(Note: Murdering Zeus for Fun and Prophet was the working title. The book will be published under the name Zeus is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure.)

So it’s happened.

Big news.

Epic, one might even say.

That’s right, the Seahawks actually won the Superbowl! Er, wait, that’s not it. (I mean, they DID win, but that’s not the news.) Sorry, it’s early Saturday and I haven’t yet finished my coffee. One sec.

*gulps*

Okay! So, the actual news: Seattle publisher Booktrope will be publishing my comedic fantasy novel, currently titled Murdering Zeus for Fun and Prophet!!!!

It would be accurate to say that I’m a wee bit excited about this. Yes, I do have two sci-fi novels out there right now as ebooks, but Murdering Zeus will be my first non-self published novel and will be published in both paper and electronic formats. Don’t get me wrong, self-publishing can be a great way to go–there are a great many fantastic self-published authors out there–but it’s long been a goal of mine to get a publisher interested enough in a novel I’ve written to say, “Hey, this is great! Let us put it out there!” If you’ll permit me a little pride, it’s an incredible feeling.

“That’s great, Mike, really. But quit blubbering and tell us what the novel’s about, huh?”

Impatient folk, aren’t you?

Murdering Zeus for Fun and Prophet is a comedic contemporary fantasy set in a version of our world where reality TV heroes slay actual monsters and the Greek gods have their own casinos, media empires, and Twitter feeds.

Yet the gods have only recently returned to our world. You see, Zeus (king of the Greek/Olympian gods, for those not in the know) ordered the Olympian gods to go into hiding 3,000 years ago. Everyone knows that you don’t argue with Zeus unless you want a lightning bolt where the sun don’t shine. Yet it seems that wasn’t enough to stop someone from assassinating him nine months ago, and with Zeus dead, his order fell by the wayside. The Olympians are back! (Except, obviously, for Zeus.) And if you thought mortal celebrities had big egos, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This is not to say that killing an immortal is commonplace in this story; it’s got the entire pantheon quite consternated. Someone out there can KILL them? As in dead? Forever? Heck, even the Titans only got locked up in Tartarus after the Olympian gods overthrew them, and those bastards were dangerous! It’s got them so disturbed that they’ve all decided en masse to just, well, kind of ignore the question of exactly who ganked him. Why poke about in matters that might get them killed, too? Besides, now they can strut their stuff openly among the mortals again, and who doesn’t love attention?

I won’t go into too many details about the actual plot just yet, but I will say that I had a blast writing this book. I got to throw the full force of my sense of humor into the voice (my sci-fi novels are obviously more serious), and I’ve always been fascinated with Greek mythology. I can’t wait to share this book with all of you.

I don’t yet know quite when it will come out, but sometime in 2014, certainly. Booktrope is a new publisher (but so far quite successful–they’ve been written up in Forbes), working on a different publishing model to adapt to the evolution of the publishing industry. That means a shorter time to publication than the year or more that older publishers can take. But we’ve still got to do some editing, cover design, layout, etc. I’m excited to get going on it all, and I look forward to being able to show you the cover once it’s available.

In the meantime, why not follow one of the book’s characters on Twitter? Thalia is one of the nine Muses, and responsible for musing comedy, poems about farming, and science fiction. Yes, science fiction. What, did you think the Muses just ignored the modern genres?

I leave you now with a quote from Thalia, who tends to babble. A lot:

“I’m not Artemis here, you know! I can only talk to animals, I don’t have some special stupid slavery-power over them! You think training a cat is bad, try getting a bird to do what you want it to do! There’s a reason ‘flighty’ means what it means! And for that matter, we’re dealing with jewelry here! Birds do not like carrying jewelry for anyone! Tolkien understood that; why can’t you? Stay here!”

Keep an eye out on this blog, my Twitter feed, or my Facebook page for more info on Murdering Zeus for Fun and Prophet! Further bulletins as events warrant. (3/13/14 edit: Like this one and this one about the origins and writing of the book…)