While I’ve always found vampires and their associated to be fascinating, with my fascination comes a picky, almost elitist view of how they should be: monstrous, dangerous, and—while they can and should have intelligence and character, the fact that they’re monsters should always lurk in the background. Also—and really, does this even need to be said?—NO SPARKLING. [Read more…]
Writing Update: A Dragon at the Gate
It’s been a little while since I checked in with you folks to give a status update on A Dragon at the Gate. For those of you who’ve only come here for my Farscape rewatching or Percy Jackson reading, A Dragon at the Gate is the third and final book in my cyberpunk series known as The New Aeneid Cycle. Don’t let the “dragon” in the title fool you: this is sci-fi set in the mid-21st century.
Come see me at Third Place Books on May 28th!
Are you in the Seattle area? (Or even somewhere else with a burning desire to fly out to Seattle because what the heck why not and life is short?) Want to listen to me read from A Memory in the Black? Want to eat free cookies?? Then hold on to your butts, because May 28th just may be your lucky day…
Like I said, I’ll be reading from A Memory in the Black, the second novel in my sci-fi/cyberpunk series, in honor of its recent Booktrope re-release. Joining me will be fellow author (and recent Guest Geek) Camela Thompson, who will give you a taste of her supernatural thriller Blood, Spirit, & Bone, the latest novel in The Hunted series. And do you see that Space Needle made of bone tucked away on the cover of her first book there? It’s set in Seattle!
May 28th, 7pm, at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, just north of Seattle.
Click here for the Facebook event page.
We hope to see you there!
(Did I mention free cookies?)
Zeus Is Dead: Bargain Priced This Week
Hi everyone! This being Wednesday, you’d normally be seeing a new Guest Geek post up here today. Unfortunately my geek-wrangling has temporarily failed me this week, but there will be more very soon. In the meantime, this gives me the perfect opportunity to let you know that Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure is just 99 cents this week in all ebook formats!
I suppose it’s possible, despite your presence on this website, that you don’t really know much about Zeus Is Dead. Anything’s possible, right? Well, to give you a quick crash course, it’s the third book I’ve written, the first book of mine to be published via an independent publisher (i.e. the first one that wasn’t originally self-published), and my absolute favorite out of all everything I’ve ever written. Also, the back cover blurb goes something like this:
THE GODS ARE BACK. DID YOU MYTH THEM?
You probably saw the press conference. Nine months ago, Zeus’s murder catapulted the Greek gods back into our world. Now they revel in their new temples, casinos, and media empires–well, all except Apollo. A compulsive overachiever with a bursting portfolio of godly duties, the amount of email alone that he receives from rapacious mortals turns each of his days into a living hell.
Yet there may be hope, if only he can return Zeus to life! With the aid of Thalia, the muse of comedy and science fiction, Apollo will risk his very godhood to help sarcastic TV producer Tracy Wallace and a gamer-geek named Leif–two mortals who hold the key to Zeus’s resurrection. (Well, probably. Prophecies are tricky buggers.)
Soon an overflowing inbox will be the least of Apollo’s troubles. Whoever murdered Zeus will certainly kill again to prevent his return, and avoiding them would be far easier if Apollo could possibly figure out who they are.
Even worse, the muse is starting to get cranky.
Discover a world where reality TV heroes slay actual monsters and the gods have their own Twitter feeds: Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure!
But it’s not just me shilling for this book. Other people whose brains I don’t even control have had this to say:
“I have not enjoyed a tongue-in-cheek comedy book this much in a long, long time.” —Abyss & Apex Magazine
“Unless you really like your supernatural fiction all mopey and dull, you’ll find something to love here.” —Jonathan Charles Bruce, author of Project Northwoods
And my personal favorite:
“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
So why not pick up a copy, or gift a copy to a friend or even a random stranger as an April Fool’s Day prank? This promotion is scheduled to end Friday, April 3rd, so grab it while it’s still insultingly cheap!
Book Review: Rationality Zero
Full disclosure: I’ve been a fan of JM Guillen’s writing since I first read his dark fantasy novella The Herald of Autumn, and as fellow writers we’ve reviewed and helped get the word out about each other’s books. Yet the reason that I’m so willing and able to do so is simple: Every book of his that I’ve read so far has been SO FRELLING GOOD!
I recently finished reading Rationality Zero, Guillen’s self-described science fiction espionage horror novella, and I’m happy to say that it’s no exception.
Enter to win an autographed copy of Zeus Is Dead!
Are you on Goodreads? Do you like things that have been autographed? Have you ever wanted to drive a Lamborghini??? Then enter to win an autographed copy of Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure!
CLICK HERE TO ENTER!
The winner will be drawn* on February 27th!
(Oh, and the Lamborghini thing? It’s got nothing at all to do with this contest. I was just curious and didn’t know how to find out otherwise.)
*That’s “drawn” as in “picked.” Winners will not be sketched.
Mythology: An Endless Source of Inspiration
Last summer, when Zeus Is Dead was first published, my publisher set up a blog tour to help get the word out. It was three weeks of interviews, reviews, and guest posts. I thought I’d share one of those guest posts, a brief essay about the value of mythology in storytelling. (And, of course, I worked in mention of ZID. It was a book tour, after all!) It was originally posted on Mythical Books on July 21st, 2014.
Before there was YouTube, before there was Facebook…
In the days long before movies, television, and magazines…
Before books themselves—heck, even before Amazon.com…
…there were still stories.
People needed to entertain themselves somehow, after all. Stories were created around ancient fires to explain, to train, and to entertain. (Often, they were even told for reasons that DON’T end in –ain! Wild, I know.) There was either no time or no means to write such tales down. They existed only in memory, to be told and retold as time went on. They developed, and they grew richer. In a sense, it was like a world of nightly focus groups around a fire as storytellers workshopped their tales and modified them based on reactions.
And, eventually, the stories solidified. Time and cultural awareness elevated them to the status of legends and myths. They travel to us now out of the past, having weathered the centuries. Fascinating in their own right, the myths we know today also provide modern storytellers with a ready-made palette of plots, attitudes, and characters.
Now it’s our turn to do the retelling.
Now we can take those mythological elements and put them in our modern context. Whether that’s literally—such as in my own Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure, which takes a humorous look at how the Greek gods would behave if they returned to the public eye—or placing such elements into an original fantasy world written with modern sensibilities, we have myriad choices.
How might Apollo rule a new world where he was the only god? What if Anubis and Hades went to war? What if Loki and Hermes met at a poker game? How would King Arthur and Merlin deal with Cthulhu?
And those are just possibilities from combining specific characters. Want to give it a satirical twist? Deconstruct it? Use mythology as a representation of our past to show how much (or how little) we’ve developed? Go for it! You can even roll like dice the thematic concepts, archetypes, and tropes of mythology across the modern table to see what inspiration turns up. It’s akin to using a computer to create an image: it’s done in a modern way, but the colors used are still the same colors that we’ve always known. (Okay, so that’s an imperfect analogy, but hopefully you get my point.)
I’ll close with another mention of Zeus Is Dead, if you’ll indulge me. I’ve been fascinated with mythology since I was a kid, and a college professor later remarked that the Olympian gods were really just humans with supersized powers, skills, and egos. It struck me that here was a rich world of characters waiting to be thrown together again in new and interesting ways. (Plus, hey, public domain!) I vowed that one day I’d write a modern myth to explore those characters in a new light. It was a while before I’d developed my own craft enough to where I felt I could do them justice—and along the way I realized how hilarious it might be to show how they might deal with the modern world—but, eventually, Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure was born.
And I do hope you’ll all give it a read, and let it inspire you, too.
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