The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Katherine Villyard , author of IMMORTAL GIFTS . About IMMORTAL GIFTS : Prussia, 1841. Abraham only ever wanted to play violin. Hiding his Jewish status so he can study at the prestigious Berlin Academy of Music, the eager young man is delighted to find a patron who believes in him. But he’s mortified when his new friend turns him into a vampire… and...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Cerece Rennie Murphy , author of In the Garden of Light and Shadow . About In the Garden of Light and Shadow : 4000 years ago, a rebellion in the Ever brought angels to live among us. At first, they were worshiped as gods. But that was not enough. And in their hunger for power, Evil claimed their hearts and made them demons. Lilavois St. James rose to fight the...

In a very special JUST US episode of the podcast this week, Patrick and Tracy are talking about cats, Dungeons & Dragons, Patreon, coffee, Star Wars coffee mugs, working out, black Friday, smart tvs, peopling, weddings, San Diego ComiCon, conventions, Denver’s Pop Culture Con, the holidays and gift giving, kids, family, spreadsheets, pivot tables, gift cards, restaurant menus, holiday mu...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome R.S.A. Garcia , author of The Nightward . About The Nightward : For 500 years Gaiea’s Hand has stood as a ward against the Dark. The Age of Chaos is a faded memory. The Goddess has left Gailand and given her Blessing to the Queens to rule in her stead. Princess Viella of the court of Hamber is the Spirit of Gaiea, presumptive heir to the throne and budding wiel...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Mike Chen , author of Marvel: What If . . . Marc Spector Was Host to Venom? (A Moon Knight & Venom Story) . About Marvel: What If . . . Marc Spector Was Host to Venom? (A Moon Knight & Venom Story) : Marc Spector is used to voices in his head. He’s used to waking up disoriented, unsure what his alters, Jake and Steven, might have been up to. He’s used t...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Curtis C. Chen , author of TRUE BLUE KANGAROO . About TRUE BLUE KANGAROO : Welcome to the spacefaring future, where humanity travels between planets with ease and has abused that power to establish outposts in some questionable places. Take Venus, for example: a sister world to Mother Earth, similar in size and gravity, it’s also known for having a toxic...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Two-Time Hugo Award winner Paul Weimer . About Paul Weimer : Paul Weimer is a Two-Time 2024 Hugo Award winner for Fan Writer and Fanzine (Editor). Not really a Prince of Amber, but rather, an ex-pat New Yorker living in Minnesota, Paul Weimer has been reading sci-fi and fantasy for over 40 years. An avid and enthusiastic amateur photographer, blogger and podcas...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome John Jackson Miller , author of BATMAN: RESURRECTION . About BATMAN: RESURRECTION : The Joker is dead, but not forgotten. Gotham City is saved, but it is still not safe. By night, its new symbol of hope, Batman, continues his fight to protect the innocent and the powerless. By day, his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, wonders whether there may someday be a future beyond...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Luis Jaramillo , author of The Witches of El Paso . About The Witches of El Paso : 1943, El Paso, Texas: teenager Nena spends her days caring for the small children of her older sisters, while longing for a life of freedom and adventure. The premonitions and fainting spells she has endured since childhood are getting worse, and Nena worries she’ll end up like t...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Martha Wells , author of the updated and revised version of Wheel of the Infinite . About the updated and revised version of Wheel of the Infinite : A traitor and a swordsman join forces to save the world from being rewritten into devastation. Every year the image of the Wheel of the Infinite must be painstakingly remade to ensure another year of peace and harm...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Peter F. Hamilton , author of Exodus: The Archimedes Engine . About Exodus: The Archimedes Engine : In a past age, humanity fled a dying Earth in massive ark ships. These searched the galaxy to find a new home. Then one fleet found Centauri, a dense cluster of stars teeming with habitable planets. Now, thousands of years later, Centauri’s settlers have evolved...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Stephanie Wrobel , author of THE HITCHCOCK HOTEL . About THE HITCHCOCK HOTEL : Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and mem...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Ken Liu , translator of Laozi’s Dao De Jing . About Laozi’s Dao De Jing : Laozi’s Dao De Jing was written around 400 BC by a compassionate soul in a world torn by hatred and ambition, dominated by those that yearned for apocalyptic confrontations and prized ideology over experience. By speaking out against the cleverness of elites and the arrogance of the learn...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Unexploded Remnants , author of Elaine Gallagher . About Unexploded Remnants : Alice is the last human. Street-smart and bad-ass. After discovering what appears to be an A.I. personality in an antique data core, Alice decides to locate its home somewhere in the stargate network. At the very least, she wants to lay him to rest because, as it turns out, she’s stu...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Hana Lee , author of ROAD TO RUIN . About ROAD TO RUIN : Jin-Lu has the most dangerous job in the wasteland. She’s a magebike courier, one of the few who venture outside the domed cities on motorcycles powered by magic. Every day, she braves the wasteland’s dangers—deadly storms, roving marauders, and territorial beasts—to deliver her wares. Her most valuable c...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Mary Robinette Kowal , author of Silent Spaces . About Silent Spaces : Silent Spaces: Tales from the Lady Astronauts is a collection of 9 short stories in the Lady Astronaut Series written by Mary Robinette Kowal, including one written just for this collection. With this campaign the book will be available in print for the first time in English as a Softcover,...

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 T...

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 han...

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 t...

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 advent...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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 s...