Sorry, the Goodreads giveaway has ended. But you can still win cool stuff with the Launch Celebration Bonus and Blog Tour Raffle!
It’s the Cover for Zeus Is Dead!
So at long last I may reveal the cover for my upcoming comedic contemporary fantasy, Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure…
Wanted: Zeus Is Dead Launch Team Members!
NOTE: The Launch Team is now full and closed. Thanks to everyone who responded!
You can still read Chapter One online, and get access to Chapter Two by subscribing to the mailing list!
As I’m sure many of you already know (and, really, how is it you could be on my blog and NOT know?), my upcoming novel — a comedic contemporary fantasy titled Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure — will be released on July 21st. I am looking for people who are interested in being a part of an exclusive social marketing team dedicated to providing feedback and helping spread the word about Zeus Is Dead. Your feedback is invaluable and I’m hoping you’re interested in joining the team.
“A hilarious mythological tale of god-like proportions. Munz has crafted a tale of bizarro comic fantasy that sits comfortably among the ilk of Gaiman and Pratchett.” —Andrew Buckley, author of Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish
Early Praise for Zeus Is Dead!
Warning: This post may contain bragging and/or excitement and/or near-insufferable pride.
The advance reviews are in! Have a look at what these published authors have to say about Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure!
“Zeus Is Dead is full of laugh-out-loud moments, lashings of sly wit, moan-worthy puns, and a complex, fast-paced storyline. There aren’t very many humorous fantasy murder mysteries out there, especially not as intricately constructed as this one. Michael G. Munz takes a ’What if,’ and runs with it like a toddler with Mom’s smart phone. He evokes a pantheon of characters including, well, the actual Pantheon, plus modern characters who will ring the bell of familiarity without being trite or clichéd. Munz knows his craft as well as his Greek mythology, pop culture, and dysfunctional family dynamics. The guffaw-worthy throwaway bits (stay tuned for the battle sundae) will remind you of Douglas Adams. A very enjoyable read.”
—Jody Lynn Nye, author of View from the Imperium and co-author of the Myth Adventures of Aahz and Skeeve
Presenting Chapter One of Zeus Is Dead!
Presenting Chapter One of Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure!
~ ~ ~
“The question of who killed Zeus is unimportant. Trouble neither us nor yourselves further with this. It is only for you to know that the gods of Olympus have returned.”
“’Cept I’d also add that it was me. Next question?”
—Hera and Ares (live press conference, June 18, 2009)
“Though none of them ever went into details publicly, it seems clear that the Olympian gods’ return was sparked by whatever happened to Zeus.”
—excerpt from The Gods Are Back and How It Affects Your 401(k)
Zeus watched his child stumble through a rain-drenched wilderness, the victim of a mudslide that had lamed an ankle and snatched a pack containing food, water, and a spectacularly nifty smartphone. The child winced with every step back to the trail, but did not stop. The king of the gods swelled with pride at his offspring’s courage even as his immortal heart broke: no aid could he ever give.
Long ago, it would have been simple for him to help. He could have stopped the rain, ordered Artemis to lead the child to safety, or even dispatched a full squadron of rescue helicopters. (Okay, so helicopters weren’t an option 3,000 years ago—save once, and that was a very special case—but he had used the other options a dozen times over.) Now, he could not risk even dropping a granola bar into the child’s pocket as encouragement. [Read more…]
Zeus Is Dead: Cover Reveal
Big news! I’m excited!
Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure now has an official cover!
What’s that you say? What’s it look like? Well, to quote Bill Cosby quoting Noah: “I can’t tell you. Ha ha ha ha ha.”
Well, okay, that’s just mean. I want to show you! I want to tell you! But I can’t. Not just yet. But soon!
Wednesday, June 11th, to be exact. At noon, Pacific Standard Time, we’ll reveal the front cover for my comedic contemporary fantasy set in a world where reality TV heroes kill harpies in northern California and the Greek gods have their own Twitter feeds.
But wait, there’s more! (You probably figured that out already, what with all the other text below this, huh?) Are you familiar with Goodreads, the fantasti-huge site for readers, book reviews, and general book-related awesomeness? (It’s like Facebook for books, but, ya know, good!) Well, if 40 people add Zeus Is Dead to their “to read” bookshelf by June 11th (click that link to to the book’s Goodreads page and click the “Want to Read” button), I’ll release online an exclusive chapter from the book!
I need your help to get the word out, so please tell your friends! Heck, tell your enemies! (And that woman you always see at the grocery store with whom you can’t think of a good way to start a conversation? Now you have a way!) Add the book to your to-read shelves! Why am I using so many exclamation points?! Because I’m excited!
By the way, here’s what author Jonathan Charles Bruce had to say about Zeus Is Dead after reading an advance copy:
Delivering us from a sea of endlessly morose and self-important supernatural fiction, Zeus Is Dead understands that Greek mythology is more than a little bit insane and—rather than ignore the unseemly aspects—embraces them with the appropriate level of snark and style. Munz’s tale echoes the bureaucratic insanity of Douglas Adam’s creations, the banter of Grant and Naylor’s Red Dwarf, and the grudging cynicism of Ben Croshaw in order to bring us a clever, hilarious tale of adventure and grudging heroism.
I guess what I’m saying is that unless you really like your supernatural fiction all mopey and dull, you’ll find something to love here.
I quite like the cover (designed by artist Greg Simanson at Booktrope Publishing). I can’t wait to show it to you!
Soon…
Review: The Republic of Thieves
Yesterday I finished reading The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch. Here’s the review I posted on Amazon and Goodreads…
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch’s third (and long-awaited) book in his Gentleman Bastard series, is a more than worthwhile read for anyone who enjoyed the first two books. Locke and Jean are back, fresh on the heels of the terminal situation Locke found himself staring into at the close of Red Seas Under Red Skies. More compelling is the promise of finally meeting the oft-mentioned but always previously absent female member of the Gentleman Bastards, Sabetha.
Yeah, minor spoilers, but she’s mentioned right in the book description, so I’m not sweating it.
Normally I hate ranking things in any sort of ordered list, but in this case it’s easy for me to rate this book as the one in the series I enjoyed the least. Note that I still enjoyed it—Lynch writes great characters, and it was great to see everyone plying their con skills in the arena of a political contest rather than a heist.
But that’s a double-edged sword. The Republic of Thieves‘ primary flaw is that the stakes don’t really rise much as the book progresses. Previous books knew just how to ratchet up the tension. Schemes would meet with counter-schemes, plans would fall apart and hopes dashed only to twist around again to rebound in some new form like a contest of battling acrobats. Yet with The Republic of Thieves, the tension plateaus for much of the second half of the book.
As with Lynch’s other books, the story dances in time between the present and the past, forming two complementary storylines. The one in the past is the more dangerous of the two. It truly does raise the stakes as it progresses, but the effect is undercut by the knowledge that everyone makes it out okay by sheer virtue of knowing that the characters obviously have a future. As for the political contest in the present, we’re never really given much to latch onto. If you’ll pardon the analogy, we’re shown little skirmishes without being given a sense of how they fit into the war, and as we’re told that there’s really nothing riding on the outcome, we really don’t have a reason to care. (It’s a bit like the green/purple Drazi thing from Babylon 5—Deep Roots and Black Iris are two indistinguishable parties.)
This is not to say that other things aren’t going on. The story does take place in Karthain, home of the Bondsmagi, the setting’s one and only collection of mages, of whom Locke and Jean have already made deadly enemies. Something is happening between the mages, but it’s primarily treated as a peripheral thing.
Sabetha is another element, and one I really enjoyed. After everyone mentioning her in absentia for so long, it’s great to finally see her—and we do see a lot of her, in both the past and the present. In some ways, The Republic of Thieves is a romance between Locke and Sabetha, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory fashion. The interplay between the two characters is always interesting, if occasionally maddening, as is Sabetha’s interaction with the other Gentleman Bastards (Jean in the present, and the twins and Chains in flashback. It was good to see them again, too—I missed those guys. I only wish Bug were included. Poor Bug.)
I feel I’ve been speaking more of the book’s negatives than positives, which isn’t fair. Please do note the four-star rating up there. I’ll still be picking up book 4 as soon as it’s out. This book hints of larger things on the horizon, lurking.
I want to know what’s up with those Eldren…