In episode 322 of the Functional Nerds Podcast, Patrick Hester and John Anealio welcome back Alan Smale, author of CLASH OF EAGLES, EAGLE IN EXILE and EAGLE AND EMPIRE.

About Alan: Alan Smale has been writing fiction since he was twelve years old, when he elected to stay inside during school breaktimes to pen stories about intrepid men of action rather than risk going outside to get beaten up by the school terror squads. His novels, “Blood in the Snow” and “Camp Noah”, were deservedly left behind at his parents’ house in Leeds, England when he emigrated to the U.S. in 1988.

His first published story, a penetrating study of dragons, heroism, precocious behavior and bad breath, appeared in the Harcourt Brace young adult anthology “A Wizard’s Dozen” in 1993. Since then, nearly forty of Alan’s short stories have appeared in professional and small press markets including “Asimov’s Science Fiction”, “Realms of Fantasy” (six times), Alan atWorldcon “Abyss & Apex” (twice), novella anthologies “Panverse One” and “Panverse Two”,”Apollo’s Daughters”, “Writers of the Future #13,” “A Nightmare’s Dozen”, “Paradox”, “Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine”, “Adventures of Sword and Sorcery”, the Meisha Merlin original anthology “Low Port”, edited by Lee and Miller, and the revised edition of “Book of Dead Things”, edited by Jens and Cherry. Audio versions of two of his stories have appeared on “Podcastle” (#101) and “Pseudopod” (#190). In 2011 Alan won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for his “Panverse Two” novella, “A Clash of Eagles”, and he has also received call-outs in Locus’s Recommended Reading Lists and many Honorable Mentions in best-of-year anthologies. His first novel, CLASH OF EAGLES, set in the same universe as his Sidewise novella, appeared from Del Rey in March of 2015, with sequels in 2016 and 2017.

Alan grew up in Leeds, Yorkshire, and received a B.A. in Physics and a doctorate in Astrophysics from Oxford University (St Edmund Hall). He became an American citizen just before July 4th, 2000, but regretfully still can’t quite do the accent. He’s awfully sorry about that.

This week’s picks:

* Alan: Radiate (The Lightless Trilogy) by C.A. Higgins

* John: The Alloy of Law: A Mistborn Novel by Brandon Sanderson

* Patrick: Rick and Morty

Links:

* Alan Smale on Twitter

* Alan and The Chromatics

* Music included in this podcast provided by Alan Smale

* John Anealio on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

* Patrick’s New Book: