The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Louis Sachar, author of The Magician of Tiger Castle.

About The Magician of Tiger Castle: Long ago and far away (and somewhere south of France) lies the kingdom of Esquaveta. There, Princess Tullia is in nearly as much peril as her struggling kingdom. Esquaveta desperately needs to forge an alliance, and to that end, Tullia’s father has arranged a marriage between her and an odious prince. However, one month before the “wedding of the century,” Tullia falls in love with a lowly apprentice scribe.

The king turns to Anatole, his much-maligned magician. Seventeen years earlier, when Anatole first came to the castle, he was regarded as something of a prodigy. But after a long series of failures—the latest being an attempt to transform sand into gold—he has become the object of contempt and ridicule. The only one who still believes in him is the princess.

When the king orders Anatole to brew a potion that will ensure Tullia agrees to the wedding, Anatole is faced with an impossible choice. With one chance to save the marriage, the kingdom, and, of most importance to him, his reputation, will he betray the princess—or risk ruin?

About Louis Sachar: LOUIS SACHAR is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Holes, which won the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award. His other books include Small Steps, winner of the Schneider Family Book Award; The Cardturner, a Publishers Weekly Best Book, Dogs Don’t Tell Jokes, The Boy Who Lost His Face, and There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom, which won more than twenty-four state children’s choice awards voted on exclusively by children. For younger readers he’s written the Marvin Redpost series and the Wayside School books. His first book for adults is The Magician of Tiger Castle.

This week’s picks:

Links:

© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome John Wiswell, author of Wearing the Lion.

About Wearing the Lion: Sometimes a goddess’s worst enemy is her biggest fan.

Heracles, hero of Greece, dedicates all his feats to the goddess Hera. If only he knew that his very face is an insult to her…as he is yet another child that Hera’s dipshit husband, Zeus, had out of wedlock.

“Auntie Hera” loathes every minute of Heracles’ devotion, until she snaps and causes an unspeakably tragic accident: the death of Heracles’ children. Plunged into grief and desperate for revenge, Heracles is determined to find the god that did this.

Wracked with guilt and desperate to save face, Hera distracts Heracles with monster-slaying quests, only to find that he is too traumatized to enact more violence. Instead, Heracles cares for the Nemean lion, bonds with the Lernaean hydra, and heeds the Ceryneian hind.

Each challenge adds a new monster to Heracles’ newfound family. A family that just might lay siege to Mount Olympos.

About John Wiswell: John Wiswell is a Nebula-winning and Locus-winning author who lives in the middle of the woods. His debut novel, SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN, was released from DAW Books in the U.S. and Arcadia Books in the U.K. in April 2024. John’s work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Tor.com, LeVar Burton Reads, Nature Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Weird Tales, the No Sleep podcast, Nightmare Magazine, Cast of Wonders, Podcastle, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and other fine venues. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. His fiction has been translated into ten languages.

He graduated Bennington College in 2005, and attended the Viable Paradise 17 workshop in 2013. He has multiple disabilities including a neuromuscular syndrome, and thinks healthy people’s capacity to complain is very funny. He finds a lot of things very funny and would like to keep it that way.

He is frequently available for interview and for talks at conferences. He has done panels at places such as Worldcon, the Nebula Awards Conference, and the World Fantasy Convention.

He posted fiction daily on this blog for six straight years, and has left every embarrassing and inspiring word of it up to read for free. If you’d like to see a writer develop style, it’s all there. You can point and laugh. He probably can’t hear you.

This week’s picks:

Links:

© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Jakub Szamalek, author of Inner Space.

About Inner Space: When an ammonia leak threatens the astronauts on the International Space Station, NASA directs Lucy Poplasky, one of the ISS’s first female commanders, to investigate the cause. Russia has just invaded Ukraine and tensions are running high—could the leak be a brazen act of sabotage?

The Russian cosmonauts aboard deny tampering with the ship’s systems and insist on the issue stems from the American side. As levels of the poisonous gas rise, Lucy’s investigation shatters trust between the Russian and Western crews, exposing deep fissures in the partnership thousands of miles below.

Intense and unrelenting, Inner Space questions what truly draws us to the stars: the urge to explore the unknown, selfish ambition, or an instinct to run away from the entrenched troubles on Earth?

About Jakub Szamalek: Jakub Szamalek is Narrative Director at Rebel Wolves game studio. Born in Poland in 1986, he studied in the UK, at Oxford and then Cambridge, where he was a Cambridge Gates Scholar. He is an author and the writer behind the international video game bestsellers, including The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and The Blood of Dawnwalker. He lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, with his family. He wrote the award-winning The Hidden Web series of thrillers, which has been adapted into a major motion picture by Monolith Films, and his crime novels have been awarded the Best Polish Crime Novel and Zloty Pocisk prizes. Jakub has been named among Eastern and Central Europe’s Young Leaders by the Res Publica Foundation.

This week’s picks:

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© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Daphne Fama, author of House of Monstrous Women.

About House of Monstrous Women: In this game, there’s one rule: survive.

Orphaned after her father’s political campaign ended in tragedy, Josephine is alone taking care of the family home while her older brother is off in Manila, where revolution brews. But an unexpected invitation from her childhood friend Hiraya to her house offers an escape…

Why don’t you come visit, and we can play games like we used to?

If Josephine wins, she’ll get whatever her heart desires. Her brother is invited, too, and it’s time they had a talk. Josephine’s heard the dark whispers: Hiraya is a witch and her family spits curses. But still, she’s just desperate enough to seize this chance to change her destiny.

Except the Ranoco house is strange, labyrinthine, and dangerously close to a treacherous sea. A sickly-sweet smell clings to the dimly lit walls, and veiled eyes follow Josephine through endless connecting rooms. The air is tense with secrets, and as the game continues it’s clear Josephine doesn’t have the whole truth.

To save herself, she will have to play to win. But in this house, victory is earned with blood.

About Daphne Fama: Daphne Fama was born in the American South, embedded in its tight-knit Filipino community. When she’s not writing stories about monsters and the women who love them, she’s writing about video games. And when she’s not writing, she’s spending every minute adoring her partner and pup.

This week’s picks:

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© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Jenna “Dingo” Woldenga and Avery Howett, part of the team behind the Fool’s Gold: Death by Karaoke Graphic Novel.

About Fool’s Gold: Death by Karaoke Graphic Novel: Have you ever sung karaoke so badly that you unleashed the apocalypse? Well, that’s an average day for the Fool’s Gold crew: a group of traveling magical rejects. Join the chaos of experiencing tabletop role-playing games with this group of chaotic friends and their even more chaotic characters as they dare to take on the world’s deadliest jungle known as the Bellowing Wilds. See them fall headfirst into triggering an apocalypse, tangle with a swamp witch, indulge in spa days, and deal with a rogue mechanical dragon. It will take intelligence, wisdom, and true bravery to survive this adventure…too bad they have none of these things. May the dice be on their side, ’cause they’re gonna need them!

About Jenna “Dingo” Woldenga: Jenna “Dingo” Woldenga is a storyteller, animator, illustrator, voice actress, and webcomic artist. She started the DingoDoodles YouTube channel in 2017 to tell stories from her life and friends. Eventually, she started retelling the story of the Fool’s Gold D&D campaign she played with Felix and their friends, and nobody has really told her to stop yet, so here we are! Her animated videos have amassed millions of views and single-handedly made Fool’s Gold into the success it is today.

Dingo is a master comedic storyteller and loves to get lost in her own worlds. She’s inspired by some of her favorite shows like Avatar: The last Airbender, Inuyasha, and Futurama, and she won’t stop until she makes an animated TV show worthy of standing beside her inspirations.

About Avery Howett: Avery is an illustrator, character designer, comic artist, and dinosaur enthusiast. She began her D&D hobby after meeting Dingo and Felix in college and went on to play Gothi in the first Fool’s Gold game.

Years later, she evolved from designing the looks of the Fool’s Gold crew at the table in her notebook, to becoming the lead artist for the Fool’s Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds D&D supplement. Now she is a full-time illustrator with the team, following the fun into the next projects. She is also the lead illustrator and director of the Fool’s Gold graphic novels! In her spare time Avery pursues her comic passion by working on her webcomic Vamps.

About The Fool’s Gold: Sands podcast: Fool’s Gold is one of the most hilarious and dramatic D&D tabletop roleplaying shows on the internet! Join our cast of professional chaos goobers as they explore a winding world full of absurd monsters, moral dilemmas, legally-distinct-franchises, and emotional damage. Available in two flavors: The Fool’s Gold: Sands podcast, and the animated Fool’s Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds show on YouTube. Episodes are edited into snappy 1 hour chunks.

Links:

© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Delilah S. Dawson, author of Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd.

About Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd: Five strangers armed with steel and magic awaken in a mist-shrouded land, with no memory of how they arrived: Rotrog, a prideful orcish wizard; Chivarion, a sardonic drow barbarian; Alishai, an embittered tiefling paladin; Kah, a skittish kenku cleric; and Fielle, a sunny human artificer.

After they barely survive a nightmarish welcome to the realm of Barovia, a carriage arrives bearing an invitation:

Fairest Friends,

I pray you accept my humble Hospitality and dine with me tonight at Castle Ravenloft. It is rare we receive Visitors, and I do so Endeavor to Make your Acquaintance. The Carriage shall bear you to the Castle safely, and I await your Arrival with Pleasure.

Your host,

With no alternative, and determined to find their way home, the strangers accept the summons and travel to the forbidding manor of the mysterious count. But all is not well at Castle Ravenloft. To survive the twisted enigmas of Strahd and his haunted home, the adventurers must confront the dark secrets in their own hearts and find a way to shift from strangers to comrades—before the mists of Barovia claim them forever.

About Delilah S. Dawson: Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times bestselling writer of Star Wars: Phasma, Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire, Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade, The Secrets of Long Snoot, The Perfect Weapon, and Scorched; Disney Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart, It Will Only Hurt for a Moment, Guillotine, Midnight at the Houdini, Bloom, The Violence, the Blud series, Servants of the Storm, the HIT series, Wake of Vultures and the Shadow series (as Lila Bowen), and a variety of short stories in anthologies such as Death & Honey, Robots vs. Fairies, Hellboy: an Assortment of Horrors, Violent Ends, Carniepunk, Three Slices, and Last Night a Superhero Saved My Life. With Kevin Hearne, she is the co-writer of the Tales of Pell series. Her middle grade works include Mine, Camp Scare, and the Minecraft Mob Squad series.

This week’s picks:

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© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Sam Kelly, author of Human History on Drugs.

About Human History on Drugs: Did you know that Alexander the Great was a sloppy drunk and William Shakespeare was a stoner? Or how about the fact that Steve Jobs believed taking LSD helped him create the Apple computer, or that Sigmund Freud loved cocaine so much he took it all the time and prescribed it to his patients?

In Human History on Drugs, Sam Kelly introduces us to the history our teachers never told us, offering up irreverent and insightful commentary as he sheds light on some truly bizarre aspects of the historical characters we only thought we knew. With chapters spanning from Ancient Greece (“The Oracle of Delphi Was Huffing Fumes”) to modern times (“Carl Sagan Got Astronomically High”), Kelly’s research covers all manner of eras, places, and, of course, drugs.

History is rife with drug use and drug users, and Human History on Drugs takes us through those highs (pun intended) and lows on a witty and entertaining ride that uncovers their mind-boggling impact on our past.

About Sam Kelly: Sam Kelly, a history grad from Stanford University, is on the autism spectrum and his interest and passion for history has become an almost physical compulsion. He loves to dig up forgotten and weird stories from the past and spends hours uncovering every last stubborn detail. As a deep believer that history can be as exciting as any Marvel movie, Sam aims to—whether on TikTok or through a book—make history both engaging and accessible to all. Human History on Drugs is his first book.

This week’s picks:

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© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Margaret Stohl, Jeanine Schaefer, and Judith Stephens to talk about their new book, Super Visible: The Story of the Women of Marvel Comics.

About Super Visible: The Story of the Women of Marvel Comics: Inspired by the hit podcast The Women of Marvel and cowritten by the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Beautiful Creatures, this eye-opening and engaging book celebrates the women who have helped make Marvel one of the most successful comics and entertainment companies in the world.

What does a hero’s journey look like when the hero in question happens to be a girl? #1 New York Times bestselling author and Marvel creator Margaret Stohl (The Life of Captain Marvel, Black Widow: Forever Red) along with Judith Stephens (producer and cocreator of the Women of Marvel podcast), and Jeanine Schaefer (critically acclaimed editor) interviewed more than a hundred women and nonbinary Marvel contributors in search of the answer to that question.

With one shared goal—to make the historically invisible work of women visible—and with unprecedented access to Marvel creators, writers, and more, Stohl, Stephens, and Schaefer set out to tell the story of the women of the “House of Ideas” from 1939 through today, and along the way, to find the meaning of their own Marvel stories. Packed with biographies and illustrations from creators, graphical reprints and excerpts of historic Marvel comics, and exclusive interviews from acclaimed directors like Anna Boden and Cate Shortland; lauded writers such as Kelly Sue DeConnick, Eve Ewing, Rainbow Rowell, Nic Stone, G. Willow Wilson, Tini Howard, and Maurene Goo; top artists like Jen Bartel; and influential producer Sana Amanat, Super Visible: The Story of the Women of Marvel is an essential read for fans of all ages.

About Margaret Stohl: Margaret Stohl is a the #1 New York Times bestselling author of fifteen novels and graphic novels, including the Beautiful Creatures series, the Black Widow: Forever Red duology, the ongoing Mighty Captain Marvel comic, and the Life of Captain Marvel miniseries.

About Jeanine Schaefer: Jeanine Schaefer worked as an assistant editor for DC Comics, notably on the Superman books between 2004 and 2006 up until Infinite Crisis. In 2010, she moved to Marvel Comics. She returned to DC with her husband Mark Doyle when the main office was moved to Burbank in 2015. In 2018, she became Executive Editor at Boom! Studios, though she departed three years later.

About Judith Stephens: Judy Stephens is a producer, author, host and cosplayer. Her first book, “Cosplay the Marvel Way: A Guide to Costuming Culture and Crafting Basics” is available in June. Judy is also a co-creator of the Women Of Marvel podcast and co-author of the upcoming book “Super Visible: The Story of the Women of Marvel”. With over 15 years at Marvel, Judy has worked in production of news and pop culture based content, including photos, video and multimedia. Judy’s work has been featured on major geek-culture outlets like Marvel, Kotaku, and Nerdist, and within several books, including “Cosplay World” and “Yaya Han’s World of Cosplay.”

Since attending her first anime and comic convention in 2004, Judy has traveled the world as a staff, photographer, guest and attendee of over 100 conventions, meeting cosplayers from California to London, New Zealand and Chile. As part of her inclusion in the cosplay community, she is well known as an advocate for cosplay at Marvel and Disney, with contributions including Marvel Becoming, Marvel Cosplay Covers, Costoberfest, organizing the Marvel Cosplay Contests, social media coverage and most recently Marvel’s 616 episode “Suit Up” on Disney+. Over the last two decades, she has also cosplayed over thirty characters, including her well-known Captain Marvel.

A proud Queens resident, where she lives with her two cats, she spends her free time enjoying the city, working out & traveling with friends.

Links:

© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Paul Bradley Carr, author of THE CONFESSIONS.

About THE CONFESSIONS: LLIAM is the world’s most powerful supercomputer, built to make the toughest decisions for its users. Where to work, who to marry, and even who should live or die. But when LLIAM suddenly goes offline with no explanation, the world is thrust into chaos, paralyzed by indecision. Stocks plummet, stores are shuttered, planes sit grounded on runways as humanity scrambles to re-adapt to an uncertain, analog world.

Then the first letters arrive…on every continent, in every language, mysterious envelopes arrive in the mail, exposing people’s darkest secrets, and most shocking crimes. All beginning with the same chilling words: “We must confess.”

With millions of people suddenly made to confront their past transgressions, and society fast unraveling, CEO Kaitlan Goss must track down the only person who can help undo the resulting violent chaos: Maud Brookes, an ex-nun who taught LLIAM what it means to be human. But when Maud receives a letter herself, revealing Kaitlan’s own unforgivable sin, the two women are forced into a deadly game of deceit as the world teeters on the brink.

About Paul Bradley Carr: Paul Bradley Carr is a journalist and author. He has written three memoirs about his adventures in and around Silicon Valley. He was the Silicon Valley columnist for The Guardian, senior editor at TechCrunch, cofounder of PandoDaily, and founder and editor-in-chief of the infamous NSFWCORP in Las Vegas. His writing has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, National Geographic, and much more. He lives in Palm Springs with his family and is the co-owner of The Best Bookstore in Palm Springs.

This week’s picks:

Links:

© 2025 Patrick Hester

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This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Joan Slonczewski, author of Minds in Transit.

About Minds in Transit: In the hundred-level city of Iridis, human lords recycle diamonds and emeralds down to the Underworld while sentient machines pilot lightcraft and perform surgeries. Microbial minds expand the brains of scientists and artists. The artist Chrys directs her microbes to paint startling installations, design smart buildings and fix quantum networks. A world-size virtual intelligence called Transit commissions Chrys to create a whole new city on another planet.

But unexpected flaws fracture her designs. Microbial criminal gangs invade Chrys’s brain to kill off her own micros and take control. In Iridis, the roots of buildings grow cancers that escape the Underworld and cause earthquakes. Outlawed machines shake down shops and kidnap human lords for ransom. The city’s rulers ignore the signs of collapse, then face a new threat that no mind foresaw.

About Joan Slonczewski: Joan Slonczewski publishes research with undergraduates on bacterial pH stress, funded by the National Science Foundation. They also study cold-adapted microbes from Antarctica. Slonczewski authors science fiction novels, including A Door into Ocean and The Highest Frontier, both of which earned the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. They teach courses on microbiology and on writing science fiction.

This week’s picks:

Links:

© 2025 Patrick Hester

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