The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Kevin Hearne, author of INK & SIGIL: FROM THE WORLD OF THE IRON DRUID CHRONICLES.

About INK & SIGIL Al MacBharrais is both blessed and cursed. He is blessed with an extraordinary white moustache, an appreciation for craft cocktails—and a most unique magical talent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae.

But he is also cursed. Anyone who hears his voice will begin to feel an inexplicable hatred for Al, so he can only communicate through the written word or speech apps. And his apprentices keep dying in peculiar freak accidents. As his personal life crumbles around him, he devotes his life to his work, all the while trying to crack the secret of his curse.

But when his latest apprentice, Gordie, turns up dead in his Glasgow flat, Al discovers evidence that Gordie was living a secret life of crime. Now Al is forced to play detective—while avoiding actual detectives who are wondering why death seems to always follow Al. Investigating his apprentice’s death will take him through Scotland’s magical underworld, and he’ll need the help of a mischievous hobgoblin if he’s to survive.

About XXX Kevin Hearne is an American novelist born and raised in Arizona. Hearne is the author of nine novels published by Del Rey in the fantasy book series The Iron Druid Chronicles, the Seven Kennings trilogy, and co?author of the Tales of Pell with Delilah S. Dawson, plus author of the 2015 Star Wars novel Heir to the Jedi. His latest novel, INK & SIGIL is available now.

This week’s picks:

* Kevin:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

* Tracy: PS4 MediEvil Remastered

* Patrick: NocoNosh

Links:

* Kevin Hearne on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome writer and managing editor for FIYAH Literary Magazine, Eboni Dunbar, author of STONE AND STEEL.

About Stone and Steel: In Stone and Steel, when General Aaliyah returns triumphant to the city of Titus, she expects to find the people prospering under the rule of her Queen, the stone mage Odessa. Instead, she finds a troubling imbalance in both the citizens’ wellbeing and Odessa’s rule. Aaliyah must rely on all of her allies, old and new, to do right by the city that made her.

About Eboni Dunbar: Eboni J Dunbar (She/her) is a queer, black woman who writes queer and black speculative fiction. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner. She received her BA from Macalester College in English and her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. She is a VONA Alum, a former associate editor for PodCastle, a managing editor for FIYAH Literary Magazine, and a freelance reviewer.

Her work can be found in FIYAH Literary Magazine, Drabblecast, Anathema: Spec from the margins and Nightlight Podcast. She also has a novella out now from Neon Hemlock called Stone and Steel.

This week’s picks:

* Eboni:

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City

* Tracy #1: Stacy Abrams

* Tracy #2: Patrick Hester

* Patrick: NaNoWriMo

Links:

* Eboni Dunbar on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Doug Engstrom whose debut novel, CORPORATE GUNSLINGER is available from Harper Collins.

About CORPORATE GUNSLINGER: Like many Americans in the middle of the 21st century, aspiring actress Kira Clark is in debt. She financed her drama education with loans secured by a “lifetime services contract.” If she defaults, her creditors will control every aspect of her life. Behind on her payments and facing foreclosure, Kira reluctantly accepts a large signing bonus to become a corporate gunfighter for TKC Insurance. After a year of training, she will take her place on the dueling fields that have become the final, lethal stop in the American legal system.

Putting her MFA in acting to work, Kira takes on the persona of a cold, intimidating gunslinger known as “Death’s Angel.” But just as she becomes the most feared gunfighter in TKC’s stable, she’s severely wounded during a duel on live video, shattering her aura of invincibility. A series of devastating setbacks follow, forcing Kira to face the truth about her life and what she’s become.

When the opportunity to fight another professional for a huge purse arises, Kira sees it as a chance to buy a new life . . . or die trying.

Structured around a chilling duel, Corporate Gunslinger is a modern satire that forces us to confront the growing inequalities in our society and our penchant for guns and bloodshed, as well as offering a visceral look at where we may be heading?far sooner than we know.

About Doug Engstrom: Doug Engstrom has been a farmer’s son, a US Air Force officer, a technical writer, a computer support specialist, and a business analyst, as well as being a writer of speculative fiction. He lives near Des Moines, Iowa with his wife, Catherine Engstrom.

This week’s picks:

* Doug: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

* Tracy: Poetry for Neanderthals: a word game by Exploding Kittens (Tabletop Game)

* Patrick: Paprika Recipe Manager for iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows (App)

Links:

* Doug Engstrom on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome NYTimes bestselling and Nebula, Hugo and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer Rebecca Roanhorse whose latest book, BLACK SUN is out now!

About BLACK SUN: In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.

Crafted with unforgettable characters, Rebecca Roanhorse has created an epic adventure exploring the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in the most original series debut of the decade.

About Rebecca Roanhorse: Rebecca Roanhorse is a NYTimes bestselling and Nebula, Hugo and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding (Campbell) Award for Best New Writer.

Her novel Trail of Lightning (Book 1 in the Sixth World Series) won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy Finalist. It was also selected as an Amazon, B&N, Library Journal, and NPR Best Books of 2018, among others. Storm of Locusts (Book 2 in the Sixth World Series) was a Locus Award Finalist and was longlisted for the Hugo Award. It also received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist, and was named an Amazon, Powell’s, and Audible Best of 2019. Her novel, Resistance Reborn, is part of Star Wars: Journey to The Rise of Skywalker and a USA Today and NYTimes bestseller. Her middle grade novel Race to the Sun for the Rick Riordan Present’s imprint was a NYTimes Bestseller and received a starred review from Kirkus. Her next novel, Black Sun, has received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and Library Journal.

She lives in Northern New Mexico with her husband, daughter, and pup. She drinks a lot of black coffee.

This week’s picks:

* Rebecca #1:

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown

* Rebecca #2:

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

* Tracy: Adagio Teas

* Patrick: Our Patrons

Links:

* Rebecca Roanhorse on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twi...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major award winning author and illustrator T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) whose latest book, The Hollow Places: A Novel is available now.

About The Hollow Places: A Novel: Pray they are hungry. Kara finds the words in the mysterious bunker that she’s discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle’s house. Freshly divorced and living back at home, Kara now becomes obsessed with these cryptic words and starts exploring this peculiar area—only to discover that it holds portals to countless alternate realities. But these places are haunted by creatures that seem to hear thoughts…and the more one fears them, the stronger they become.

With her distinctive “delightfully fresh and subversive” (SF Bluestocking) prose and the strange, sinister wonder found in Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, The Hollow Places is another compelling and white-knuckled horror novel that you won’t be able to put down.

About T Kingfisher: T. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon. In another life, she writes children’s books and weird comics, and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selections.

Ursula Vernon is the author and illustrator of far more projects than is probably healthy. She has written over fifteen books for children, several novels for adults, an epic webcomic called “Digger” and various short stories and other odds and ends.

Her work has been nominated for the Eisner, World Fantasy, and longlisted for the British Science Fiction Awards. It has garnered a number of Webcomics Choice Awards, enough Junior Library Guild Selections to allow her to cosplay as a six-star general, and a mention in the New York Times, which she did not get tattooed to her forehead, despite her mother’s insistence.

In addition to writing and making art, Ms. Vernon gardens, feeds the birds, and has an unhealthy obsession with mulch.

This week’s picks:

* T Kingfisher:

A Bean Collector’s Window

* Tracy: The Science of Sci-Fi: From Warp Speed to Interstellar Travel (audiobook)

* Patrick: Star Trek: Discovery (Season 3)

Links:

* T Kingfisher on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Campbell Award winning author Elizabeth Bear whose latest book, Machine: A White Space Novel will be available on October 20th, 2020 everywhere fine books are sold.

About Machine: A White Space Novel: Meet Doctor Jens.

She hasn’t had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she’s never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee.

But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, one ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can’t resist a mystery and she begins doing some digging. She has no idea that she’s about to discover horrifying and life-changing truths.

Written in Elizabeth Bear’s signature “rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental” (Publishers Weekly) style, Machine is a fresh and electrifying space opera that you won’t be able to put down..

About Elizabeth Bear: Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year.

She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Campbell Award winning author of dozens of novels; over a hundred short stories; and a number of essays, nonfiction, and opinion pieces for markets as diverse as Popular Mechanics and The Washington Post.

She lives in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts with her spouse, writer Scott Lynch.

This week’s picks:

* Bear Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

* Tracy: A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

* Patrick: THE 7th CITADEL (Game)

Links:

* Elizabeth Bear on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Rob Cameron whose latest non-fiction article, The Case for Black American Self-Defense is available at foreignpolicy.com.

About Rob Cameron: Rob is a linguist, a pie addict with neither regrets nor inclinations towards rehab, and a public school ENL teacher in Brooklyn. When not finishing rewrites for his very patient agent, Barry Goldblatt, he is teaching his daughter the fine art that is hide-and-seek.

He is the lead organizer for the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, guest host & curator for the New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series, managing editor of the Kaleidocast.nyc, frequent guest and curator for the Surreal Symphony of Zak Zyz.

Rob Cameron’s essay “Promised Land: Religous Ideology and Solarpunk Science Fiction” is featured in The New Modality. Before that was his essay on Afrofuturism and Solarpunk, “In Search of Afro-Solarpunk, Parts I & II,” in Tor.com. His short story “Squeeze” (3 star reviewed on Tangent!) can be found in Mike Allen’s Clockwork Phoenix 5,(Mythic Delirium, 2016). His story “Tatterdemallion at the End of the Universe” is being used as curriculum material for the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic.

This week’s picks:

* Rob Liquified Nutella w/rum

* Tracy: Crockpot

* Patrick: Chopped (Food Network)

Links:

* Rob Cameron on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Stephen Graham Jones whose novel, THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS is available now! So go buy it already… sheesh.

ABOUT THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS: Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.

About Stephen Graham Jones: Stephen Graham Jones is the author of twenty-five or so novels and collections, and there’s some novellas and comic books in there as well. Stephen’s been an NEA recipient, has won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, a Bram Stoker Award, four This is Horror Awards, and he’s been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award. He’s also made Bloody Disgusting’s Top Ten Horror Novels, and is the guy who wrote Mongrels and The Only Good Indians. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado.

This week’s picks:

* Stephen The Low Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado (Comic)

* Tracy: Among Us (App Game)

* Patrick: The Boys Season 2 (Prime)

Links:

* Stephen Graham Jones on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Jeremy Robert Johnson whose novel, THE LOOP – available today for preorders, shipping on Sept 29th.

ABOUT THE LOOP: A small town nestled in the hills of central Oregon becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence when the teenaged children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and aggressively murderous. Suddenly the town is on edge, and everyone must do everything it takes just to survive…

About Jeremy Robert Johnson: Jeremy Robert Johnson is the author of the critically-acclaimed collection ENTROPY IN BLOOM as well as the breakthrough cult novel SKULLCRACK CITY. His fiction has been praised by The Washington Post and Publishers Weekly, authors such as David Wong, Chuck Palahniuk, and Jack Ketchum, and has appeared internationally in numerous anthologies and magazines. In 2008 he worked with The Mars Volta to tell the story behind their Grammy Winning album The Bedlam in Goliath. In 2010 he spoke about weirdness and metaphor as a survival tool at the Fractal 10 conference in Medellin, Colombia. In 2017 his short story “When Susurrus Stirs” was adapted for film and won numerous awards including the Final Frame Grand Prize and Best Short Film at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

This week’s picks:

* Jeremy #1: Fresh Air

* Jeremy #2: The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson

* Tracy: Mildly Horror Comfort Food – Mississippi Roast

* Patrick: Staged (Hulu)

Links:

* Jeremy Robert Johnson on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Andrew Pyper whose novel, THE RESIDENCE is out NOW!

About THE RESIDENCE: The year is 1853. President-elect Franklin Pierce is traveling with his family to Washington, DC, when tragedy strikes. In an instant, their train runs off the rails, violently flinging passengers about the cabin. But when the great iron machine finally comes to rest, the only casualty is the President-elect’s beloved son, Bennie, which casts Franklin’s presidency in a pall of sorrow and grief.

As Franklin moves into the White House, he begins to notice that something bizarre is happening. Strange sounds coming from the walls and ceiling, creepy voices that seem to echo out of time itself, and visions of spirits crushed under the weight of American history.

But when First Lady Jane Pierce brings in the most noted Spiritualists of the day, the Fox sisters, for a séance, the barrier between this world and the next is torn asunder. Something horrible comes through and takes up residence alongside Franklin and Jane in the walls of the very mansion itself.

Only by overcoming their grief and confronting their darkest secrets can Jane and Franklin hope to rid themselves—and America—from the entity that seeks to make the White House its permanent home.

ABOUT Andrew Pyper: Andrew Pyper was born in Stratford, Ontario, in 1968. He received a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from McGill University, as well as a law degree from the University of Toronto. Although called to the bar in 1996, he has never practiced.

His most recent novels include The Homecoming (2019), The Only Child (2017), and The Damned (2015). His 2013 novel, The Demonologist, won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel, and was a #1 bestseller in Canada and Brazil.

This week’s picks:

* Andrew: I’m Thinking Of Ending Things (Netflix)

* Tracy: Hamilton (Disney+)

* Patrick: DCs Harley Quinn Season 2 (Prime)

Links:

* Andrew Pyper on Twitter

* Tracy Townsend on Twitter

* Patrick Hester on Twitter

* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2020 Patrick Hester