Michael G. Munz

The official website of Seattle sci-fi/fantasy author and geek Michael G. Munz

Book Review: The Kingdom by Cain S. Latrani

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From Goodreads: My review of Cain S. Latrani’s insane comedic fantasy, The Kingdom…

The KingdomThe Kingdom by Cain S. Latrani

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If I may borrow from Forrest Gump (and that shows you how old *I* am), this book is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get. Each chapter of The Kingdom is a short story making up the larger whole, and each story contains things that are:

  • Laugh-out-loud hilarious
  • Absurd
  • Offensive (in a funny way)
  • Offensive (in a not-so-funny way)
  • Meta
  • Referential
  • Completely bonkers
  • Tacos

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Discovering The Last Ship and The Strain

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20140921_212806About two or three years ago I decided to give up cable TV. Ironically, this was right after I got a nice new HDTV. (I won’t go into the thought process there, but it was very logical, I assure you!) Syfy wasn’t doing much that was interesting anymore, and I didn’t really watch other channels enough to make paying for cable worth it. I kept a little broadcast deal so I could get the broadcast networks clear, but mostly I subsisted on Hulu and Netflix streaming. I missed some things – USA, for one (I’ve always liked Burn Notice, and liked watching Psych when I could). I’ve also wished, from time to time, that I had access to FX again.

But my point here is that I don’t have cable, and so I’ve missed out on seeing some interesting shows (despite catching many of them – The Walking Dead and Continuum to name a few – on Netflix or Amazon). I’ve recently started chipping away at that pile of missed TV, however, and caught up with both The Last Ship and The Strain. [Read more…]

Hyper-Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

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I’m going to make this review quick, and with one (marked & minor) exception, spoiler-free:

I saw Star Wars when I was 7 or 8, when it was re-released in theaters. I no longer remember at all my first viewing, or what it was like. 2/3rds of the way through Guardians of the Galaxy, I realized, “This is what watching Star Wars for the first time must have been like.” Amazing visuals, fantastic characters, a huge sense of fun in a big sci-fi/fantasy package. While I felt some of the character-bonding wasn’t quite earned, that’s a minor flaw, and easily forgiven.

MINOR SPOILER SECTION!!!

I wonder how much Vin Diesel got paid to say five words. Good gig, that. 😀

Guardians of the Galaxy

Long story short: Just frigging go see it.

Movie Review: Hercules

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Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Hercules

Hercules: He’s just zis guy, ya know?

Okay, I’ll get this out of the way right at the front: This is NOT the movie the trailer advertises. If you want to see Hercules performing the Twelve Labors, if you want to see him fighting monsters, dealing with gods, and burning the heads off of a hydra, that’s not this movie. I’m confident in saying that 99% of the monster-fighting in the movie is shown in the trailer. Pretty much all of THAT is in flashback told via an unreliable narrator, and takes place within the first five minutes. Also: no gods. None. Zeus is mentioned. Hera gets a statue. That’s it. Essentially it’s yet another movie that decides to tell tales based on Classical mythology by stripping out 90% of the stuff that makes Classical mythology so interesting. [Read more…]

Movie Review: Lucy

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I can honestly say it’s even better than The Beast of Yucca Flats.

[Warning: spoilers for people who haven’t seen the trailers.] Through the magic of a Meetup group and the folks at SciFiCommons.com, I had the chance to take a break from all the craziness of the Zeus Is Dead launch and see an advance screening of Luc Besson’s new sci-fi flick Lucy. I’m still trying to figure out just how to talk about this film, to which I was really looking forward, based on the trailers. I suppose I’ll start with the short version:

“Wow, really?“

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Movie Review: Edge of Tomorrow

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Starcraft meets Groundhog Day
(Or maybe that should be Mass Effect meets Groundhog Day. Or possibly both. Just so long as Groundhog Day is in there somewhere.)
"We're Commander Shepard, and this is our favorite movie on the Citadel!"

“We’re Commander Shepard, and this is our favorite movie on the Citadel!”

Edge of Tomorrow is, hands down, THE best video game movie ever. And just to be clear that I don’t mean to damn it with faint praise, it’s also one of the best movies I’ve seen all year. Possibly even this decade. It’s excellent science fiction.

No, it’s not actually an adaptation of any video game franchise, but Tom Cruise’s William Cage is, in at least the metaphorical sense (and maybe more), living a video game, save-scumming his way to victory: Try something, get killed, play again and learn from your mistakes to get a little further. Make no mistake, this isn’t some simple, novice-level, 2-hour single-player campaign from next fall. Cage has found himself locked into a “Nintendo-hard” level repeated ass-kicking with only a single save point: The very beginning.

Except now that I think about it, this is actually from the pre-Savegame Era. Cage is working through the original Super Mario Brothers here. Except with high-powered explosive weaponry. And aliens. [Read more…]

Early Praise for Zeus Is Dead!

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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

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