The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Zig Zag Clayborne , author of KHUMALO TALES . About KHUMALO TALES : (Back it on Kickstarter!) The legend of Amnandi and Mother Khumalo has grown – and rightfully so. For decades, the Khumalo family has nurtured Erah, correcting wrongs and healing the injured. All while adhering to the unspoken but immutable rules of witches. Yet, in the sha...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Meg Anderson , author of THE MEMORY OF BORROWED BOOKS . About THE MEMORY OF BORROWED BOOKS : In the coastal town of Foxhollow Bay, librarian Claire Ashford keeps her life as meticulously ordered as the centuries-old library she calls home. But when the town announces plans to shut it down, her sanctuary, and the life she’s built within its...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Gillian Daniels , author of Jenny Will Eat You Now . About Jenny Will Eat You Now : Jenny Greenteeth prefers to keep her own company beneath the streets of Boston, where she’s lived for hundreds of years. With a conviction that she is far superior to humans—who are petty, dangerous, and fragile—she has no qualms about satisfying her hunger with t...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Yoon Ha Lee , author of Code and Codex . About Code and Codex : In the stars-spanning Censorate, languages other than the Republic’s own lingua rubra, which has reality-altering properties, are forbidden. Nevertheless, there are discrepancies. The Censorate’s star forces are called the Athenaeum Navy, and each of its ships is referred to as a cod...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Linda Codega , author of Pasha the Storm . About Pasha the Storm : Pasha the Northern Storm was once the most infamous Meridian pirate who ever sailed the sister oceans. Now, a decade into her exile, Pasha’s afterlife is being held hostage by Atle, an absurdly attractive noble who knows far too much about pirate magic—but not enough about sailing...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome William Raillon , the 3rd Nerd backer for Uncanny Magazine, Year 12! About William Raillon : William lives in France and enjoys Twitch, live action TTRPGs and backing projects that help build community and tell good stories like Divine Intervention , a short film by Ravenna Tran and Rebecca Ozer. This week’s picks: William: The United Film Podcas...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome A. David Lewis , author of Body, Soul, and Comics . About Body, Soul, and Comics : Body, Soul, and Comics: Graphic Religion and Graphic Medicine follows A. David Lewis’s unique scholarly journey through graphic religion and graphic medicine, exploring how comics intersect with healthcare, clinical practice, spirituality, patient experience, and b...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome David Ebenbach , author of The AI Suspects It Might Be a Hungry Ghost . About The AI Suspects It Might Be a Hungry Ghost : The poems in David Ebenbach’s new poetry collection, The AI Suspects It Might Be a Hungry Ghost, speculate: if a chatbot could feel and think, what would it feel and think? What would it feel about the complicated situation w...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Natalie Zina Walschots , author of VILLAIN . About VILLAIN : The hench once called Anna, now known to her colleagues and enemies as the Auditor, has carved out a wicked name for herself. Any superhero unlucky enough to cross her path knows her potential and powers. Surely, her recent success should taste sweet: she has an incredible job with lots...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Faith Hunter , author of Unpredictable Magic . About Unpredictable Magic : Angelina Everhart-Trueblood and her brother Evan run Everhart Investigations, a PI firm in Chattanooga that solves paranormal crimes committed by supernatural beings. When their new client wants help finding her friend, who supposedly disappeared during a reception at Angi...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Frances White , author of THE BONE DOOR . About THE BONE DOOR : When Hop awakens in an ancient labyrinth, he has no memory of his life, or how he got here. He does not recognise the mysterious girl trapped with him. And he certainly cannot identify the shadowy figure stalking him, whispering terrible things… But there is one thing he is cer...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome back Michael Damian Thomas , to talk about Uncanny Magazine Year 13: The Space Unicorn Believes in YOU! About Uncanny Magazine Year 13: The Space Unicorn Believes in YOU! : We have something special planned this year, Space Unicorns. Along with it being Year 13, this year will feature our DIAMOND Issue 75! In celebration of this milestone, all of...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Catriona Silvey , author of VERVAIN HOLLOW . About VERVAIN HOLLOW : Two years ago, Laura was in a cult. But when the sprawling house in the hollow burned down with Vervain, their strikingly handsome and magnetic leader, trapped inside, Laura had nowhere to go but home. Brokenhearted, she finds herself longing for their lost leader—despite the tra...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Sam J. Miller , author of Red Star Hustle . About Red Star Hustle : Aran, a happy-go-lucky high-class escort, is on the run after he’s framed for the assassination of his famous filmmaker client. The last thing he needs is to fall for the studly and noble clone of a murderous puppet monarch while he’s trying to stay one step ahead of an ace bount...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome William Bernhardt , author of The Superman Wars . About The Superman Wars : Almost everyone knows about the man from Krypton who, disguised as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent working with the fearless Lois Lane, fights for the vulnerable and the oppressed. But few know the truth about this indelible character’s creation. From mobster tactics to...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Peter Orullian , author of SONGS OF THE DEAD . About SONGS OF THE DEAD : When Jack Solomon, a struggling musician who works in London’s West End, is killed, he awakens to a new reality in which light and music are used to create magic and where living eras of the past sprawl beneath modern London, layer upon layer, all the way back to recorded hi...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome J.P. Lacrampe , author of Valet . About Valet : Cy wants nothing more than to be useful, raise his utility score, and receive the next update for his operating system. But that’s easier said than done when he’s tasked with helping his owner’s thirty-five-year-old son “get out of his funk.” Grayson is nothing like his go-getter, CEO sister C...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Seanan McGuire , author of STRIXHAVEN: OMENS OF CHAOS . About STRIXHAVEN: OMENS OF CHAOS : Eula Blue was supposed to be a mage. That was before the war came—before the fight for the Multiverse devastated Eula’s home, and with it her hopes for a magical education. But the destruction of the war also brought something new: the ability to travel to...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Naomi Kritzer , author of Obstetrix . About Obstetrix : Doctor Liz has just been acquitted for performing the last abortion in North Dakota when she’s kidnapped. They’re not just any kidnappers, but a fundamentalist cult, deep in the rural west, without respect for law or decency, and in desperate need of an OB/GYN. Guarded, isolated,...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Amal El-Mohtar , author of Seasons of Glass and Iron . About Seasons of Glass and Iron : Full of glimpses into gleaming worlds and fairy tales with teeth, Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories is a collection of acclaimed and awarded work from Amal El-Mohtar. With confidence and style, El-Mohtar guides us through exquisitely told and sharply observe...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Anton Hur , translator of If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop . About If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop : An elderly woman stranded in a defunct space station recounts her life story to a visitor as she waits for a vessel that may never arrive. A man comes across a company called Emotional Solids that sells e...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Jeremy Szal , author of WOLFSKIN . About WOLFSKIN : Vakov Fukasawa is a Reaper. An elite soldier injected with a dangerous drug called stormtech: the DNA of a genocidal alien race, the Shenoi. It makes him stronger, faster, more aggressive. At a price. A price that, if the House of Suns cult and the dangerous Shenoi alien race behind it, isn&#821...

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...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Tao Wong , author of The First Step . About The First Step : It is said that a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step… Long Wu Ying never expected to become a real cultivator, never dreamed of having the chance to train and develop wondrous martial arts skills and magic of his own. As a farmer’s son in a rural village, his days...

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome John Chu , author of The Subtle Art of Folding Space . About The Subtle Art of Folding Space : Ellie’s universe?and this one?is falling apart. Her ailing mother is in a coma; her sister, Chris, accuses her of being insufficiently Chinese between assassination attempts; and a shadowy cabal of engineers is trying to hijack the skunkworks, the machi...