This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Valerie Valdes, author of FAULT TOLERANCE.

About FAULT TOLERANCE: Nothing wrecks Captain Eva Innocente’s vacation plans quite like an anonymous threat to vaporize billions of people. Hundreds of monoliths have suddenly materialized in space, broadcasting the same looped message: surrender or be exterminated. Is the universe being epically spammed?

Surrender to whom? Exterminated when? And how is Eva, commander of a beat-up cargo ship, supposed to prevent it? As panic spreads, a mystery message sends Eva to find answers, in a system that hasn’t been explored in all of recorded history.

With the crew of La Sirena Negra, a score of psychic cats, a feline-phobic robot, and a superweapon she has no clue how to use, Eva prepares to battle the unknown. But first, she has to defeat the known: mercenary Tito Santiago, whose idea of a clean fight is a shower before kill time. His mission is to ensure Eva doesn’t succeed at hers.

If anything goes wrong, the universe is doomed. But if everything goes according to Eva’s plans—wait, when does that ever happen?

About Valerie Valdes: Valerie Valdes’s short fiction and poetry has been featured in Uncanny Magazine, Time Travel Short Stories and Nightmare Magazine. Her debut novel Chilling Effect was published by Harper Voyager in September 2019 and Orbit UK in February 2020, with starred reviews in Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal. It was also named one of Library Journal’s best SF/fantasy novels of 2019, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Arthur C. Clarke Award. The sequel, Prime Deceptions, was published in September 2020, and the third book in the trilogy, Fault Tolerance, is forthcoming in August 2022.

Valerie is co-editor of Escape Pod, and currently works as a freelance writer and copy editor. She attended the University of Miami, where she majored in English literature with minors in creative writing and motion pictures. She is a graduate of Viable Paradise and has taught classes and given lectures for Clarion West and Georgia State University, among others.

Valerie has served as a Municipal Liaison for National Novel Writing Month since 2005. In her spare time, she enjoys playing video games, watching cartoons and learning to sword fight. She lives in Georgia with her husband, children and cats.

Valerie is represented by Quressa Robinson at Folio Lit.

This week’s picks:

• Valerie #1: Ms. Marvel (Disney+)
• Valerie #2: Guardians of the Galaxy Game (PS4)
• Valerie #3: Laser Squid Goes House Hunting (EscapePod 850)
• Valerie #4: Cheesecake
• Patrick: Motherland: Fort Salem Season 3 (Hulu/Freeform)

Links:

• Valerie Valdes on Twitter
• Tracy Townsend on Twitter
• Patrick Hester on Twitter
• The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2022 Patrick Hester

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