This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Molly Tanzer, author of And Side by Side They Wander.

About And Side by Side They Wander: For three hundred years, humanity’s greatest works of art have been on loan at the Greenwood Museum. It was finally time for them to come home…but the alien curators were disinclined to return them.

Force was out of the question. Earth’s government was clear: They were not going to press the issue. So, all we had was guile and hubris to fuel our little intergalactic art heist.

My old friend Tarquin was our leader, but not the captain. That was Tchik-tchik, though whether Tchik-tchik was our insectoid pilot’s name or species is still unclear to me. Misora, with her extremely illegal biotech mods, was our muscle.

Jack was there to hack the security systems of the biggest museum in the galaxy. He was a sensynth, a sentient synthetic being, and the most powerful machine intelligence on Earth uncorrupted by alien technology.

My name is Fennel Tycho. I’d like to tell you I was there because of my expertise in Art History. Truth is, I was there because without me, Jack would not have agreed to go. He was notorious for being difficult to work with—but it was a mistake to think I could make things any easier.

About Molly Tanzer: Molly Tanzer is the author of five novels, two collections, and many works of short fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Locus Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Wonderland Book Award, and her official revival of the sword and sorcery heroine Jirel of Joiry has been nominated for the Robert E. Howard Society’s Costigan Award. Her novel Creatures of Charm and Hunger won the Colorado Book Award in 2021, and her work adapting manga for English-speaking audiences has been nominated for the American Manga Awards. This May, her novella And Side by Side They Wander will be published by Tordotcom. She lives close to Boulder, CO with her many houseplants.

This week’s picks:

Links:

© 2026 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 699-With Molly Tanzer appeared first on The Functional Nerds.