The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Nino Cipri, author of Finna.

About Finna: When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store ? but not that one ? slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago.

To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them. Can friendship blossom from the ashes of their relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible.

About Nino Cipri: Nino Cipri is a queer and trans/nonbinary writer, editor, and educator. A graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and University of Kansas’s MFA, Nino’s fiction has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, Lambda, Nebula, and Hugo Awards. A multidisciplinary artist, Nino has also written plays, screenplays, and radio features; performed as a dancer, actor, and puppeteer; and worked as a stagehand, bookseller, bike mechanic, and labor organizer.

This week’s picks:

* Nino #1: Unity by Elly Bangs

* Nino #2: Erased (Netflix)

* Tracy: Trial by Trolley (Card Game)

* Patrick: The Irregulars (Netflix)

Links:

* Nino Cipri on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome not one, not two, but THREE authors – Cassandra Khaw, Genevieve Gornichec and Caitlin Starling, who have combined forces in a new collection of stories set in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe called Walk Among Us.

About Walk Among Us: One of the most popular role-playing properties in the world gets new life with this trio of horror novellas set in Vampire: The Masquerade’s World of Darkness by three brilliant talents: Genevieve Gornichec, Cassandra Khaw, and Caitlin Starling

The subtle horror and infernal politics of the World of Darkness are shown in a new light in Vampire: The Masquerade: Walk Among Us, an audio-first collection of three novellas that show the terror, hunger, and power of the Kindred as you’ve never seen them before.

In Genevieve Gornichec’s A SHEEP AMONG WOLVES, depression and radicalization go hand-in-hand as a young woman finds companionship in the darkness…

In Cassandra Khaw’s FINE PRINT, an arrogant tech bro learns the importance of reading the fine print in the contract for immortality…

And in Caitlin Starling’s THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY, ideals and ethics bump heads with appetite on a blood farm.

Three very different stories from three amazing, distinct voices, but all with one thing in common: the hunger never stops, and for someone to experience power, many others are going to have to feel pain.

About Cassandra Khaw: Cassandra Khaw is an award-winning game writer, whose fiction work has been nominated for several awards. You can find their fiction in places like F&SF, Year’s Best of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Tor.com. Their next book Nothing But Blackened Teeth is coming out in 2021.

About Genevieve Gornichec: Genevieve Gornichec earned her degree in history from The Ohio State University, but she got as close to majoring in Vikings as she possibly could, and her study of the Norse myths and Icelandic sagas became her writing inspiration. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio. The Witch’s Heart is her debut novel.

About Caitlin Starling: Caitlin Starling writes horror-tinged speculative fiction of all flavors. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead, won the LOHF Best Debut Award and was nominated for both the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards. She has two gothic horror tales forthcoming: Yellow Jessamine (novella, Neon Hemlock 2020) and The Death of Jane Lawrence (novel, St Martin’s Press 2021), as well as a novella in the Vampire: The Masquerade audio collection, Walk Among Us. Her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare and Uncanny. Caitlin also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia.

Links:

* Cassandra Khaw on Twitter

* Genevieve Gornichec on Twitter

* Caitlin Starling on Twitter

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This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Hugo and Nebula nominated author S.B. Divya, whose book, Machinehood, is available now!

About Machinehood Welga Ramirez, executive bodyguard and ex-special forces, is about to retire early when her client is killed in front of her. It’s 2095 and people don’t usually die from violence. Humanity is entirely dependent on pills that not only help them stay alive, but allow them to compete with artificial intelligence in an increasingly competitive gig economy. Daily doses protect against designer diseases, flow enhances focus, zips and buffs enhance physical strength and speed, and juvers speed the healing process.

All that changes when Welga’s client is killed by The Machinehood, a new and mysterious terrorist group that has simultaneously attacked several major pill funders. The Machinehood operatives seem to be part human, part machine, something the world has never seen. They issue an ultimatum: stop all pill production in one week.

Global panic ensues as pill production slows and many become ill. Thousands destroy their bots in fear of a strong AI takeover. But the US government believes the Machinehood is a cover for an old enemy. One that Welga is uniquely qualified to fight.

Welga, determined to take down the Machinehood, is pulled back into intelligence work by the government that betrayed her. But who are the Machinehood and what do they really want?

About S.B. Divya S.B. Divya is a lover of science, math, fiction, and the Oxford comma. She is the Hugo and Nebula nominated author of Machinehood (Saga), Runtime (tordotcom), and the short story collection, Contingency Plans For the Apocalypse and Other Possible Situations (Hachette India). Divya is the co-editor of the weekly science fiction podcast Escape Pod, with Mur Lafferty. She holds degrees in Computational Neuroscience and Signal Processing and worked for twenty years as an electrical engineer before becoming an author.

This week’s picks:

* S.B. Divya: His Dark Materias (HBO)

* Tracy: John Wiswell

* Patrick: Rebel (ABC)

Links:

* S.B. Divya on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester

In a very special Just Us episode, Patrick and Tracy are talking about the weeks where Patrick has been absent, his mother’s long illness, and her recent passing. They also touch on grief, guilt, Catholic guilt, and all the baggage that comes with them.

Links:

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Elly Bangs, author of UNITY!

About Unity: Danae is not only herself. She is concealing a connection to a grieving collective inside of her body. But while she labors as a tech servant in the dangerous underwater enclave of Bloom City, her fractured self cannot mend. In a desperate escape, Danae and her lover Naoto hire the enigmatic ex-mercenary Alexei to guide them out of the imploding city.

But for Danae to reunify, the three new fugitives will have to flee across the otherworldly beauty of the postapocalyptic Southwest. Meanwhile, Danae’s warlord enemy, the Duke, and a strange new foe, the Borrower, already seek them at any price.

About Elly Bangs: Elly Bangs is a queer trans woman who was raised in a new-age cult, had six wisdom teeth, and once rode her bicycle alone from Seattle to the Panama Canal. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Beneath Ceasless Skies, Escape Pod, Fireside Quarterly, and elsewhere — and her debut apocalyptic cyberpunk novel, Unity, is coming in Spring 2021. She’s a SFWA member and a 2017 graduate of Clarion West.

This week’s picks:

* Elly: Yerbe Mate

* Tracy: Crio Bru

Links:

* Elly Bangs on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Marina Lostetter, author of THE HELM OF MIDIGHT!

About THE HELM OF MIDIGHT: In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power?the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city.

Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. But these murders are different from before, not simply random but the work of a deliberate mind probing for answers to a sinister question.

It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake.

About Marina Lostetter: The open skies and dense forests of the Pacific Northwest are ideal for growing speculative fiction authors–or, at least, Marina would like to think so. Originally from Oregon, she now resides in Arkansas with her spouse, Alex. In her spare time she enjoys globetrotting, board games, and all things art-related. Her original short fiction has appeared in venues such as Lightspeed, Uncanny, and Shimmer Magazine. Her debut novel, NOUMENON, and its sequels, NOUMENON INFINITY and NOUMENON ULTRA, are available from Harper Voyager. Her first fantasy novel, THE HELM OF MIDNIGHT, is forthcoming from Tor. In addition, she has written tie-in materials for Star Citizen and the Aliens franchise. She is represented by DongWon Song of the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and she tweets as @MarinaLostetter.

This week’s picks:

* Marina: Mysterium – Board Game

* Tracy: Gloom – Card Game

Links:

* Marina Lostetter on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Allison Epstein, author of A TIP FOR THE HANGMAN!

About A TIP FOR THE HANGMAN: England, 1585. In Kit Marlowe’s last year at Cambridge, he receives an unexpected visitor: Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, who has come with an unorthodox career opportunity. Her Majesty’s spies are in need of new recruits, and Kit’s flexible moral compass has drawn their attention. Kit, a scholarship student without money or prospects, accepts the offer, and after his training the game is on. Kit is dispatched to the chilly manor where Mary, Queen of Scots is under house arrest, to act as a servant in her household and keep his ear to the ground for a Catholic plot to put Mary on the throne.

While observing Mary, Kit learns more than he bargained for. The ripple effects of his service to the Crown are far-reaching and leave Kit a changed man. But there are benefits as well. The salary he earns through his spywork allows him to mount his first play, and over the following years, he becomes the toast of London’s raucous theater scene. But when Kit finds himself reluctantly drawn back into the uncertain world of espionage, conspiracy, and high treason, he realizes everything he’s worked so hard to attain–including the trust of the man he loves–could vanish before his very eyes.

Pairing modern language with period detail, Allison Epstein brings Elizabeth’s privy council, Marlowe’s lovable theater troupe, and the squalor of sixteenth-century London to vivid, teeming life as Kit wends his way behind the scenes of some of Tudor history’s most memorable moments. At the center of the action is Kit himself–an irrepressible, irreverent force of nature. Thrillingly written, full of poetry and danger, A Tip for the Hangman brings an unforgettable protagonist to new life, and makes a centuries-old story feel utterly contemporary.

About Allison Epstein: Allison Epstein earned her M.F.A. in fiction from Northwestern University and a B.A. in creative writing and Renaissance literature from the University of Michigan. A Michigan native, she now lives in Chicago, where she works as a copywriter. When not writing, she enjoys good theater, bad puns, and fancy jackets. A Tip for the Hangman is her first novel.

This week’s picks:

* Allison: The Witches Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

* Tracy: The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities by Paul Anthony Jones

Links:

* Allison Epstein on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Nicky Drayden, author of ESCAPING EXODUS!

About ESCAPING EXODUS: Earth is a distant memory. Habitable extrasolar planets are still out of reach. For generations, humanity has been clinging to survival by establishing colonies within enormous vacuum-breathing space beasts and mining their resources to the point of depletion.

Rash, dreamy, and unconventional, Seske Kaleigh should be preparing for her future role as clan leader, but her people have just culled their latest beast, and she’s eager to find the cause of the violent tremors plaguing their new home. Defying social barriers, Seske teams up with her best friend, a beast worker, and ventures into restricted areas for answers to end the mounting fear and rumors. Instead, they discover grim truths about the price of life in the void.

Then, Seske is unexpectedly thrust into the role of clan matriarch, responsible for thousands of lives in a harsh universe where a single mistake can be fatal. Her claim to the throne is challenged by a rival determined to overthrow her and take control—her intelligent, cunning, and confident sister.

Seske may not be a born leader like her sister, yet her unorthodox outlook and incorruptible idealism may be what the clan needs to save themselves and their world.

About Nicky Drayden: Nicky Drayden is a Systems Analyst who dabbles in prose when she’s not buried in code. She resides in Austin, Texas where being weird is highly encouraged, if not required. Her award-winning novel THE PREY OF GODS is set in a futuristic South Africa brimming with demigods, robots, and hallucinogenic hijinks, and with her new novel ESCAPING EXODUS, she’ll be taking her weirdness off-world to a civilization living inside the gut of moon-sized space beast. See more of her work at http://www.nickydrayden.com or catch her on twitter @nickydrayden.

This week’s picks:

* Nicky: Hand Writing Letters to Friends + Journaling / Passion Planners

* Tracy: Knox (Serial Box)

Links:

* Nicky Drayden on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Travis Heermann, whose novel Tokyo Blood Magic is out now!

About Tokyo Blood Magic: When Django Wong, a modern-day ninja turned sorcerer, takes a job to track down a newly Awakened witch, he discovers that his target is not only his lost love, but now she’s an enforcer for the Black Lotus Clan, a ruthless yakuza syndicate.

But time can change a person. Is she the girl who used to love him, a yakuza slave, or a deadly black witch?

With a smart-mouthed magical house cat as his ally, Django must protect her from other Hunter-Seekers sent to kill her until he can learn the truth of her allegiance. And not only that, if he can’t stop her from stealing a powerful magical relic, the Black Lotus Clan will launch a bloodbath in Shinjuku’s streets.

About Travis Heermann: Freelance writer, novelist, award-winning screenwriter, editor, poker player, poet, biker, roustabout, Travis Heermann is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and the author of Tokyo Blood Magic, The Hammer Falls, The Ronin Trilogy, and co-author of Death Wind, plus short fiction pieces in anthologies and magazines such as Straight Outta Deadwood, Apex Magazine, Alembical, the Fiction River anthology series, Historical Lovecraft, and Cemetery Dance’s Shivers VII. As a freelance writer, he has produced a metric ton of role-playing game work both in print and online, including the Firefly Roleplaying Game, Battletech, Legend of Five Rings, d20 System, and the MMORPG, EVE Online.

He has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, a Master of Arts in English, and teaches science fiction literature at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He has presented workshops on writing and publishing at the Odyssey Writing Workshop, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Pike’s Peak Writers Conference, and Colorado Gold Writers Conference, and regularly appears at conventions across the U.S.

He enjoys cycling, martial arts, torturing young minds with otherworldly ideas, and monsters of every flavor, especially those with a soft, creamy center. He has three long-cherished dreams: a produced screenplay, a NYT best-seller, and a seat in the World Series of Poker.

This week’s picks:

* Travis: What The Hell Did I Just Read by David Wong

* Tracy: Batman: Hush (Graphic Novel)

Links:

* Travis Heermann on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Greta Kelly, whose debut novel THE FROZEN CROWN is out now!

About THE FROZEN CROWN: Askia became heir to the Frozen Crown of Seravesh because of her devotion to her people. But her realm is facing a threat she cannot defeat by sheer will alone. The mad emperor of the Roven Empire has unleashed a horde of invading soldiers to enslave her lands. For months, her warriors have waged a valiant, stealth battle, yet they cannot stop the enemy’s advancement. Running out of time, she sets sail for sun-drenched Vishir, the neighboring land to the south, to seek help from its ruler, Emperor Armaan.

A young woman raised in army camps, Askia is ill-equipped to navigate Vishir’s labyrinthine political games. Her every move sinks her deeper into court intrigues which bewilder and repel her, leaving her vulnerable not only to enemies gathering at Vishir’s gates, but to those behind the palace walls.

And in this glittering court, where secrets are worth more than gold, Askia fears that one false step will expose her true nature. For Askia is a witch gifted with magical abilities—knowledge that could destroy not only her life but her people. As her adversaries draw closer, Askia is forced to make an impossible choice—and no matter what she decides, it may not be enough to prevent Seravesh’s fall.

About Greta Kelly: Greta K. Kelly is (probably) not a witch, death or otherwise, but she can still be summoned with offerings of too-beautiful-to-use journals and Butterfingers candy. She currently lives in Wisconsin with her husband EJ, daughter Lorelei and a cat who may, or may not, control the weather.

This week’s picks:

* Greta 1: Momofuku Milk Bar: A Cookbook by Christina Tosi

* Greta 2: Time to Eat: Delicious Meals for Busy Lives: A Cookbook by Nadiya Hussain

* Tracy 1: Space Sweepers (Netflix)

* Tracy 2: The Good Place

Links:

* Greta Kelly on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2021 Patrick Hester