Michael G. Munz

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

  • Novels
    • Memory of Dragons
    • Zeus Is Dead
      • Praise for Zeus Is Dead
    • Zeus Is Undead
    • The New Aeneid Cycle
      • A SHADOW IN THE FLAMES
      • A MEMORY IN THE BLACK
      • A DRAGON AT THE GATE
    • MYTHED CONNECTIONS
    • Four Fantastical Ways to Lose Your Fingers
      • Get it FREE!
  • Geek Notes Blog
    • Blog Archive
    • Farscape Re-Watch
    • Michael Reads Percy Jackson
  • Bio
  • Contact
  • Press

Top 3 Characters Who’ve Lost a Body Part?

June 25, 2017 By Michael G. Munz Leave a Comment

Four Fantastical Ways to Lose Your Fingers

NOW AVAILABLE!

Have you spent hours staring into a desk fan trying to decide how quick you’d have to be to shove your hand in and out without getting cut? Were you ever invited to shake hands with “Angry,” your friend’s pet snapping turtle? Ever slice your finger off with a melon baller? (Ever slice someone else’s finger off with a melon baller?) If so, I bet you thought it might make a pretty compelling story. Well that’s just what I and three other Seattle authors thought when we set out to write our new short story collection titled Four Fantastical Ways to Lose Your Fingers.

And hey, Four Fantastical Ways to Lose Your Fingers is now available to read as a Kindle exclusive! I may be biased, but I think you should pick it up right away, especially if you enjoyed Zeus Is Dead and/or The New Aeneid Cycle. Did I mention that my own contribution, “Mything Digits,” is a crossover tale between those two universes? Bet you didn’t think I was crazy enough to try to combine comedic fantasy with cyberpunk sci-fi, huh?

To spread the word, my fellow authors and I are having some fun asking each other questions with a finger-related theme, and today it’s my turn to ask everyone. As I’m addicted to lists, here’s my contribution:

What are your top 3 favorite fictional characters who have lost a body part (finger, hand, leg, eye, ear, etc.)?

Michael G. Munz

Me!

Pilot, the, well, pilot of the bio-mechanoid ship Moya from Farscape. He’s absolutely dedicated to his service to both Moya and those aboard her. Heck, he has chosen to be physically fused to Moya for the rest of his life, shortening his lifespan by centuries in exchange for being with her and seeing the galaxy. Even after some of the crew slice off his arm in order to go home (it’s complicated), he manages to forgive them (it’s even more complicated). But what I like most about Pilot is how complex he is over the course of the series. This is made more impressive by how expressive and emotive the Jim Henson Company and the human actors who work with him manage to make him despite the fact that he is, essentially, a puppet.

Pilot from Farscape

Just because he’s got four arms and they grow back doesn’t mean it’s not rude to slice them off.

Walker Boh, the reluctant Druid from Terry Brooks’s Heritage of Shannara series. Talk about your reluctant heroes. Walker can’t stand how the Druids manipulated his ancestors, hates them for it, in fact, and then finds himself called to become the next Druid. He sees the need, so he’s constantly torn between trying to motivate people to do what’s needed, and doing so without using the methods he deplores. And just to add to his challenges (spoiler alert), he has to do so while dealing with a poison that turned his forearm to stone and forced him to break it off just above the elbow.

Darth Vader, from some space opera saga whose name escapes me at the moment. 😉 What limbs hasn’t this guy lost? Over the course of his life he’s lost both legs, both arms, and later an artificial hand. That’s not to mention his hair, much of his skin, probably his lungs, and who knows what else. (Eep.) But does he let it get him down? No, because he’s still one of the most iconic villains ever. Plus, ya know, he’s Darth Frelling Vader.


Z.D. Gladstone

Just let me say it’s actually harder to think of fiction characters with missing body parts off the top of one’s head than one might expect. My first reaction to this question was: blank stare. Fortunately, the wheels started turning in the next couple minutes and several limbless individuals came to mind, but ranking them proved difficult.

First I’d have to say Aughra from The Dark Crystal. (She has a removable eye that continues to move and observe on its own, in case you forgot.) She uses this to her advantage for spying, puns, and general intimidation. My kind of creepy enchantress.

(You can thank me for not showing the eye OUT of its socket. -Mike)

Second, I’d have to say Stump from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café—the book, not the movie. Fannie Flagg does such a good job of using Stump to illustrate the essential struggle of over-coming feelings of inferiority, I think anyone can relate to him, no matter whether they are whole or in pieces.

Third, I’m going into your territory and saying Orpheus. Sure, he’s technically dead after the Bacchanae tear him limb from limb, but his severed head continues to sing & weep even as it’s floating down river. That is some serious dedication to lost love.

Z.D. Gladstone is an aspiring young novelist who does not shy away from any literary challenge, including making herself sound much more interesting in the third person. She is a geek, a Scorpio, a feminist, a dreamer, and a lover of both eating & cooking food. At the time of writing this bio, she was still in possession of all of her fingers. She was also in possession of at least five very-high-quality kitchen knives, and several intriguing new recipes, so stay tuned. Connect with her at zdgladstone.blogspot.com.


Tiffany Pitts

Tiffany Pitts

Imperator Furiosa (Mad Max: Fury Road). Oh. Hell. Yeah. I loved the old Mad Max movies. I loved the feral kid. I loved the idea that even though the world has no water, we still get American muscle cars and flame throwers are a huge thing. But Furiosa? She is an order of magnitude more bad ass than all of that. She is BadAss10. Mega-Bad-Ass, if you will. If you don’t love this character, maybe reexamine your life choices because when it all came down between Furiosa and Immortan Joe, she effing won. She wasn’t even shiny and chrome, she was just pissed off.

Ash Williams (Evil Dead series). How could he not make this list? I don’t care how medically impossible it would be. Ash and his chainsaw arm is the true hero of 80s slasher films and we all know it.

Granny Weatherwax (Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series). She once got stuck as a bird, essentially losing her whole body, does that count? I don’t care, I’m sticking with it because Granny Weatherwax is simultaneously the most horrible and the most fabulous old woman ever. When I grow up, I want to be just like her. #Weatherwax4LYFE

Other characters worth mentioning:
Hellboy. He only loses his horns and it’s self-mutilation basically, but Hellboy is my jam. Loves cats, Liz, cigars and pamcakes. Hates: living in a vault. I totally get this.

Fred Weasly. I tear up just thinking about this one. His ear and his twin. Ugh.

Shelby the worm. In the Adventure Time episode “Little Brothers” Shelby the Worm does some parkour trying to impress his friends and he gets his rear end sliced off. Because he’s a worm, Shelby doesn’t die. His bum turns into his little brother, Kent, who goes off to find adventure. “Look guys, I’m doin’ PAAAAR-COUR!” is now something we say in my family when something is doing something incredibly dumb.

I could go on but I’m going to go look up that episode. It really is hilarious.

Tiffany Pitts grew up in the PNW on a diet of cartoons, candy, and instant noodles. She is a former molecular biologist and a former-former analytical chemist who has definitely never blown anything up on accident. Her latest novel, Wizzy Wig, won the 2016 Cygnus Award for best Speculative Fiction. Connect with Tiffany on Twitter, Facebook, and TiffanyPitts.com.


Janine A. Southard

Janine A. Southard

It’s easy to have a favorite character. It’s even easy to have a favorite use for a missing body part. However, it took me three days to come up with an answer to this question because I had to decide which type of favorite took precedence in “favorite character who has lost a body part.” In the end, I got it down to these top 3. Welcome to the media that I consume, gentle readers.

Joe Dawson of Highlander (TV show and I think at least one movie). An ex-Marine turned Watcher of Immortals (so many capital letters in his job description), Joe is consistently in a wheelchair or using a cane. He lost his legs to a mine Vietnam twenty years before the series begins. Yes, his storyline gives him some jealousy of the perpetually able-bodied Immortals, but also shows him as a very successful guy whose disabilities don’t define him. It’s way more important that he’s the leader of the Watchers in his area (sometimes), that he’s besties with Duncan MacLeod (whom he’s supposed to be Watching), and that he plays killer blues guitar.

Joe is, without doubt, the most realistic (and aged) of the three on my list. That’s not why he tops it, though. He’s #1 because I like him as a character, I like him as a human being, and I like the way his missing body part is portrayed. He’s a fave all around.

Kouji Nanjou of Zetsuai 1989 (and Bronze –I’m referencing the manga here ’cuz I’ve read the manga and can’t recall watching the animation). Kouji is a famous rock star who (bizarrely?) falls in love with a high school soccer player. Cue some star-crossed love stuff. It just looks like things might be working out when Kouji’s family voices displeasure about the heir’s soccer player obsession. To show his devotion and seriousness to his beloved, Kouji proceeds to CUT HIS OWN ARM OFF. (Apparently, this is a call back to a fifth century monk who did much the same thing, but in hopes of becoming a student to Bodhidharma… sort of like the Flagellants, but more extreme.)

For the modern anime fans: I’d like to take a moment to call out all the people who keep describing Victor in Yuuri on Ice  as being “extra,” cuz you don’t know “extra in Japanese manga/anime” until you know Kouji Nanjou. (Oh wow. In fact-checking this segment, I learned there are new volumes of Bronze. I’d given up hoping at volume 6, and now there are 14??? I’m gonna have to brush up my Japanese for this because yay.)

Gazelle of Kingsman (movie). Look! A reference not from the 90s. No, Gazelle isn’t a major character, but her prosthetic leg is the most amazing use of a non-cyborg prosthetic in modern film. As the chief strategist and henchman of the movie’s leading bad guy, she’s got power and brains. By turns sexy and deadly, her very obviously missing leg becomes the thing you watch for in her scenes. “How will she kill someone with this?” you wonder.

Gazelle - Kingsman

(Having seen the movie, I’d say a better question is how won’t she kill someone with those? -Mike)

(I thought this would be an easy question. In the past two years, I’ve published two stories including people with missing body parts: a mystery wherein a prosthetic leg is a clue and an action adventure which stars a one-handed parkour enthusiast. But apparently it’s only me who writes these often.)

Janine A. Southard once cut her hand on a mirror liek woah, though she didn’t lose a finger that way. (She did spend a year mostly unable to use her right hand for other medical reasons, thanks to which she now excels at opening doors left handed and taking notes on her phone.) She writes speculative fiction from coffee shops in Seattle, WA. Find Janine on Twitter, Goodreads, and JanineSouthard.com!

Thanks for reading, everyone! And don’t forget to grab your copy of Four Fantastical Ways to Lose Your Fingers! (Don’t make us come after you with the paper slicer…)

Four Fantastical Ways to Lose Your Fingers

Full disclosure: Stories do not contain mention of ice skates.

Curious about the questions posed by Z.D., Janine, and Tiffany? Click on the links to read their posts (and my own answers).

But, ya know, after you’ve picked up the book, because we indie authors gotta eat! 😉

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Books, Featured, Four Fantastic Ways, Movies and TV Tagged With: Four Fantastical Ways to Lose Your Fingers, Janine A. Southard, Tiffany Pitts, Z.D. Gladstone

Scenes From a Norwescon

April 17, 2017 By Michael G. Munz 3 Comments

It’s been almost a week since I got a Twin Peaks re-watch post up here. They’ll resume shortly. It’s just that since last Thursday I was busy selling books and communing with other geeks at the 40th annual Seattle sci-fi & fantasy con known as Norwescon! I had a great time, sold some books, hung out with fellow authors Tiffany Pitts, Camela Thompson, and Janine Southard, went to a few panels, and almost made it to the final round in a gigantic Cards Against Humanity tournament.

I also took a lot of pictures! While you wait for the next Twin Peaks post, please enjoy a slice of my experience, captured through my less-than-perfect phone camera!

See? My MINI Cooper has as much cargo room as a Lincoln Navigator!#NotReally#WholeCarCouldFitInNavigator pic.twitter.com/7zRmt22nak

— Michael G. Munz (@TheWriteMunz) April 13, 2017

Tiffany Pitts and Camela Thompson after we’d just gotten our Thursday table set up in Writer’s Row

Me on my end of the table. Not visible, my “Porkins wasn’t ‘alright'” t-shirt.

Cosplayers everywhere!

Also everywhere, dogs in carts! (Seriously, I hadn’t realized how many dogs would be there.)

Some were even in costume. It’s R2-D-dog!

Fantastic attention to detail. “How can you have a yellow alert in spacedock?”

Starting on Friday, we were lucky enough to be moved into the Dealer Room, since there was a booth opening and we had three people at our smaller, isolated, un-powered hallway table.

One of the biggest attractions at our table was this little guy that Tiffany brought. He held free Starburst for passersby. Those X-Wings are crayons (also made by Tiffany).

This vendor (Firefox Fashions) was directly across from us. Everything there looked amazing.

Friday I also came as Walter White/Heisenberg. (The milkshake isn’t part of the cosplay. I just wanted a milkshake.)

Steampunk Han & Leia!

Ran into this guy at the Jack-in-the-Box across the street (where I was still dressed as Walter White). Sorry for the blurry pic.

Lana from Archer

King Triton and Ursula from The Little Mermaid. These two had a different costume for each day.

Poor Daleks. Can’t go upstairs to the Evergreen Rooms. (Note the “peacebonding” on the red one.)

Day 3 (Saturday): Dressed in my Imperial Naval Officer cosplay. Much more comfortable boots this time.

He’d apparently had a late night of bad decisions.

Fairy godmothers, with coffee. So many people wanted a picture of these three that they didn’t know where to look.

Still more great attention to detail.

He checked out. Not a ghost. (Damn, I look tired, huh? All that extroversion is exhausting!)

An excellent Klingon.

Dude! You need to put a leash on that thing!

Pyramid Head!
She accidentally bumped into someone a few moments later. Not great visibility in that thing, but it looked great!

Zeus Is Dead did amazing sales. People kept telling me the title and the cover pulled them in. (That’s a chocolate Serenity in front there. Also made by Tiffany, we were giving them away with a book purchase.)

I had a great time, but after 4 straight days of stepping out of my comfort zone and interacting with so many people, I came home Sunday evening and pretty much collapsed! 😀

Note that I’ve still got a few paperback copies of Zeus Is Dead and The New Aeneid Cycle. Want to buy an autographed copy? Let me know via the contact page!

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Books, Featured, Miscellaneous Tagged With: Camela Thompson, convention, cosplay, Fantasy, Geek Interest, Norwescon, Science Fiction, Tiffany Pitts

My Worst Movie Theater Experience

June 5, 2016 By Michael G. Munz Leave a Comment

When the movie theater experience works, it works really well. Who doesn’t like sitting in the middle of a darkened theater in front of a massive spectacle of storytelling and visual awe, sharing the group experience with mostly total strangers amid incredible sound and the scent of popcorn? (Okay, I’m sure there are those who don’t enjoy that, but it’s meant as a rhetorical question. No need to name names.)

Yet we’ve all had the opposite experience, too. That guy wearing the British Royal Guard hat who sits down in front of you just as the movie starts. The little kid behind you who won’t stop kicking your seat. The horde of gremlins who break into the theater on Christmas Eve, carve up the screen, and keep checking their cell phones. [Read more…]

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Featured, Movies and TV Tagged With: bad movie experiences, Camela Thompson, childhood memories, Elise Stephens, Humor, Lord of the Rings, Tiffany Pitts, Watership Down

Book Review: Wizzy Wig by Tiffany Pitts

March 4, 2016 By Michael G. Munz Leave a Comment

Wizzy Wig by Tiffany Pittz

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. 🙂

Geek Notes bonus: Check out my interview with the aforementioned nanotechnologically-augmented house cat in a post last November!

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Books, Featured Tagged With: Review, Science Fiction, Seattle, Thanatos Rising, Tiffany Pitts, Wizzy Wig

Character Interview: Toesy

November 2, 2015 By Michael G. Munz Leave a Comment

Snazzy Interview Logo

Best logo I could do on short notice. I’m not made of logos, people!

Hello everyone, and welcome to a new kind of post here on Geek Notes!

Using high-tech quantum-tunneling equipment that has both the ability to burrow into an alternate universe AND make high-quality gelato, I am now able to open up a wormhole just stable enough to allow what you and I consider to be “fictional” characters into the Geek Notes studios so that I can a) interview them about their particular perspectives in a story, b) harvest their alternate-world energies to fuel my ever-growing army of robotic ninja giraffes, or c) both.

Please note: This highly sensitive, secret, and ludicrously expensive technology will never be used to interview my own characters. Heavens no. (There’s a 10% chance each time that the subject’s atoms will be annihilated at the sub-atomic level, and then not only have I got a mess of quarks and bosons all over the place–which do NOT come out of the carpet easily–but the character can no longer be used in any future works of fiction, and I’m not about to risk that with one of MY characters.)

So today I’m pleased to offer you the first ever Geek Notes Character Interview! Let’s all welcome him here to the blog and admire his pretty fur. His name is Toesy. He’s from the Thanatos Rising series by author Tiffany Pitts, and he’s not exactly human… [Read more…]

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Books, Character Interviews, Featured Tagged With: Cats, Double Blind, Science Fiction, Thanatos Rising, Tiffany Pitts, Toesy, Wizzy Wig

Guest Geeks: Tiffany Pitts Gives Us Xenomorph Cupcakes

March 24, 2015 By Michael G. Munz 1 Comment

It’s Wednesday again, and time again for another Guest Geek post! I’ve got something a bit different for you this week. It’s a combination of something geeky, disgusting, and delicious, courtesy of fellow geek and author Tiffany Pitts. (Check out her book at the end for some humor-laced sci-fi. Also a cat!) She also happens to be an artist when it comes to baking, and I mean that “disgusting” in the previous sentence in a very positive way. But enough of my yammering. I’ll hand things over to her. Get ready for…

[Read more…]

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Featured, Guest Geeks Tagged With: Alien, baking, cupcakes, Geek Interest, Science Fiction, Tiffany Pitts, Twinkies, xenomorph

Subscribe to my Newsletter!

Read My Books:


B089LY6VFP cover

Memory of Dragons: A Contemporary Fantasy Adventure

Price:
$2.99

Purchase at amazon.com


B01GF5QWGE cover

Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure

Price: $2.99

Purchase at amazon.com


B01GF5QWGE cover

Zeus Is Undead: This One Has Zombies

Price: $5.99

Purchase at amazon.com


B01GF1CT1A cover

A Shadow in the Flames (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 1)

SALE! $0.99

Purchase at amazon.com


B01G9P1JN6 cover

A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 2)

Price: $2.99

Purchase at amazon.com


B01JKJLD98 cover

A Dragon at the Gate (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 3)

SALE! $2.99

Purchase at amazon.com


B00EUU0588 cover

Mythed Connections (short story collection)

Price: $0.99

Purchase at amazon.com


B072XXDTV7 cover

Four Fantastical Ways to Lose Your Fingers

Price: $0.99

Purchase at amazon.com

My Tweets

Recent Blog Posts

  • The Characters of Memory of Dragons
  • Preorder Memory of Dragons for a Discount
  • Cover Reveal: Memory of Dragons

Search: