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 names in science fiction and fantasy novels.

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-empowered, humanlike “Dragaerans.” He is a guest of honor for Convolution 2012. Our first all-Stev/phen podcast!

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.

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 fourth consecutive Hugo award. He has also been nominated, in the “Best Related” category, for the podcast “Writing Excuses“, with Mary Robinette Kowal, Brandon Sanderson, and Dan Wells.

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 blend of science-based horror, with an emphasis on biology. He also broke new ground by pioneering the genre of science fiction sports. Up front about his goal to become an evil world dictator, or future dark overlord, he plans world domination from his apartment in San Francisco, California. His latest novel,  Nocturnal, is already available for preorder on scottsigler.com. He will be a featured guest at Convolution.

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.

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 Stranger Tides, Declare, Three Days To Never, and his forthcoming novel Hide Me Among the Graves. Stephen interviewed Powers for WorldCon 2011, AKA Renovation.

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.

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 second-worst idea ever, Sherlock Holmes, and things, for which he has a tremendous fondness.

Links:

Chris’ Hugo acceptance speech on BoingBoing

YouTube snippet of acceptance speech (via Ric Bretschneider)

Computer History Museum

The Drink Tank

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 terrifying anomaly.

Our footnotes:

The I-Mockery.Com Holiday Special summary, with pictures!

Feast of Fun interview with Bruce Vilanch

RiffTrax