The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas, Co-Publishers/Co-Editors-in-Chief of UNCANNY MAGAZINE.

About Uncanny Magazine Year 11: This One Goes to ELEVEN: Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas have run Kickstarters for the seven-time Hugo Award-winning and 2024 Locus Award-winning Uncanny Magazine Years One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten. We promised to bring you stunning cover art, passionate science fiction and fantasy fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, and provocative nonfiction by writers from every conceivable background. Not to mention a fantastic award-winning podcast featuring exclusive content.

Through the hard work of our exceptional staff and contributors, Uncanny Magazine delivered on that promise every single year. Stories from Uncanny Magazine have been finalists or winners of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards!

The Space Unicorn Ranger Corps, our name for the Uncanny Magazine community, made it possible for our remarkable staff and contributors to create this wonderful art for all of our readers via the web or as eBooks. THANK YOU, SPACE UNICORNS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to join or re-up with the Space Unicorn Ranger Corps, now’s your chance! We need your help to continue this mission for another year. This is your magazine, Space Unicorns! Let’s make Year 11 happen!

About Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas: Lynne is the ten-time Hugo, British Fantasy, and Parsec Award-winning co-publisher and co-editor-in-chief of Uncanny Magazine, with her husband, Michael Damian Thomas. In this editorial role, they have also been finalists seven times for the World Fantasy Award. She was the co-editor of the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords (2010) with Tara O’Shea, and the Hugo Award-finalist Chicks Dig Comics (2012) with Sigrid Ellis. Along with the Geek Girl Chronicles book series, Lynne was the former Editor-in-Chief (2011-2013) of the Hugo Award-finalist Apex Magazine. She moderated the Hugo Award-winning SF Squeecast, a monthly podcast (with Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Michael Damian Thomas, and Catherynne M. Valente) in which a group of SF/F professionals got excited about stuff they liked, and she currently contributes to the Parsec Award-winning Verity! podcast (with Erika Ensign, L.M. Myles, Katrina Griffiths, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Deborah Stanish), where a bunch of smart women talk about Doctor Who.

Lynne M. Thomas is the Head of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the former Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University, where she was responsible for popular culture special collections that include the literary papers of nearly 70 SF/F authors.

Michael Damian Thomas is the seven-time Hugo, British Fabtasy, and Parsec Award-winning co-publisher and co-editor-in-chief of Uncanny Magazine with his wife, Lynne M. Thomas. In this editorial role, they have also been finalists seven times for the World Fantasy Award. Michael was a Hugo Award finalist as the former Managing Editor of Apex Magazine (2012-2013), co-edited the Hugo Award finalist essay anthology Queers Dig Time Lords (Mad Norwegian Press, 2013) with Sigrid Ellis, and co-edited the anthology Glitter & Mayhem (Apex Publications, 2013) with John Klima and Lynne M. Thomas. Michael was additionally a contributor to the SF Squeecast podcast (with Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Lynne M. Thomas, and Catherynne M. Valente) and was a contributor to the Down and Safe- Blake’s 7 podcast (with Amal El-Mohtar, Scott Lynch, and L.M. Myles).

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 630-With Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas from Uncanny Magazine appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Audrey Burges, author of A House Like An Accordion.

About A House Like An Accordion: Keryth Miller is disappearing.

Between the growing distance from her husband, the demands of two teenage daughters, and an all-encompassing burnout, she sometimes feels herself fading away. Actual translucence, though—that’s new. When Keryth wakes up one morning with her hand completely gone, she is frantic. But she quickly realizes two things: If she is disappearing, it’s because her father, an artist with the otherworldly ability to literally capture life in his art, is drawing her. And if he’s drawing her, that means he’s still alive.

But where has he been for the past twenty-five years, and why is he doing the one thing he always warned her not to? Never draw from life, Keryth. Every line exacts a cost. As Keryth continues to slowly fade away, she retraces what she believes to be her father’s last steps through the many homes of her past, determined to find him before it’s too late and she disappears entirely.

About Audrey Burges: Audrey writes novels, humor, satire, and essays in Richmond, Virginia. Her debut novel, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone, was released January 24, 2023, by Berkley/PRH. Her second novel, A House Like an Accordion, was released in May 2024 by Ace/PRH.

Audrey is a frequent contributor to McSweeney’s and The New Yorker, and her stories have also appeared in Pithead Chapel, Cease, Cows, Lost Balloon, Into the Void, and numerous other outlets. Her work has been longlisted for the 2022 Wigleaf Top 50. Two of her stories placed in the 2020 Pen Parentis Fellowship, and one received a Juror’s Prize.

When Audrey isn’t writing, she’s being tolerated by her two rambunctious children and very patient husband.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 629-With Audrey Burges appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Josh Malerman, author of Incidents Around the House.

About Incidents Around the House: To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”

When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.

Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.

But Other Mommy needs an answer.

About Josh Malerman: Josh Malerman is a New York Times best selling author and one of two singer/songwriters for the rock band The High Strung, whose song “The Luck You Got” can be heard as the theme song to the Showtime show “Shameless”. His book Bird Box was made into a Netflix film of the same name, starring Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich. He has been nominated for 8 Bram Stoker Awards and has written 36 books, many of those (14) prior to the publication of Bird Box, his debut. He lives in Michigan with his fiancee, the artist/musician Allison Laakko.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 628-With Josh Malerman appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Peng Shepherd, author of ALL THIS AND MORE.

About ALL THIS AND MORE: Meek, play-it-safe Marsh has just turned forty-five, and her life is in shambles. Her career is stagnant, her marriage has imploded, and her teenage daughter grows more distant by the day. Marsh is convinced she’s missed her chance at everything—romance, professional fulfillment, and adventure—and is desperate for a do-over.

She can’t believe her luck when she’s selected to be the star of the global sensation All This and More, a show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants the chance to revise their past and change their present lives. It’s Marsh’s only shot to seize her dreams, and she’s determined to get it right this time.

But even as she rises to become a famous lawyer, gets back together with her high school sweetheart, and travels the world, she begins to worry that All This and More’s promises might be too good to be true. Because while the technology is amazing, something seems a bit off…

Can Marsh really make her life everything she wants it to be? And is it worth it?

About Peng Shepherd: Peng Shepherd is the nationally bestselling author of The Cartographers, The Book of M, and the forthcoming All This and More.

Her second novel, The Cartographers, was a USA Today, LA Times, and a national Independent Bookstores bestseller, as well as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. It was also named a Best Book of 2022 by The Washington Post, and has been optioned for film.

Her first novel, The Book of M, won the 2019 Neukom Institute for Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction, and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, Elle, Refinery29, and The Verge, as well as a Best Book of the Summer by the Today Show and NPR On Point.

A graduate of New York University’s MFA program, Peng is the recipient of a 2020 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, Mexico City, and New York. When not writing, she can be found planning her next trip or haunting local bookstores.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 627-With Peng Shepherd appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, author of GRIM ROOT.

About GRIM ROOT: On the set of The Groom, a group of women must compete for the heart of Midwestern bachelor Tristan by spending a week in a haunted house. Divorcee Linda, resigned to her role as the show’s underdog, finds her resolve cracking when she begins to fall for fellow castmate Charity. Meanwhile, Sabrina, groomed by her witchy mother to deliver their family from poverty by marrying a rich man, sees winning the competition as her predestined path.

But after a shocking demise, the game takes a sinister turn. As the remaining contestants grapple with their desires for love and survival, they uncover dark secrets within and without the house’s walls. Trapped in a twisted new competition, they must confront their own demons or face elimination.

About Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam: Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam is the author of the horror novel Grim Root, the short story collection Where You Linger & Other Stories, and the horror novella Glorious Fiends. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared in over 90 publications such as Popular Science, Lightspeed, and LeVar Burton Reads, as well as in six languages. By night, she’s a two-time finalist for the Nebula Award. By day, she works as a Narrative Designer writing games for a mobile game. She lives in Texas with her partner and a mysterious number of cats.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 626-With Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Sarah Pinsker, author of Haunt Sweet Home.

About Haunt Sweet Home: When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin’s ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she’s truly been deceiving and hiding from all along—is herself.

About Sarah Pinsker: Sarah Pinsker is the author of over fifty works of short fiction, two novels, and one collection. Her work has won four Nebula Awards (Best Novel, A Song For A New Day; Best Novelette, “Our Lady of the Open Road,” Best Novelette, “Two Truths And A Lie,” Best Short Story, “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather,”), two Hugo Awards (“Two Truths And a Lie” and “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather”), the Philip K Dick Award, the Locus Award, the Eugie Foster Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and been nominated for numerous Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. Her fiction has been published translated into almost a dozen languages and published in magazines including Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Uncanny and in many anthologies and year’s bests.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 625-With Sarah Pinsker appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Ari Marmell, author of Dust, Obelisks, Book One.

About Dust, Obelisks, Book One: For Flight Engineer Cynthia Han and her fellow astronauts aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 81 has proved as mundane as space travel ever gets. Yes, this would be Cynthia’s final NASA mission, for reasons she’s so far kept from the rest of the crew; and yes, the latest billionaire “space tourist” has managed to irritate everyone on board. Still, none of them could have asked for a smoother experience.

Until the morning they wake up to silence. All communication with Earth, gone. From half a dozen different agencies with multiple installations and redundancies across the globe, there is simply… nothing.

And through the viewports of the ISS, only the thick veil of churning, lightning-veined dust to suggest the Earth remains at all.

Now, without ground control, without the proper telemetries or calculations or even reliable visuals, Cynthia and the rest of Expedition 81 must make their way home. For most, it will be the most fraught and the most frightening task of their lives.

But it will be nothing compared to the world that now awaits them beyond the dust.

About Ari Marmell: When Ari Marmell has free time left over between feeding cats and posting on social media, he writes a little bit. His work includes scripts, novels, short stories, role-playing games, and video games, all of which he enjoyed in lieu of school work when growing up. He’s the author of the Obelisks sci-fi horror duology, the Widdershins YA fantasy series, The Goblin Corps, and many others, with publishers such as Del Rey, Pyr Books, Wizards of the Coast, Crossroad Press, and Titan Books.

Ari currently resides in Austin, Texas. He lives in a clutter that has a moderate amount of apartment in it, along with George—his wife—and the aforementioned cats, who probably want something.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 624-With Ari Marmell appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Maurice Broaddus, author of Black Panther: T’Challa Declassified.

About Black Panther: T’Challa Declassified: He’s a king, a hero, a loving brother and son, a husband to a goddess. The orphan king—the Haramu-Fal—and the Damisa-Sarki. And a man facing his doubts, his failures, and his destiny.

Revisit the life of one of Marvel Comics’ most iconic and inspiring characters via in-world interviews, journal entries, newspaper articles, and intelligence briefings from S.H.I.E.L.D. and other agencies.

Black Panther: T’Challa Declassified draws on more than half a century of classic tales to present an insightful, completely unique—and completely personal—take on one of the most talked-about heroes of all time.

Featuring the perspectives of T’Challa’s most important allies and enemies, including Shuri, Queen-Mother Ramonda, Ororo Munroe aka Storm, Everett K. Ross, Erik Killmonger, and the White Wolf, and accounts of some of Marvel Comics’ most memorable moments, this first-of-its-kind archival collection is a must-read for fans of all ages.

About Maurice Broaddus: A community organizer and teacher, Maurice Broaddus’ work has appeared in magazines like Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s, Magazine of F&SF, and Uncanny Magazine, with some of his stories having been collected in The Voices of Martyrs. His books include the urban fantasy trilogy, The Knights of Breton Court, the steampunk works, Buffalo Soldier and Pimp My Airship, and the middle grade detective novels, The Usual Suspects and Unfadeable. His project, Sorcerers, is being adapted as a television show for AMC. As an editor, he’s worked on Dark Faith, Fireside Magazine, and Apex Magazine.

With a dozen novels and nearly 100 short stories in print, his gaming work includes writing for the Marvel Super-Heroes, Leverage, and Firefly role-playing games as the Storium online game. He’s worked as a consultant for Watch Dogs 2 and Dungeons & Dragons. His tie-in fiction includes stories in Vampire 20th Anniversary Edition: The Dark Ages (Onyx Path), Pugmire (Onyx Path), Powered Up! (Green Ronin) and Knaves: A Blackguard (Outland Entertainment). Learn more about him at MauriceBroaddus.com.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 623-With Maurice Broaddus appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Tim Akers, author of The Eccentrics.

About The Eccentrics: Led by the eighth incarnation of Nikola Tesla, the Society of Eccentric Geniuses protects the Mundane world from the horrors of the Gestalt, a timeline of the future that never was. Powered by SCIENCE and steam, the Eccentrics travel the world in their airship, righting wrongs and rescuing troubled suitors, mad scientists, and optimistic engineers, often from monsters of their own creation. But now something new threatens the Gestalt, and they need help from John Rast and the heroes of Knight Watch. Will John be able to navigate a world of clockwork and science to save the day? Or will he fall into the clutches of a madman bent on remaking both the Gestalt and the Unreal in his own image?

About Tim Akers: Tim Akers was born in deeply rural North Carolina, the only son of a theologian, and the last in a long line of telephony princes, tourist attraction barons, and gruff Scottish bankers. He moved to Chicago for college, and stayed to pursue his lifelong obsession with apocalyptic winters. He lives (nay, flourishes) with his brilliant, tolerant, loving wife. He splits his time between pewter miniatures and fountain pens.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 622-With Tim Akers appeared first on The Functional Nerds.

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Charlie Huston, author of CATCHPENNY.

About CATCHPENNY: Sidney Catchpenny has had a bad run. Laid low by a years-long bout of debilitating depression, he’s all but squandered his reputation as one of the most uniquely talented thieves in LA. There aren’t many who can do what Sid does. He’s a sly, a special kind of crook with the uncanny ability to move through mirrors. And the spoils he’s after are equally unusual. Forget jewels and cold cash—Sid steals curiosities—items imbued with powerful mojo, a magical essence gleaned from the accumulated emotion that seeps into interesting, though often banal objects. That spot on the carpet where your old dog used to lay at your feet? The passed-down family heirloom nobody wants but everybody refuses to throw away? These curiosities are full of mojo, which is both the currency of the criminal underground and the secret source of magic in the world.

When a friend from Sid’s past comes looking for his help with an important client, and the chance to pay off old debts presents itself, Sid seizes the opportunity … as best he can. But the case he stumbles into is more complicated than it seems, and it portends a seismic shift in the world, one that will leave no one untouched. As the fog of his depression begins to lift, Sid sees connections everywhere he looks, and the once disparate threads of the case—a missing teenage girl, an entire bedroom saturated with mojo, and Sid’s own long-dead wife—begin to coalesce.

About Charlie Huston: Charlie Huston writes novels, movies and TV, sometimes comic books and recently a scripted original podcast. 12 of his novels have been published and a new one called CATCHPENNY will be out on April 9. He’s currently writing a screenplay adaptation of his first book, CAUGHT STEALING, for an upcoming movie directed by Darren Aronofsy and starring Austin Butler. He’s recently completed a spec TV pilot called ARCADIA for Tomorrow Studios. His daughter calls it HOT CRIMINAL ISLAND, which is super on the nose. His original scripted podcast about haunted cassette tapes is being developed with Atomic Monster for Audible.

This week’s picks:

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© 2024 Patrick Hester

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