The official website of Seattle sci-fi/fantasy author and geek Michael G. Munz
The Battle of the Labyrinth! Or, I guess, just outside the Labyrinth. Near the Labyrinth! Above the Labyrinth?
…Okay, so I guess now I know why Riordan went with a different chapter title.
I’ve finally had time amid my writing schedule to do a little reading, and the battle of the Labyrinth finally takes place. All this and more on this 18th installment of Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Battle of the Labyrinth, which eschews the obvious book title callback in favor of a chapter title of…
And this is still just a temporary cover.
This post is coming to you from one of those crowded, caffeine-fueled generators of books known as a café. (Yes, I often write in cafés. I’m a human cliché.) I’m closing in on the point where I can finally put the words “The End” on A Dragon at the Gate, the third and final book in the New Aeneid Cycle. Of course, this particular writing session is going about as well as a rowboat made of sugar, so I’m shifting my focus to the blog so as to best procrastinate and hide from my problems.
So here’s the skinny. (The “skinny”? Who talks like that?) I’m currently on day 3 of a 6-day forced writing march. (The fact that it’s also taking place IN March–and that I’m writing this on March 6th, come to think of it–is pure coincidence. But it is kinda neat, isn’t it?) I’ve taken off of my day job. I’ve (mostly) avoided my social media. I’ve shunned my friends. My goal in this is to finally finish the book by March 9th. There will still need to be rewrites, polishing, and a smattering of unwritten scenes, of course. Those I’ll be finishing up by the end of March, at which time I’ll be handing it over to my editor and entering the final stages of getting the book into published form, which will come in paperback and ebook forms.
Except for this afternoon’s troubles, it’s going pretty well. I’m pushing myself, but it’s paying off. I have a clear path to the end of the book, and I’m confident that I’m going to make it. As a certain psychopathic, delusional man-boy recently said, “I know the words. I have the best words.” 😉 A Dragon at the Gate is going to be a wild ride, and I want to make it the best of the series.
As for when you’ll finally be able to read it, things still need to be worked out on that front, but assuming I can stay on schedule, we’re looking at very late spring or early summer. And then you’ll get to know just what happens, who survives, and just what the heck is going on up there on the Moon, because even if you’ve read A Shadow in the Flames and A Memory in the Black, there’s a very key element missing.
My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5)
I’ve read both books in Tiffany Pitts’s Thanatos Rising series, and I can honestly say that Pitts writes with a uniquely delightful literary voice. Her particular brand of contemporary sci-fi adventure somehow manages to present life-and-death situations alongside blithe imagination in a way that often seems to look askance at reality as if to say, “Really, reality? Really?”
I’m not sure if I’m making sense here, so to sum up my opinion more concisely: The second book in the series in the series, Wizzy Wig is a fun sci-fi read that’s certainly worth your time. Especially if you like cats. And strong characters of any gender. And reality-bending pizza.
Yeah, you read that right: reality-bending pizza. I won’t spoil the details, but this book is a tale of multiple realities and how a tiny hole between them wreaks havoc upon a small group of Seattle citizens, a nanotechnologically-augmented house cat, a sugar glider, and quite possibly one of the few point-of-view spider characters in fiction.
Pitts tells the story from multiple points of view, which is something of a necessity when dealing with characters able to force themselves into the bodies of their alternate-universe counterparts–or when entertaining us with the internal thought processes of a cat or a deadly (and puckish) Brazilian wandering spider. While the reality-warps in Wizzy Wig were a tad confusing for me to keep up with, the characters themselves were in the same boat, so my confusion was theirs, but I grasped it all in the end.
Wizzy Wig is a ridiculous book, and I say that in every complimentary sense of the word. Whether or not you’ve read the first book in the series, if you like light science fiction with a sense of humor, you’ll find something to enjoy here.
Also, pizza. 🙂