The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome multi-award winning fiction editor Ellen Datlow, whose latest anthology – Body Shocks: Extreme Tales of Body Horror – is coming October 19th from Tachyon Publications. About Body Shocks: Extreme Tales of Body Horror: The most terrifying thing that you can possibly imagine is your own body in the hands of a monster. Or worse, in the hands of another human being. In these 29 tales of body horror selected by World Horror Grandmaster Ellen Datlow, you’ll find the unthinkable, the shocking, and more: a couture designer preparing for an exquisitely grotesque runway show; a vengeful son seeking the parent who bred him as plasma donor; a celebrity-kink brothel that inflicts plastic surgery on sex workers; and organ-harvesting doctors who dissect a living man without anesthetic. About Ellen Datlow: Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over thirty-five years as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and editor of Event Horizon and SCIFICTION. She currently acquires short fiction for Tor.com. In addition, she has edited more than a hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year, Lovecraft’s Monsters, Fearful Symmetries, The Doll Collection,, The Monstrous, Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror, Black Feathers, Haunted Nights (with Lisa Morton), and Mad Hatters and March Hares (stories inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There). Forthcoming are The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, and The Best of the Best (covering the first Ten volumes of the Best Horror of the Year series). She’s won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellence as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for “outstanding contribution to the genre,” was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career, and honored with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention. She lives in New York and co-hosts the monthly Fantastic Fiction Reading Series at KGB Bar. More information can be found at www.datlow.com. This week’s picks: * Ellen: Little Island Park Links: * Ellen Datlow on Twitter* Tracy Townsend on Twitter* Patrick Hester on Twitter* The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome back Ryan Van Loan, author of The Justice in Revenge (The Fall of the Gods, 2). About The Justice in Revenge (The Fall of the Gods, 2): The island nation of Servenza is a land of flint and steel, sail and gearwork, of gods both Dead and sleeping. It is a society where the wealthy few rule the impoverished many. Determined to change that, former street-rat Buc, along with Eld, the ex-soldier who has been her partner in crime-solving, have claimed seats on the board of the powerful Kanados Trading Company. Buc plans to destroy the nobility from within?which is much harder than she expected. Stymied by boardroom politics and dodging mages at every turn, Buc and Eld find a potential patron in the Doga, ruler of Servenza. The deal: by the night of the Masquerade, unmask whoever has been attempting to assassinate the Doga, thereby earning her support in the halls of power. Blow the deadline and she’ll have them deported to opposite ends of the world. Armed with Eld’s razor-sharp sword and Buc’s even sharper intellect, the dynamic duo hit the streets just as the shadow religious conflict between the Gods begins to break into open warfare. Those closest to Buc and Eld begin turning up with their throats slit amid rumors that a hidden mastermind is behind everything that’s going wrong in Servenza. Facing wrathful gods, hostile nobles, and a secret enemy bent on revenge, Buc and Eld will need every trick in their arsenal to survive. Luckily, extra blades aren’t the only things Buc has hidden up her sleeves. About Ryan Van Loan: Ryan Van Loan is an up and coming Science Fiction and Fantasy author. He started reading his Grandfather’s Reader’s Digest when he was four years old. Soon after, he read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer before eventually discovering science fiction and fantasy through the works of Robin McKinley, Robert Jordan, Stephen King and many more. He moved around a lot in his childhood from Montana to Georgia to Puerto Rico before finally ending up in Pennsylvania. Ryan served six years as a Sergeant in the United States Army Infantry (PA National Guard) where he served on the front lines of Afghanistan. All of that travel got into his blood and Ryan has traveled around the world with his wife, wandering Caribbean island haunts, exploring the palaces and cathedrals of Europe, and hiking with elephants in the rain forests of Southeast Asia. When he’s not traveling Ryan enjoys hiking, soccer (football), tabletop gaming, weightlifting (with his personal best coming from deadlifting three times his body weight), and all things culinary. Ryan’s debut novel, The Sin in the Steel (Tor Books), Book One in the Fall of the Gods series came out on July 21, 2020. Today, Ryan lives in northeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two dogs where he’s hard at work on his next novel. This week’s picks: * Ryan: Bosch The Final Season (Prime) * Tracy: Ducktales Season 3 (Disney+) * Patrick: The Is Pop (Netflix) Links: * Ryan Van Loan on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patric...

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome share a special Just Us episode from the Patreon feed, wherein they discuss: Monty Python, Spam, Video Games and Windows theme overlays, Keyboards, dog farts, Star Trek, fanzines, manual typewriters, geek culture, buying habits, Patreon and Kickstarter, custom refrigerators with soft serve, root beer (and other) floats, pizza and ice cream, tea, West Virginia, mountain mamas, Malort, Chicago, comfort food, Kentucky, bbq, Harned’s, The Paducah Dog, Long John Silver’s, hush puppies, comfort food, Cracker Barrel, vaccinations, Joliet, The Blues Brothers, The Lord of the Rings, HBOMax, DC’s Harley Queen, Death at a funeral (original), and Alan Tudyk. Links: * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Christopher Swiedler, author of The Orpheus Plot. About The Orpheus Plot: Lucas Adebayo grew up on a small mining ship in the asteroid belt, but wants to join the Navy and become the best pilot in the galaxy. The Navy has never accepted a Belter cadet before, but Lucas’s skills secure him a place on the training ship, the Orpheus. Life in the Navy couldn’t be more different than life in the Belt, and Lucas struggles to find his place. As a Belter, he’s an outsider among his peers; as a Navy cadet, he doesn’t quite fit in at home anymore, either. Lucas is caught between the worlds of his past and his future when a Belter rebellion puts everyone’s lives at risk. Only he can lead the way to peace. About Christopher Swiedler: Christopher Swiedler is an author and software engineer who lives with his wife and three children in California, where they’re under constant threat from earthquakes, tsunamis, and the occasional Martian dust storm. His goal in life is to win the Newbery Honor (not the medal itself) because he believes being a runner-up builds good character. He is represented by Bridget Smith of JABberwocky Literary Agency. His debut novel, IN THE RED, will be published by HarperCollins in March 2020. This week’s picks: * Chris: Kamado Big Green Egg Grill * Tracy: Spell Smashers (Game) * Patrick: B.B. King – On The Road (Documentary) Links: * Christopher Swiedler on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Andy Weir, author of Project Hail Mary. About Project hail Mary: Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he? About Andy Weir: Andy Weir built a two-decade career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing full-time. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail. He lives in California. This week’s picks: * Andy: Woodworking * Tracy: Spaceteam (app) * Patrick: Resident Alien (SyFy) Links: * Andy Weir on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome K.M. Szpara, author of FIRST, BECOME ASHES. About FIRST, BECOME ASHES: For thirty years, the Fellowship of the Anointed isolated its members, conditioning them to believe that pain is power. That magic is suffering. That the world beyond the fence has fallen prey to monsters. But when their leader is arrested, all her teachings come into question. Those touched by the Fellowship face a choice: how will they adjust to the world they were taught to fear, and how will they relate to the cult’s last crusader, Lark? For Kane, survival means rejecting the magic he and his lover suffered for. For Deryn, the cult’s collapse is an opportunity to prove they are worth as much as their Anointed brother. For Calvin, lark is the alluring embodiment of the magic he’s been seeking his entire life. But for Lark, the Fellowship isn’t over. Before he can begin to discover himself and heal a lifetime of traumas, he has a monster to slay. About K.M. Szpara: K.M. Szpara is a queer and trans author who lives in Baltimore, MD, with a tiny dog. His new book, FIRST, BECOME ASHES, tells a story of self-discovery after trauma and outgrowing abusive origins over the course of an American road trip. Kellan’s debut alt-/near-future novel, DOCILE, explores the snowballing debt crisis, consent, and privilege, and can be described as “really gay”. He is the author of “Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time,” a Hugo and Nebula nominated novelette about a gay trans man who’s bitten by a vampire. More of his fiction can be found in venues such as Uncanny, Lightspeed, and Shimmer. This week’s picks: * Kellen: Crop Tops * Tracy: Adventure Time (Hulu) * Patrick: Naughty Books – Documentary (Hulu) Links: * K.M. Szpara on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome David Ebenbach, author of How To Mars. About How To Mars: For the six lucky scientists selected by the Destination Mars! corporation, a one-way ticket to Mars?in exchange for a lifetime of research?was an absolute no-brainer. The incredible opportunity was clearly worth even the most absurdly tedious screening process. Perhaps worth following the strange protocols in a nonsensical handbook written by an eccentric billionaire. Possibly even worth their constant surveillance, the video of which is carefully edited into a ratings-bonanza back on Earth. But it turns out that after a while even scientists can get bored of science. Tempers begin to fray; unsanctioned affairs blossom. When perfectly good equipment begins to fail, the Marsonauts are faced with a possibility that their training just cannot explain. About David Ebenbach: David Ebenbach writes. He’s been writing ever since he was a kid, when he kept his whole family awake by banging away on an enormous manual typewriter, and he’s never wanted to stop. In fact, David’s now the author of eight books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction (all of which you can find on the Books page), and his work has picked up awards along the way: the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the Juniper Prize, the Patricia Bibby Award, and more. A Philadelphia native, these days David does most of his writing in Washington, DC, where he lives with his family—because he uses a laptop now, he doesn’t keep them awake with his typing—and where he works at Georgetown University, teaching creative writing and literature at the Center for Jewish Civilization and promoting student-centered teaching at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. This week’s picks: * David: Dunkaroos * Tracy: Jackbox Games Party Pack 7 * Patrick: Dishonored 2 (PS4) Links: * David Ebenbach on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Sarah Pinsker, author of We Are Satellites. About We Are Satellites: Val and Julie just want what’s best for their kids, David and Sophie. So when teenage son David comes home one day asking for a Pilot, a new brain implant to help with school, they reluctantly agree. This is the future, after all. Soon, Julie feels mounting pressure at work to get a Pilot to keep pace with her colleagues, leaving Val and Sophie part of the shrinking minority of people without the device. Before long, the implications are clear, for the family and society: get a Pilot or get left behind. With government subsidies and no downside, why would anyone refuse? And how do you stop a technology once it’s everywhere? Those are the questions Sophie and her anti-Pilot movement rise up to answer, even if it puts them up against the Pilot’s powerful manufacturer and pits Sophie against the people she loves most. About Sarah Pinsker: Sarah Pinsker is the author of over fifty works of short fiction, including the novelette “Our Lady of the Open Road,” winner of the Nebula Award in 2016. Her novelette “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,” was the Sturgeon Award winner in 2014. Her fiction has been published in magazines including Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and Uncanny and in numerous anthologies and year’s bests. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, Spanish, French, and Italian, among other languages, and have been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, Eugie, and World Fantasy Awards. Sarah’s first collection, the Philip K Dick Award winning Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea: Stories, was published by Small Beer Press in March 2019, and her first novel, A Song For A New Day, was published by Penguin/Random House/Berkley in September 2019. Her latest book is We Are Satellites, out in May 2021. This week’s picks: * Sarah: Strawberry Season * Tracy: The Ethnic Food Aisle * Patrick: Mare of Easttown (HBO) Links: * Sarah Pinsker on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Nino Cipri, author of Finna. About Finna: When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store ? but not that one ? slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago. To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them. Can friendship blossom from the ashes of their relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible. About Nino Cipri: Nino Cipri is a queer and trans/nonbinary writer, editor, and educator. A graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and University of Kansas’s MFA, Nino’s fiction has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, Lambda, Nebula, and Hugo Awards. A multidisciplinary artist, Nino has also written plays, screenplays, and radio features; performed as a dancer, actor, and puppeteer; and worked as a stagehand, bookseller, bike mechanic, and labor organizer. This week’s picks: * Nino #1: Unity by Elly Bangs * Nino #2: Erased (Netflix) * Tracy: Trial by Trolley (Card Game) * Patrick: The Irregulars (Netflix) Links: * Nino Cipri on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome not one, not two, but THREE authors – Cassandra Khaw, Genevieve Gornichec and Caitlin Starling, who have combined forces in a new collection of stories set in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe called Walk Among Us. About Walk Among Us: One of the most popular role-playing properties in the world gets new life with this trio of horror novellas set in Vampire: The Masquerade’s World of Darkness by three brilliant talents: Genevieve Gornichec, Cassandra Khaw, and Caitlin Starling The subtle horror and infernal politics of the World of Darkness are shown in a new light in Vampire: The Masquerade: Walk Among Us, an audio-first collection of three novellas that show the terror, hunger, and power of the Kindred as you’ve never seen them before. In Genevieve Gornichec’s A SHEEP AMONG WOLVES, depression and radicalization go hand-in-hand as a young woman finds companionship in the darkness… In Cassandra Khaw’s FINE PRINT, an arrogant tech bro learns the importance of reading the fine print in the contract for immortality… And in Caitlin Starling’s THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY, ideals and ethics bump heads with appetite on a blood farm. Three very different stories from three amazing, distinct voices, but all with one thing in common: the hunger never stops, and for someone to experience power, many others are going to have to feel pain. About Cassandra Khaw: Cassandra Khaw is an award-winning game writer, whose fiction work has been nominated for several awards. You can find their fiction in places like F&SF, Year’s Best of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Tor.com. Their next book Nothing But Blackened Teeth is coming out in 2021. About Genevieve Gornichec: Genevieve Gornichec earned her degree in history from The Ohio State University, but she got as close to majoring in Vikings as she possibly could, and her study of the Norse myths and Icelandic sagas became her writing inspiration. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio. The Witch’s Heart is her debut novel. About Caitlin Starling: Caitlin Starling writes horror-tinged speculative fiction of all flavors. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead, won the LOHF Best Debut Award and was nominated for both the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards. She has two gothic horror tales forthcoming: Yellow Jessamine (novella, Neon Hemlock 2020) and The Death of Jane Lawrence (novel, St Martin’s Press 2021), as well as a novella in the Vampire: The Masquerade audio collection, Walk Among Us. Her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare and Uncanny. Caitlin also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia. Links: * Cassandra Khaw on Twitter * Genevieve Gornichec on Twitter * Caitlin Starling on Twitter *

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Hugo and Nebula nominated author S.B. Divya, whose book, Machinehood, is available now! About Machinehood Welga Ramirez, executive bodyguard and ex-special forces, is about to retire early when her client is killed in front of her. It’s 2095 and people don’t usually die from violence. Humanity is entirely dependent on pills that not only help them stay alive, but allow them to compete with artificial intelligence in an increasingly competitive gig economy. Daily doses protect against designer diseases, flow enhances focus, zips and buffs enhance physical strength and speed, and juvers speed the healing process. All that changes when Welga’s client is killed by The Machinehood, a new and mysterious terrorist group that has simultaneously attacked several major pill funders. The Machinehood operatives seem to be part human, part machine, something the world has never seen. They issue an ultimatum: stop all pill production in one week. Global panic ensues as pill production slows and many become ill. Thousands destroy their bots in fear of a strong AI takeover. But the US government believes the Machinehood is a cover for an old enemy. One that Welga is uniquely qualified to fight. Welga, determined to take down the Machinehood, is pulled back into intelligence work by the government that betrayed her. But who are the Machinehood and what do they really want? About S.B. Divya S.B. Divya is a lover of science, math, fiction, and the Oxford comma. She is the Hugo and Nebula nominated author of Machinehood (Saga), Runtime (tordotcom), and the short story collection, Contingency Plans For the Apocalypse and Other Possible Situations (Hachette India). Divya is the co-editor of the weekly science fiction podcast Escape Pod, with Mur Lafferty. She holds degrees in Computational Neuroscience and Signal Processing and worked for twenty years as an electrical engineer before becoming an author. This week’s picks: * S.B. Divya: His Dark Materias (HBO) * Tracy: John Wiswell * Patrick: Rebel (ABC) Links: * S.B. Divya on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

In a very special Just Us episode, Patrick and Tracy are talking about the weeks where Patrick has been absent, his mother’s long illness, and her recent passing. They also touch on grief, guilt, Catholic guilt, and all the baggage that comes with them. Links: * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Elly Bangs, author of UNITY! About Unity: Danae is not only herself. She is concealing a connection to a grieving collective inside of her body. But while she labors as a tech servant in the dangerous underwater enclave of Bloom City, her fractured self cannot mend. In a desperate escape, Danae and her lover Naoto hire the enigmatic ex-mercenary Alexei to guide them out of the imploding city. But for Danae to reunify, the three new fugitives will have to flee across the otherworldly beauty of the postapocalyptic Southwest. Meanwhile, Danae’s warlord enemy, the Duke, and a strange new foe, the Borrower, already seek them at any price. About Elly Bangs: Elly Bangs is a queer trans woman who was raised in a new-age cult, had six wisdom teeth, and once rode her bicycle alone from Seattle to the Panama Canal. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Beneath Ceasless Skies, Escape Pod, Fireside Quarterly, and elsewhere — and her debut apocalyptic cyberpunk novel, Unity, is coming in Spring 2021. She’s a SFWA member and a 2017 graduate of Clarion West. This week’s picks: * Elly: Yerbe Mate * Tracy: Crio Bru Links: * Elly Bangs on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Marina Lostetter, author of THE HELM OF MIDIGHT! About THE HELM OF MIDIGHT: In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power?the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city. Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. But these murders are different from before, not simply random but the work of a deliberate mind probing for answers to a sinister question. It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake. About Marina Lostetter: The open skies and dense forests of the Pacific Northwest are ideal for growing speculative fiction authors–or, at least, Marina would like to think so. Originally from Oregon, she now resides in Arkansas with her spouse, Alex. In her spare time she enjoys globetrotting, board games, and all things art-related. Her original short fiction has appeared in venues such as Lightspeed, Uncanny, and Shimmer Magazine. Her debut novel, NOUMENON, and its sequels, NOUMENON INFINITY and NOUMENON ULTRA, are available from Harper Voyager. Her first fantasy novel, THE HELM OF MIDNIGHT, is forthcoming from Tor. In addition, she has written tie-in materials for Star Citizen and the Aliens franchise. She is represented by DongWon Song of the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and she tweets as @MarinaLostetter. This week’s picks: * Marina: Mysterium – Board Game * Tracy: Gloom – Card Game Links: * Marina Lostetter on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Allison Epstein, author of A TIP FOR THE HANGMAN! About A TIP FOR THE HANGMAN: England, 1585. In Kit Marlowe’s last year at Cambridge, he receives an unexpected visitor: Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, who has come with an unorthodox career opportunity. Her Majesty’s spies are in need of new recruits, and Kit’s flexible moral compass has drawn their attention. Kit, a scholarship student without money or prospects, accepts the offer, and after his training the game is on. Kit is dispatched to the chilly manor where Mary, Queen of Scots is under house arrest, to act as a servant in her household and keep his ear to the ground for a Catholic plot to put Mary on the throne. While observing Mary, Kit learns more than he bargained for. The ripple effects of his service to the Crown are far-reaching and leave Kit a changed man. But there are benefits as well. The salary he earns through his spywork allows him to mount his first play, and over the following years, he becomes the toast of London’s raucous theater scene. But when Kit finds himself reluctantly drawn back into the uncertain world of espionage, conspiracy, and high treason, he realizes everything he’s worked so hard to attain–including the trust of the man he loves–could vanish before his very eyes. Pairing modern language with period detail, Allison Epstein brings Elizabeth’s privy council, Marlowe’s lovable theater troupe, and the squalor of sixteenth-century London to vivid, teeming life as Kit wends his way behind the scenes of some of Tudor history’s most memorable moments. At the center of the action is Kit himself–an irrepressible, irreverent force of nature. Thrillingly written, full of poetry and danger, A Tip for the Hangman brings an unforgettable protagonist to new life, and makes a centuries-old story feel utterly contemporary. About Allison Epstein: Allison Epstein earned her M.F.A. in fiction from Northwestern University and a B.A. in creative writing and Renaissance literature from the University of Michigan. A Michigan native, she now lives in Chicago, where she works as a copywriter. When not writing, she enjoys good theater, bad puns, and fancy jackets. A Tip for the Hangman is her first novel. This week’s picks: * Allison: The Witches Heart by Genevieve Gornichec * Tracy: The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities by Paul Anthony Jones Links: * Allison Epstein on Twitter * Tracy Townsend on Twitter * Patrick Hester on Twitter * The Functional Nerds Patreon Page © 2021 Patrick Hester