Episode 648-With Jack Campbell

The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Jack Campbell, author of Destiny’s Way Book 2 of The Doomed Earth Duology.

About Destiny’s Way: Lieutenant Selene Genji is hurled into the past to try and save a world that doesn’t want her in this action-packed adventure from New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell.

Earth was destroyed on June 12, 2180. Lieutenant Selene Genji watched it happen. And only she can prevent it.

Thrown forty years into the past, into a time before the Universal War began, Genji can only guess what to do to change the events that led to the death of all humanity. She has no way of knowing the long-term impacts of her actions and can only depend on her instincts.

But many of the people Genji’s trying to save want her dead. Her creation was an experiment: a fusing of human and alien DNA. To them, she’s a monster who can’t be trusted, a tool of the aliens who have just made first contact.

Fortunately, she has an unshakable ally in Lieutenant Kayl Owen, who has risked everything to help her mission. Declared a traitor to humanity by Earth Guard, Owen is determined to help Genji save the Earth.

Even if he dies trying.

About Jack Campbell: Jack Campbell is the pen name of John G. Hemry, a retired U.S. Navy officer. His father (LCDR Jack M. Hemry, USN ret.) is a mustang (an officer who was promoted through the enlisted ranks), so John grew up living everywhere from Pensacola, Florida to San Diego, California, including an especially memorable few year on Midway Island.

John graduated from Lyons High School in Lyons, Kansas in 1974, then attended the U.S. Naval Academy (Class of ’78), where he was labeled “the un-Midshipman” by his roommates.

John speaks the remnants of Russian painstakingly pounded into him by Professor Vladimir Tolstoy (yes, he was related to that Tolstoy).

He lives in Maryland with a wife who is too good for him and three great kids. The two eldest children are diagnosed as autistic but are slowly improving with therapies, education and medications.

This week’s picks:

• Jack #1: The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
• Jack #2: The music of Sandra Boynton
• Jack #3: Agatha All Along (Disney+)
• Tracy: Kinfire Chronicles (Game)
• Patrick: Norman’s Rare Guitars Documentary

Links:

• Jack Campbell
• Tracy Townsend on BluSky
• Patrick Hester on Instagram
• The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester

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