kind of a small band of, but he's loyal to them. And he's also reluctant in his priestly duties. the nameless 13th, if you will. And he's got a language that you could lick a horse's ass with.
Slava: Yes, I I would say that I am clever and adaptable and I have a knack for strategy
Jonathan: Well, that's what you would say.
Slava: this is my character for you. You'd be Kaladin, because at parts in your life you have been very morose, you have escaped your moroseness,
Jonathan: and death.
Slava: and
achieved great things. But, you like walking around in loincloths and complaining about the past.
Jonathan: Do you think do you think okay? I just sorry do you think Kaladin walks around in a loincloth?
Slava: his ragged clothes while he's a bridgeman. barely covering anything.
Jonathan: I don't know what book you read
Slava: I imagine him in a loincloth.
Jonathan: That's right. You imagined him there. That is a different statement. That is a different 100 percent a different statement than he walks around in a loincloth. Sanderson's just like, And then, Kaladin walked out of the barracks wearing nothing but his loincloth.
Ehehehe.
Slava: I don't make the hee hee sounds, but
I did
Jonathan: No, that was me being Brandon Sanderson. Yes.
Slava: Heh heh.
Jonathan: Yes, Bridgman clothes are poor clothing, but he's not wearing a loincloth. Wait, this isn't Tarzan.
Slava: Well,
Jonathan: And there we have it. Lock at it again with bad analogies and poor followups.
Slava: I have to say, it took us over an hour to devolve. it's about 12 minutes. So we've, uh, we've done good
on
this one.
Jonathan: got averages in a spreadsheet somewhere? I
don't know about,
Slava: As for episode 200, how
quickly do we devolve into insanity on SideQuest?
Jonathan: Hope you guys like them. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us guys. But before you vanish back to reality, drop us a quick review on your favorite platform It helps keep our quest alive and helps other book adventurers find their way home. Here. Here is home. Home is here. You're home now. You, we are your home.
Slava and I are your
Slava: Forever and ever.
and ever.
But you should also take a moment to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your book loving friends, we'll see you next time on SideQuest.