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The Functional Nerds Podcast
The Functional Nerds
100 episodes
1 week ago
Functional Nerds is the weekly podcast from author/blogger Patrick Hester and Author/Teacher Tracy Townsend focusing on science fiction and fantasy media: television, film, comics, and new media such as fan films, audio dramas, online animated comics and more, technology, gadgets and all things Apple as well as music and the occasional video game.
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All content for The Functional Nerds Podcast is the property of The Functional Nerds and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
Functional Nerds is the weekly podcast from author/blogger Patrick Hester and Author/Teacher Tracy Townsend focusing on science fiction and fantasy media: television, film, comics, and new media such as fan films, audio dramas, online animated comics and more, technology, gadgets and all things Apple as well as music and the occasional video game.
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Books
Arts,
TV & Film,
News,
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Episodes (20/100)
The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 682-With Auston Habershaw
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Auston Habershaw, author of Faceless Galaxy.
About Faceless Galaxy: Throughout the gutters and sanitation systems of the civilized galaxy, amorphous, nameless blobs called Torrhoids digest other species’ trash to clean air and water.
The Great Races don’ t consider Torrhoids intelligent. But when one Torrhoid receives a baffling kindness, its curiosity ignites. The shapeshifter discovers it can mimic its overlords— not only their voices, but their forms and movements, too.
It can escape the prison planet where it is kept cold, hungry, and fighting for life. It can evade those who would throw it back into the sewers. With ingenuity, quick thinking, and the power of surprise, it can strike down even the oligarchs and influence traders who rule the galaxy. So begins the career of the assassin known only as “Faceless”.
Still learning the cultures of the beings it impersonates, testing the limits of its abilities, and evading revulsion for its natural form, Faceless is never far from detection and death. Ethics are a luxury it can ill afford.
But as the stories of this sharp, twisty cyberpunk collection prove, a gutter scavenger’s justice may still beat an empire’s.
About Auston Habershaw: On the day Auston Habershaw was born, Skylab fell from the heavens. This foretold two possible fates: supervillain or scifi/fantasy author. Fortunately he chose the latter, and spends his time imagining the could-be and the never-was rather than disintegrating the moon with his volcano laser. He lives and works in Boston, MA.
Auston is a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest (2nd place in quarter 1, 2014) and has published stories in Analog, Galaxy’s Edge, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Escape Pod, among other places. His fantasy series, The Saga of the Redeemed is available through Harper Voyager Impulse.
This week’s picks:

* Auston: UFO 50 (Game)
* Tracy: A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny
* Patrick #1: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (Netflix)
* Patrick #2: Who Killed The Montreal Expos? (Netflix)

Links:

* Auston Habershaw on BluSky
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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1 week ago
48 minutes 26 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 681-With Mark Waddell
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Mark Waddell, author of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World.
About Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World: Colin is a low-level employee at Dark Enterprises, a Hell-like multinational corporation solving the world’s most difficult problems in deeply questionable ways. After years of toiling away in a cubicle, he’s ready to climb the corporate ladder and claim the power he’s never had.
The only problem is, he’s pretty sure he’s about to be terminated. Like, terminated. That’s tough, because his BFF has just set him up with a great guy. In fact, maybe he’s a little too great. And he asks a lot of questions…
When Colin meets a shadowy figure promising his deepest desire in return for a small, unspecified favor, he can’t resist the urge to fast-track his goals. He asks for the one thing that will improve his life: a promotion.
But that small favor unleashes an ancient evil. People in New York are disappearing, the world might be ending, and Management is starting to notice. Getting to the top is never easy, and now it’s up to Colin to save the world. It’s the ultimate power move, after all.
About Mark Waddell: Originally from Calgary, Alberta, Mark grew up on the cold, windswept Prairies of western Canada. Fleeing southward, he earned a Ph.D. in the history of science, medicine, and technology from the Johns Hopkins University and then enjoyed fifteen years of non-stop excitement as a humanities professor. Finally yearning for greener pastures, he persuaded his amazing husband to move to Vancouver Island, where they now live.
When not writing stories about murderous Canadians, he plays the viola in a local orchestra, walks his dogs along the seashore, and thinks up interesting ways to kill people.
This week’s picks:

* Mark: The Great British Bake Off (Netflix)
* Tracy: Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
* Patrick: Invasion (AppleTV)

Links:

* Mark Waddell on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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4 weeks ago
51 minutes 29 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 680-With Louis Sachar
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:

* Louis: Galactic Cruise (Board Game)
* Tracy: Andor
* Patrick: Pathfinder Quest – a cooperative adventure board game (Paizo)

Links:

* Contact Louis Sachar
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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1 month ago
44 minutes 31 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 679-With John Wiswell
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:

* John: Herdling (Video game
* Tracy: Usagi Yojimbo Saga Volume 1 by Stan Sakai
* Patrick: Starfinder: Murder in Metal City Deluxe Adventure

Links:

* John Wiswell on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional ...
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1 month ago
40 minutes 29 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 678-With Jakub Szamalek
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:

* Jakub: The Naked Gun (2025)
* Tracy: The Man Who Died Seven Times by YASUHIKO NISHIZAWA (Author), Jesse Kirkwood (Translator)
* Patrick: Pathfinder Game Night: Dawn of the Frogs

Links:

* Jakub Szamalek on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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1 month ago
46 minutes 25 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 677-With Daphne Fama
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:

* Daphne: Gold Bee Door Knocker
* Tracy: Glocusent Book Light
* Patrick: Wednesday (Netflix)

Links:

* Daphne Fama on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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2 months ago
47 minutes 3 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 676-With Jenna “Dingo” Woldenga and Avery Howett from Fool’s Gold
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:

* Jenna “Dingo” Woldenga on Instagram
* Avery Howett’s VAMPS
* The Fool’...
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2 months ago
37 minutes 37 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 675-With Delilah S. Dawson
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,
Strahd von Zarovich
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:

* Delilah #1: Libby App
* Delilah #2: Mercari
* Delilah #3: Poshmark
* Delilah #4: E-Bay
* Delilah #5: The Paleontologist by Luke Dumas
* Tracy: Deep Regrets (Game)
* Patrick: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3

Links:

* Delilah S. Dawson on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* Show more...
2 months ago
47 minutes 53 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 674-With Sam Kelly
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:

* Sam: Stardew Valley
* Sam: Superman
* Sam: Fantastic Four
* Tracy: Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen
* Patrick: The NFL Preseason

Links:

* Sam Kelly on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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2 months ago
49 minutes 8 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 673-With Margaret, Stohl Jeanine Schaefer and Judith Stephens
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,
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3 months ago
37 minutes 31 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 672-With Paul Bradley Carr
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:

* Paul: Agatha Christie, She Watched: One Woman’s Plot to Watch 201 Christie Adaptations Without Murdering the Director, Screenwriter, Cast, or Her Husband by Teresa Peschel
* Tracy: Muderbot (Apple TV+)
* Patrick: Macross Movies and TV Shows on Hulu (Start Here)

Links:

* Paul Bradley Carr on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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3 months ago
44 minutes 12 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 671-With Joan Slonczewski
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:

* Joan: Churchill and Pemberley Cozy Mystery (Teapot) Series by Emily Organ
* Tracy: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Volume 1: Change is Constant by Kevin B. Eastman, Tom Waltz, and Dan Duncan
* Patrick: Galaxy Highways (Steam Game)

Links:

* Joan Slonczewski on Facebook
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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3 months ago
1 hour 6 minutes 25 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 670-With Morgan Ryan
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Morgan Ryan, author of A RESISTANCE OF WITCHES.
About A RESISTANCE OF WITCHES: Stubborn, plain-spoken and from an unimpressive family, Lydia Polk never expected to be accepted into the Royal Academy of Witches. Now, with Hitler’s army rampaging across Europe, the witches of Britain have joined the war effort, and Lydia is key to the cause: she must use her magic to track down magical relics before Hitler and his sycophants can. When a Nazi witch infiltrates the Academy with heart-breaking consequences, the coven is left shaken, exposed and divided. The elder British witches have no interest in further loss of coven life in service of a government that has forced them into hiding for decades, no matter the consequences to the world. But with the discovery of the Grimorium Bellum, an ancient book that leaves a trail of death and destruction wherever it goes, Lydia knows her mission has never been more urgent.
Alone and woefully outnumbered, Lydia makes her way to the heart of occupied France, where she finds allies in Rebecca Gagne—a fierce French resistance fighter chockful of secrets—and Henry Boudreaux—a handsome Haitian-American art historian with a little magic of his own. Together, they traverse the country, stalked by the natural and supernatural alike, in search of the grimoire. But, as Lydia soon discovers, finding the book is only half the battle—the Grimorium Bellum has a dark agenda all its own. Lydia must subdue it before the Witches of the Third Reich can use it—but she’ll have to survive the book herself, first.
About Morgan Ryan: Morgan Ryan is the author of stories born from a lifelong love of magic, a fixation on historical minutiae that borders on the obsessive, and a tendency to fall down rabbit-holes. She was raised in a family of writers in upstate New York, and received her degree in theatre performance from Northeastern University. She now lives in Chicago with her husband. A Resistance of Witches is her first novel.
This week’s picks:

* Morgan: Dimension 20
* Tracy: The Expanse: Season 3
* Patrick: Slow Horses (Apple TV)

Links:

* Morgan Ryan on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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3 months ago
44 minutes 41 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 669-With Uncanny Magazine’s Michael Damian Thomas




This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Michael Damian Thomas, to talk about Uncanny Magazine Year 12: Fly Forever, Space Unicorns!.
About Uncanny Magazine Year 12: Fly Forever, Space Unicorns!: Editor-in-Chief/Publisher Michael Damian Thomas and Team Uncanny Magazine have run successful Kickstarters for the seven-time Hugo Award-winning, 2024 World Fantasy Award-winning, and 2024 Locus Award-winning Uncanny Magazine Years One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and Eleven. We promised to bring you stunning cover art, passionate science fiction and fantasy fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, and provocative essays by writers from every conceivable background–not to mention a fantastic award-winning podcast featuring exclusive content.
Through the hard work of our exceptional staff and contributors, Uncanny Magazine delivered on that promise every single year. Stories from Uncanny Magazine have been finalists for or winners of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Sturgeon, Ignyte, and World Fantasy Awards!
If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to join or re-up with the Space Unicorn Ranger Corps, now’s your chance! We need your help to continue this mission for another year. This is your magazine, Space Unicorns! Let’s make Year 12 happen!
Though Uncanny continues to have multiple ways to support us, we still need the help of the Space Unicorn Kickstarter community to keep bringing you this amazing content. Unfortunately, there is a less-than-celebratory side to this Kickstarter. Recently, a very large online eBook dealer ended its magazine subscriptions and moved Uncanny onto their streaming service. This meant over a 75% reduction of our subscription earnings.
YOUR support, specifically, makes it possible for us to make our magazine freely available on our website and to pay our contributors and staff. We need your help more than ever, Space Unicorns!
About Michael Damian Thomas: Michael Damian Thomas is the eight-time Hugo, British Fantasy, World Fantasy, and Parsec Award-winning co-publisher (with Lynne M. Thomas) and editor-in-chief of the Locus Award-winning Uncanny Magazine. Michael was a Hugo Award finalist as the former Managing Editor of Apex Magazine (2012-2013), co-edited the Hugo Award finalist essay anthology Queers Dig Time Lords (Mad Norwegian Press, 2013) with Sigrid Ellis, and co-edited the anthology Glitter & Mayhem (Apex Publications, 2013) with John Klima and Lynne M. Thomas. Michael was additionally a contributor to the SF Squeecast podcast (with Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Lynne M. Thomas, and Catherynne M. Valente), a contributor to the Down and Safe- Blake’s 7 podcast (with Amal El-Mohtar, Scott Lynch, and L.M. Myles), and is currently the Content Editor (with Lynne M. Thomas) of the It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton podcast.
Michael was formerly the full-time caregiver of his late daughter, Caitlin. Caitlin had a rare congenital disorder called Aicardi syndrome.
This week’s picks:

* Michael: The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time List
* Tracy: The Revival Tea Company

Links:

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3 months ago
49 minutes 45 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 668-With Matthew Kressel
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Matthew Kressel, author of SPACE TRUCKER JESS.
About SPACE TRUCKER JESS: Jessian Urania Darger is a kick-ass take-no-shit foul-mouthed too-smart-for-her-own-good sixteen-year-old girl with a chip on her shoulder. She and her daddy have been grifting their way across the verse for years. But when her daddy gets arrested for running crypto-credit scams, Jess is forced to get a job on Chadeisson Station as a roachrunner, fixing starships to survive.
She dreams of a better life, away from her corrupt daddy, so she’s been saving up to buy a Spark Megahauler, a huge cargo ship, ever since she saw one in a printer catalog. She wants to run the long hauls, to sail alone into the black and never look back.
But when her daddy goes missing from prison, Jess realizes she just can’t let him go, and she makes it her life’s mission to find out where he’s gone. In an odyssey that takes her across the galaxy, Jess encounters vanished planets, strange societies, inscrutable alien gods, and mind-bending secrets that may change humanity’s path forever.
About Matthew Kressel: Matt is a software developer and speculative fiction writer with three Nebula Award nominations, a World Fantasy Award nomination, and a Eugie Award nomination. He’s the co-host of the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in New York City. And he created the Moksha submissions system, in use by some of the largest publishers in speculative fiction today.
This week’s picks:

* Matthew #1: Poker Face (Peacock)
* Matthew #2: Dept Q (Netflix)
* Tracy: Galaxy Trcuker (Game)
* Patrick: Becoming Led Zeppelin (Netflix)

Links:

* Matthew Kressel on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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4 months ago
51 minutes 17 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 667-With Antony Johnston
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Antony Johnston, author of Can You Solve the Murder?
About Can You Solve the Murder?: One murder. Six suspects. One truth for YOU to uncover.
YOU are the lead detective and it’s your job to investigate the most mysterious crime of your career.
There’s been a murder at Elysium, a wellness retreat set in an English country manor. You arrive to find the body of a local businessman on the lawn – with a rose placed in his mouth. It appears he was stabbed with a gardening fork and fell to his death from the balcony above. You quickly realize that balcony can only be accessed through a locked door, the key is missing, and everyone in Elysium is now a suspect… Who did it and why? It’s up to you to figure it out.
YOU gather the evidence and examine the clues.
YOU choose who to interview next, and who to accuse as your prime suspect.
But remember that every decision YOU make has consequences – and some of them will prove fatal…
Do you have what it takes? Can YOU solve the murder? Put your sleuthing skills to the test!
About Antony Johnston: Antony Johnston is one of the most versatile writers of the modern era.
The Charlize Theron movie Atomic Blonde was based on his graphic novel. His murder mystery The Dog Sitter Detective won the Barker Book Award for fiction. His crime puzzle novel Can You Solve the Murder? reinvented the choose-your-own-story format for a modern audience. The Brigitte Sharp spy thrillers are in development for TV. And his productivity guide The Organised Writer has helped authors all over the world take control of their workload.
Antony is a celebrated videogames writer, with genre-defining titles including Dead Space, Shadow of Mordor, and Resident Evil Village to his credit. He also consulted on the Emmy Award-winning Silent Hill Ascension, making him the only writer in the world to have worked on all of the ‘big three’ horror gaming franchises.
His immense body of work also includes Marvel superheroes such as Daredevil, Wolverine, and Shang-Chi; the Alex Rider graphic novels; the post-apocalypse epic Wasteland; and more. He wrote and directed the sci-fi film Crossover Point, made entirely in quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic.
An experienced podcaster and public speaker, he also frequently writes articles on the life of an author, and is a prolific musician.
Antony is a former vice chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, a member of International Thriller Writers and the Society of Authors, a Shore Scripts screenwriting judge, and sits on the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain’s videogames committee. He lives and works in England.
This week’s picks:

* Antony: Slow Horses (Apple TV)
* Tracy: The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler
* Patrick: Welcome to Wrexham (FX)

Links:

* Antony Johnston on Facebook
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
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4 months ago
55 minutes 47 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 666-With Auston Habershaw
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Auston Habershaw, author of If Wishes Were Retail.
About If Wishes Were Retail: Alex Delmore needs a miracle. She wants out of her dead-end suburban town, but her parents are broke and NYU seems like a distant dream.
Good thing there’s a genie in town?and he’s hiring at the Wellspring Mall.
It’d help if the Jinn-formerly-of-the-Ring-of-Khorad knew even one thing about 21st-century America. It’d help if he weren’t at least as stubborn as Alex. It’d really help if her brother didn’t sell her out to her conspiracy theory-loving, gnome-hating dad.
When Alex and the genie set up their wishing kiosk, they face seemingly-endless setbacks. The mall is failing and management will not stop interfering on behalf of their big-box tenants, especially the megastore ValuDay.
But when the wishing biz might start working, the biggest problem of all remains: People are really terrible at wishing.
About Auston Habershaw: On the day Auston Habershaw was born, Skylab fell from the heavens. This foretold two possible fates: supervillain or scifi/fantasy author. Fortunately he chose the latter, and spends his time imagining the could-be and the never-was rather than disintegrating the moon with his volcano laser. He lives and works in Boston, MA.
Auston is a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest (2nd place in quarter 1, 2014) and has published stories in Analog, Galaxy’s Edge, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Escape Pod, among other places. His fantasy series, The Saga of the Redeemed is available through Harper Voyager Impulse.
This week’s picks:

* Auston: AGON (TTRPG from Evil Hat)
* Tracy: Resident Alien (Netflix)
* Patrick: Murderbot (AppleTV+)

Links:

* Auston Habershaw on BluSky
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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4 months ago
1 hour 3 minutes 57 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 665-With Randee Dawn
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome back Randee Dawn, author of The Only Song Worth Singing.
About The Only Song Worth Singing: Childhood friends Patrick, Ciaran, and Malachi would’ve been happy to play music for coins on the streets of Dublin, but when their sound – a blend of traditional tunes and rock styling – lands them a record deal, they also get their first tour of America. As they gather fans, however, they also get the attention of three sídhe, fairies straight out of Irish tradition who play by their own rules.
Mal finds himself beleaguered by a prankster whose malicious tricks make him think he’s losing his mind, while Ciaran falls hard for a hanger-on whose primal sexuality saps the life from him. Patrick can save them – if he’s willing to trust the superstitions he learned during a painful childhood he thought he’d left behind long ago.
But the only thing that matters more than music to Patrick? His friends.
About Randee Dawn: Randee Dawn is an author, journalist, and lucky denizen of Brooklyn. Her first novel, the humorous pop-culture fantasy Tune in Tomorrow, published in August 2022 (Solaris/Rebellion).
Randee’s short fiction has appeared in publications and podcasts including 3AM Magazine (“The View of My Brother’s Profile in the Rear-View Mirror,” 2001; “Warm, In Your Coat,” 2004) and Well-Told Tales (“Home for the Holidays,” 2015; “Can’t Keep a Dead Man Down,” 2017).
Dawn’s stories have appeared in anthologies including Where We May Wag (“The Last Dog,” Writing Piazza Press, 2018), Children of a Different Sky (“Can’t Find My Way Home,” Kos Books, 2018), Magic for Beginners (“Queen Zoe and the Spinning Game,” Fantasia Divinity, 2019), Dim Shores Presents (“Rough Beast, Slouching,” 2021), Another World: Stories of Portal Fantasy (“The Way Is Clear,” SummerStorm Press, 2021), and Horror for the Throne: One-Sitting Reads (“Cat Person”).
She has a short collection of dark speculative fiction short stories, “Home for the Holidays” (2014) and co-authored “The Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion” (BenBella Books, 2009). She co-edited the speculative fiction anthology of “what if” stories about The Beatles, “Across the Universe: Tales of Alternative Beatles” (Fantastic Books, 2019).
When not making stuff up, Randee publishes entertainment profiles, reviews, and think pieces regularly in outlets including Variety, The Los Angeles Times, Today.com and Emmy Magazine, and writes trivia for BigBrain.
This week’s picks:

* Randee: Afternoon Tea
* Tracy: NAWS (National Animal Welfare Society)
* Patrick: Dept Q (Netflix)

Links:

* Randee Dawn on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
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4 months ago
47 minutes 3 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 664-With Mark Stevens
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Mark Stevens, author of No Lie Lasts Forever.
About No Lie Lasts Forever: When a reporter dies in a shockingly familiar way, the media rushes to announce the return of the PDQ Killer. The city of Denver reels, but no one more than Harry Kugel. After all, he is the PDQ Killer – or was fifteen years ago. And he didn’t do this.
Still working to reform his ways, Harry won’t let some amateur murderer ride his twisted coattails and risk drawing the police back his way. To protect his legacy and quiet new life, he’ll have to expose the copycat. Without exposing himself.
Disgraced TV journalist Flynn Martin holds the key. After a botched hostage situation, she’ll do anything to revive her dying career – even hunt down a monster who executed one of her own.
Harry must convince Flynn to follow him into the heady world of a killer. But with the law closing in and a rival at large, he starts to feel the familiar pull of old urges…
About Mark Stevens: Mark Stevens is the author of No Lie Lasts Forever (June 2025 from Thomas & Mercer), The Fireballer (Lake Union, 2023), and The Allison Coil Mystery Series including Antler Dust, Buried by the Roan, Trapline, Lake of Fire, and The Melancholy Howl.
Buried by the Roan, Trapline, and Lake of Fire were all finalists for the Colorado Book Award. Trapline won.
Stevens has had short stories published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, and in Denver Noir (Akashic Books, 2022). Denver Noir went on to win the Colorado Book Award for Best Anthology in 2023.
In 2016 and again in 2023, Stevens was named Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Writer of the Year.
Stevens hosted a regular podcast for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers for ten years.
Stevens has served as president of the Rocky Mountain chapter for Mystery Writers of America. Stevens also regularly publishes reviews on his review website.
Today, Stevens lives in Mancos, Colorado.
This week’s picks:

* Mark: Dope Thief (AppleTV+)
* Tracy: Your Friendly Local Game Store
* Patrick: Long Way Home (AppleTV+)

Links:

* Mark Stevens on the network formerly known as Twitter
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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5 months ago
40 minutes 17 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Episode 663-With Victoria Helen Stone
This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Victoria Helen Stone, author of Bald-Faced Liar.
About Bald-Faced Liar: Traveling nurse Elizabeth May has a promising new home in Santa Cruz. And another new identity. It’s a pattern of reinvention for a woman escaping her traumatic childhood?and hiding from the decades of notoriety and destruction that followed. Invisibility has kept Elizabeth safe. Until now. After all these years, someone sees her for who she is.
Threat by threat, a vengeful stalker is dismantling Elizabeth’s carefully constructed lifetime of lies. And no one in her temporary circle can be trusted?not her fleeting new love interest, not the supportive friend she knows only from online forums, and certainly not the police. They’ve never been there for her.
As fear sharpens to terror, Elizabeth soon discovers something about her past that even she didn’t know. The revelation could finally set her on a path of healing and redemption. Or, now alone in the dark, it could be Elizabeth’s worst nightmare.
About Victoria Helen Stone: Victoria Helen Stone, author of the runaway best seller Jane Doe, writes critically acclaimed novels of dark intrigue and emotional suspense. Aside from Follow Her Down, At The Quiet Edge, The Last One Home, Problem Child, Half Past, and the chart-topping False Step and Evelyn, After, she also published twenty-nine books as USA Today bestselling author Victoria Dahl and won the prestigious American Library Association Reading List award for best genre fiction. Her novels have been published in English, Russian, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Lithuanian, Portuguese, German, French, Japanese, Indonesian, Czech, Hebrew, Estonian, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch, and Thai.
Victoria writes in her home office high in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, far from her origins in the flattest plains of Minnesota, Texas, and Oklahoma. She enjoys gorgeous summer trail hikes in the mountains almost as much as she enjoys staying inside by the fire during winter. Victoria is passionate about dessert, true crime, and her terror of mosquitoes, which have targeted her in a diabolical conspiracy to hunt her down no matter the season.
This week’s picks:

* Victoria: Conclave
* Tracy: Mental Floss: The Curious Reader: | Facts About Famous Authors and Novels
* Patrick: Andor Season 2 (Disney+)

Links:

* Victoria Helen Stone on Instagram
* Tracy Townsend on BluSky
* Patrick Hester on Instagram
* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester
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5 months ago
44 minutes 37 seconds

The Functional Nerds Podcast
Functional Nerds is the weekly podcast from author/blogger Patrick Hester and Author/Teacher Tracy Townsend focusing on science fiction and fantasy media: television, film, comics, and new media such as fan films, audio dramas, online animated comics and more, technology, gadgets and all things Apple as well as music and the occasional video game.