August 19, 2025 • 6 mins
We are still on break, but we wanted to share a behind-the-scenes conversation we had about new segments and ideas we had for the podcast. Tune in and share your thoughts and feedback. See you soon!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jonathan (00:00):
Slava, we wanna grow the podcast. We do. I've been
thinking about this this week. Iknow that we've gone back and
forth on how we could add to theshow. But what if instead of
adding to the show, we just dida second show that was shorter?
Slava (00:14):
I like the idea. I've thought about this, and we've
talked about this. How do we getan extra episode a week or an
extra episode a month to getsomething a little bit off the
beaten path, to use my favoriteterm, to the audience.
Jonathan (00:31):
Sorry. Your wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Sorry. Your favorite term? Yourfavorite phrase is okay. Off the
beaten path? That's yourfavorite phrase?
Slava (00:40):
Yeah. I've used it or a variation of it when describing
stories that a little bit weirdare not mainstream. I've used
that term extensively or avariation of it.
Jonathan (00:51):
Oh, alright. It must be because we were recording
earlier, and and you mentionedbeating people off.
Slava (00:56):
So I've just continue. We could do a segment once a month
where we play the plagiarismpolice.
Jonathan (01:04):
We just try and out people in Twitter threads?
Slava (01:07):
Yeah. Yeah. Just say, hey. This is suspiciously
similar to a book I wrote. Whatif we
Jonathan (01:12):
what if we just read fan bad fan fiction?
Slava (01:15):
As long as there's nobody having sex with dragons, I'm
okay.
Jonathan (01:19):
That's not fan fiction. That's a
Slava (01:20):
real book, buddy. No. Wait a minute.
Jonathan (01:23):
That's a real book.
Slava (01:24):
Maybe it's maybe I wrote a book.
Jonathan (01:26):
I I've actually thought about asking you to read
I don't know if there's sex inthis book. A Court of Rose and
Thorns, which is, like, superpopular by Sarah J Maas. Sounds
like there might be at least
Slava (01:39):
some making out in that book.
Jonathan (01:40):
It's something. Yeah. But it's it's wildly popular.
Two guys commenting on romantasygenre. I don't even know if it's
technically romantasy, but basedon the, like, TikToks I've seen
about it, it Mhmm.
Strikes me as romantasy. But Iknow that you would hate that,
which is kinda why I wanna doit. So Well, if
Slava (02:00):
you wanna torture me in response and some sort of
revenge tactic against me makingyou read the city in the city, I
guess I'm okay.
Jonathan (02:10):
It's not a single book, though. It's a series. I
read a lot of series. You youshould know this by now. I don't
read like one offs.
What I want, is more Stragotskybrothers. That's what they
really want.
Slava (02:21):
We can do that. We've had to find English translations of
them.
Jonathan (02:24):
I'm sure there are. I thought you said they only wrote
one book.
Slava (02:27):
They wrote a couple of books. Only one got translated
into English from myunderstanding.
Jonathan (02:32):
Oh, interesting. Alright. But back to how do we I
don't think either of ourschedules can can maintain,
like, doing a an additionalepisode a week, but I think we
could do, like, an episode amonth.
Slava (02:45):
We can name it Jonathan's emotional weather report. You
you give us, you know, a thirtyminute monologue describing your
mental state using onlymetaphors and wild imagery,
cursed analogues, cursedanalogies.
Jonathan (02:59):
Mhmm.
Slava (03:00):
Whatever. Yeah. I'm sure people would love ramble on
Jonathan (03:02):
Actually, my my wife continues to razz me, and she'll
just like, you know, have youheard small dog syndrome?
Slava (03:09):
Yeah. I think so.
Jonathan (03:10):
Anyway, my wife's shorter than me, and so she'll
just, like, do things to try toget me going, get me riled
Slava (03:17):
up. Yeah.
Jonathan (03:17):
And she's like, I do that because you're too stoic.
Thanks, babe. Appreciate that.So I I do that enough. I'm I'm
good.
Next idea. What's your nextidea? We should oh, we could
read children's books.
Slava (03:31):
Only if they're dark German children's books.
Jonathan (03:34):
I'm actually would love that. But I was thinking we
could read children's books, youcould just add the add the word
to them. I will not eat it, SamI am. I will not eat these grain
eggs and hams.
Slava (03:44):
Oh, says poover. Instead of a bother.
Jonathan (03:47):
Oh, bother. That's I don't think that that'll go over
well. I do think that theGermanic folklore would be fun
though. Fairy tales or original,yeah. Original folklore.
Mythology would be fun too. Iknow we've talked about that.
Slava (04:00):
From different parts of the world. I like Japan. Their
stuff is jarring.
Jonathan (04:04):
Japan's got the oh, man. Their stuff's awesome.
There's actually a lot ofunknown folklore and mythology
from Africa that I did, like, aa world mythology course on
Audible years ago.
Slava (04:18):
Boys trip? What? Boys trip to Africa? Maybe. Make our
own folklore?
Yeah.
Jonathan (04:26):
But it was really, really fascinating. It it it
resembled actually quite a bitof Norse mythology.
Slava (04:32):
Interesting.
Jonathan (04:32):
Yeah. It was super interesting. One of the ideas we
got. All of these seem like waymore time commitment than you
and I have currently.
Slava (04:40):
Yeah. And some of them are just silly. But I think if
we're being serious, we can doshort stories. Once a month,
pick a short story and dissectit with we really don't do fine
tooth combs, but we do dissectin some degree stories.
Jonathan (04:56):
Sandbox. We we Yeah. It's like each story is a
sandbox, and we kinda go diggingfor treasure.
Slava (05:02):
Very good analogy. So we do that with short stories, and
I propose to you we do a seriesof authors. So you like doing
series. So we've done StephenKing two years ago for spooky
October. This new season, we doNeil Gaiman short stories or
pick your author short story.
(05:23):
Somebody who's known to be ashort story writer
Jonathan (05:26):
I've got an idea. Discover them. I got an idea.
Let's not do big name authors.Let's do independent authors.
Because
Slava (05:33):
Okay.
Jonathan (05:34):
It although you and I audible a lot of things, you
know, we we wanna have moreguests on the show. We could
solve two birds with one stone.So if we do independent authors
and read their stuff the thingis, I don't know if it can be
just short stories. I propose wedo just independent authors, and
we bring them on the show afterwe've read their book.
Slava (05:53):
We can do that. I'm done with that. And have they written
a short story?
Jonathan (05:57):
Yeah. It could be it can it can be a short story, but
independent authors as a as,like, the next show.
Slava (06:04):
Alright. Well, audience, if you know any independent
authors, if you are anindependent author, Instagram is
still the best way to get us.YouTube as well. You can do
YouTube, But I'm constantly onInstagram, so it's more
accessible. But either place isgood.
YouTube or Instagram is theplace to write us a message.
Give us some books to read.
Jonathan (06:24):
Yes. Alright. Let's do it. That's the that's the new
segment. I don't know when it'llcome out, but I think that
that's the direction we
Slava (06:30):
can move toward. Well, that sounds good. We'll have one
or two more announcements comingup as we move into our new
season, and that's about it,guys. See you
Jonathan (06:41):
on the next SideQuest book club. Give us your stories.
Slava, we wanna grow the podcast. We do. I've been
thinking about this this week. Iknow that we've gone back and
forth on how we could add to theshow. But what if instead of
adding to the show, we just dida second show that was shorter?
Slava (00:14):
I like the idea. I've thought about this, and we've
talked about this. How do we getan extra episode a week or an
extra episode a month to getsomething a little bit off the
beaten path, to use my favoriteterm, to the audience.
Jonathan (00:31):
Sorry. Your wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Sorry. Your favorite term? Yourfavorite phrase is okay. Off the
beaten path? That's yourfavorite phrase?
Slava (00:40):
Yeah. I've used it or a variation of it when describing
stories that a little bit weirdare not mainstream. I've used
that term extensively or avariation of it.
Jonathan (00:51):
Oh, alright. It must be because we were recording
earlier, and and you mentionedbeating people off.
Slava (00:56):
So I've just continue. We could do a segment once a month
where we play the plagiarismpolice.
Jonathan (01:04):
We just try and out people in Twitter threads?
Slava (01:07):
Yeah. Yeah. Just say, hey. This is suspiciously
similar to a book I wrote. Whatif we
Jonathan (01:12):
what if we just read fan bad fan fiction?
Slava (01:15):
As long as there's nobody having sex with dragons, I'm
okay.
Jonathan (01:19):
That's not fan fiction. That's a
Slava (01:20):
real book, buddy. No. Wait a minute.
Jonathan (01:23):
That's a real book.
Slava (01:24):
Maybe it's maybe I wrote a book.
Jonathan (01:26):
I I've actually thought about asking you to read
I don't know if there's sex inthis book. A Court of Rose and
Thorns, which is, like, superpopular by Sarah J Maas. Sounds
like there might be at least
Slava (01:39):
some making out in that book.
Jonathan (01:40):
It's something. Yeah. But it's it's wildly popular.
Two guys commenting on romantasygenre. I don't even know if it's
technically romantasy, but basedon the, like, TikToks I've seen
about it, it Mhmm.
Strikes me as romantasy. But Iknow that you would hate that,
which is kinda why I wanna doit. So Well, if
Slava (02:00):
you wanna torture me in response and some sort of
revenge tactic against me makingyou read the city in the city, I
guess I'm okay.
Jonathan (02:10):
It's not a single book, though. It's a series. I
read a lot of series. You youshould know this by now. I don't
read like one offs.
What I want, is more Stragotskybrothers. That's what they
really want.
Slava (02:21):
We can do that. We've had to find English translations of
them.
Jonathan (02:24):
I'm sure there are. I thought you said they only wrote
one book.
Slava (02:27):
They wrote a couple of books. Only one got translated
into English from myunderstanding.
Jonathan (02:32):
Oh, interesting. Alright. But back to how do we I
don't think either of ourschedules can can maintain,
like, doing a an additionalepisode a week, but I think we
could do, like, an episode amonth.
Slava (02:45):
We can name it Jonathan's emotional weather report. You
you give us, you know, a thirtyminute monologue describing your
mental state using onlymetaphors and wild imagery,
cursed analogues, cursedanalogies.
Jonathan (02:59):
Mhmm.
Slava (03:00):
Whatever. Yeah. I'm sure people would love ramble on
Jonathan (03:02):
Actually, my my wife continues to razz me, and she'll
just like, you know, have youheard small dog syndrome?
Slava (03:09):
Yeah. I think so.
Jonathan (03:10):
Anyway, my wife's shorter than me, and so she'll
just, like, do things to try toget me going, get me riled
Slava (03:17):
up. Yeah.
Jonathan (03:17):
And she's like, I do that because you're too stoic.
Thanks, babe. Appreciate that.So I I do that enough. I'm I'm
good.
Next idea. What's your nextidea? We should oh, we could
read children's books.
Slava (03:31):
Only if they're dark German children's books.
Jonathan (03:34):
I'm actually would love that. But I was thinking we
could read children's books, youcould just add the add the word
to them. I will not eat it, SamI am. I will not eat these grain
eggs and hams.
Slava (03:44):
Oh, says poover. Instead of a bother.
Jonathan (03:47):
Oh, bother. That's I don't think that that'll go over
well. I do think that theGermanic folklore would be fun
though. Fairy tales or original,yeah. Original folklore.
Mythology would be fun too. Iknow we've talked about that.
Slava (04:00):
From different parts of the world. I like Japan. Their
stuff is jarring.
Jonathan (04:04):
Japan's got the oh, man. Their stuff's awesome.
There's actually a lot ofunknown folklore and mythology
from Africa that I did, like, aa world mythology course on
Audible years ago.
Slava (04:18):
Boys trip? What? Boys trip to Africa? Maybe. Make our
own folklore?
Yeah.
Jonathan (04:26):
But it was really, really fascinating. It it it
resembled actually quite a bitof Norse mythology.
Slava (04:32):
Interesting.
Jonathan (04:32):
Yeah. It was super interesting. One of the ideas we
got. All of these seem like waymore time commitment than you
and I have currently.
Slava (04:40):
Yeah. And some of them are just silly. But I think if
we're being serious, we can doshort stories. Once a month,
pick a short story and dissectit with we really don't do fine
tooth combs, but we do dissectin some degree stories.
Jonathan (04:56):
Sandbox. We we Yeah. It's like each story is a
sandbox, and we kinda go diggingfor treasure.
Slava (05:02):
Very good analogy. So we do that with short stories, and
I propose to you we do a seriesof authors. So you like doing
series. So we've done StephenKing two years ago for spooky
October. This new season, we doNeil Gaiman short stories or
pick your author short story.
(05:23):
Somebody who's known to be ashort story writer
Jonathan (05:26):
I've got an idea. Discover them. I got an idea.
Let's not do big name authors.Let's do independent authors.
Because
Slava (05:33):
Okay.
Jonathan (05:34):
It although you and I audible a lot of things, you
know, we we wanna have moreguests on the show. We could
solve two birds with one stone.So if we do independent authors
and read their stuff the thingis, I don't know if it can be
just short stories. I propose wedo just independent authors, and
we bring them on the show afterwe've read their book.
Slava (05:53):
We can do that. I'm done with that. And have they written
a short story?
Jonathan (05:57):
Yeah. It could be it can it can be a short story, but
independent authors as a as,like, the next show.
Slava (06:04):
Alright. Well, audience, if you know any independent
authors, if you are anindependent author, Instagram is
still the best way to get us.YouTube as well. You can do
YouTube, But I'm constantly onInstagram, so it's more
accessible. But either place isgood.
YouTube or Instagram is theplace to write us a message.
Give us some books to read.
Jonathan (06:24):
Yes. Alright. Let's do it. That's the that's the new
segment. I don't know when it'llcome out, but I think that
that's the direction we
Slava (06:30):
can move toward. Well, that sounds good. We'll have one
or two more announcements comingup as we move into our new
season, and that's about it,guys. See you
Jonathan (06:41):
on the next SideQuest book club. Give us your stories.
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