Angry Robot author Madeline Ashby made a blog post about WorldCon’s “Greying of Fandom Problem.” It’s very smart, and you should go over and read it if you haven’t.

An excerpt:

Let me put it another way. The demographic shifts faced by WorldCon’s largest customer segment are the same ones faced by the Republican Party. Let that sink in for a minute. Really let it marinate. These are the same people who cheered me when I talked about Canada’s healthcare plan, and applauded Mark Van Name when he blamed rape culture for America’s ills. They want to be progressive, but they’re being blindsided by the very same demographic shifts afflicting the most conservative elements of contemporary society, for exactly the same reason: they haven’t taken the issue seriously. This is why there isn’t a Hugo for Young Adult novels. Because God forbid we reward the writers who transform young genre readers into lifelong customers at a time when even Bruce Sterling says the future will be about old people staring at the sky in puzzlement and horror.

 

 

Read the whole post here.

For folks who went to WorldCon – what do you think about this demographic situation? Is this something WorldCon should address? How? It’s easy for writers to say ‘Hey, this con needs to bring in younger people so my writing has a future!’ but what can we as writers do about it? What can bloggers, reviewers, editors, and other industry professionals do?

What a week!

This picture could serve to sum up my time at WorldCon:

On the Iron Throne at WorldCon

This was my second WorldCon, once again attending in my Angry Robot guise. Senior Editor Lee Harris and I rocked the AR booth all weekend, connecting readers to their new favorite books, introducing our 10 attending authors to new readers, and waving the flag.

We also announced the US Clonefiles program, which you’ll be hearing much more about soon. Mostly, I want to make sure everyone knows that we got there first, and that Amazon almost certainly but at least possibly stole our idea. 🙂

Other highlights included meeting a flobbidy-jillion writers, readers, and fans, participating on panels with friends, colleagues, and exemplars of fandom, drinking many margaritas (!!!), as well as several incredible parties. I’ll talk about those individually below.

BookSworn – The Booksworn are a group of Fantasy & Science Fiction authors, including several friends. Their WorldCon party had one special theme – eat a bug, get a book! I think it’s a great idea to have a special Thing for a party, something that’s not just ‘This group is cool! Come drink our booze!’ I ended up eating two bugs, since the Official Photographer Writer of Record didn’t get a pic of the first bug I ate. Perhaps it was just bad luck, or John Hornor Jacobs decided to torture me. 😉 I also got the chance to meet several writers I’ve been following and/or impressed by, including Katy Stauber (whose book REVOLUTION WORLD is super-fun), Zachary Jernigan, and others who I have clearly forgotten in my post-WorldCon haze.

Drinks With Authors – This party was the fever dream of author Myke Cole, blogger Justin Landon, and r/Fantasy overlord Steve Drew, and was my favorite party of the weekend. Here’s why – it was all about introducing authors with new readers. In addition to raffles for big stacks of books, the co-hosts were also roving the party with a giant inflatable d20, using a D&D combat frame as an excuse to give away free books and introduce the books’ authors to the winners. It also helped that the party was completely hopping, and full of very cool people.

LoneStarCon aka WorldCon is next week, and I’m peeking my head up out of the weeds of ‘Oh crap last minute preparations! Send that laser rifle bardcode scanner overnight or it’ll never arrive in time!’ preparations for Angry Robot to share my schedule.

Most of my weekend will be spent behind the tables at the Angry Robot booth, where I’ll be meeting readers and shilling the fine works of SF, F, and WTF? from Angry Robot and our sister imprint, Strange Chemistry (a YA imprint specializing in Experimenting With Your Imagination).

But here’s my panel schedule:

Sometimes, cool stuff gets spread out over the course of a few days, or a week.

An sometimes, lots happens all at once. Today is one of those days, which is extra-funny, since I had a hard time getting to sleep. I blame the combination of Mira Grant’s DEADLINE and the Batman-in-Two-Bodies action of PERSON OF INTEREST for not being able to get my brain to quiet down until 1:30 AM. *shakes appreciative fist at engaging media*

Today in the world of Mike:

I returned to TerribleMinds, home of Lord Penmonkey Chuck Wendig, to answer his 10 Questions interview about CELEBROMANCY.

The inestimable Emma Newman invited me to her secret lair for Tea and Jeopardy. (Warning: contains tons of geekery).

And I wrote up my thoughts on One Year of Being an Angry Robot at the AR blog.

And in other cool happenings – tonight I’m going with some friends to see the RiffTrax live edition of Starship Troopers. While I enjoyed the film as satire, I am very much looking forward to what veteran comedians will make of the film.

Dear all,

I’ve just confirmed the time and date for a CELEBROMANCY event at the Barnes & Noble in Bloomington, IN.

Event info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/631320016885749/

Repeating that information for non-FB users:

Ree Reyes and the Geekomancers return! Barnes & Noble Bloomington is hosting me once more for an event, this time for CELEBROMANCY, the second Ree Reyes novel.

There will be a short reading, a (easier) trivia contest, and then I’ll be happy to digitally sign ebooks of either CELEBROMANCY or GEEKOMANCY.

Where: Barnes and Noble Booksellers 2813 E 3rd St, Bloomington, IN

When: Saturday, August 24, 2013, 7:00pm until 8:30pm

Who: Anyone that wants to come!

#SFWApro

Hollywood Jane herself (aka Megan Christopher) welcomed me back to her blog for another interview. We’re also giving away a copy of Celebromancy (or Geekomancy, if you prefer) and a pair of the limited edition CELEBROMANCY sunglasses.

The fine folks at Book Country had me come by to talk about the magical art of Sequelmancy.

On Monday night, I hosted a Virtual Launch Party, which turned out to be a chance to hang out and shoot the breeze with friends from all over. Some adult language is used. If you want to know what I’m liking hanging out with my friends, this gives you a pretty good idea (though there is some obligatory self-promo, as in keeping with the theme of the party).

Fellow author Cath Schaff-Stump hosted me with an interview about performative readings.

And I returned to the Skiffy and Fanty airwaves, this time as an interviewee – caution: extreme amounts of geekdom ahead.

And several more guest posts/interviews are coming. This book’s promo work is turning out to be more a marathon than a sprint, which is a bit easier on the time management side.

#sfwapro

Last Monday, as part of a day off for CELEBROMACY, I went to see PACIFIC RIM, since I was out of town during the weekend and couldn’t get away to see the movie.

Wait or not, damned if that movie isn’t the best action flick of the summer.

If you like to get your thoughts about movies aurally, you can go here to listen to me chatting about the movie with the Shoot the WISB crew: http://skiffyandfanty.com/2013/07/20/05-pacific-rim-2013-a-shoot-the-wisb-discussion-w-michael-r-underwood/

The biggest thing about PACIFIC RIM, for me, is that it 100% delivers on its promises. In the trailers, the selections we were shown promised a very few things:

1) Giant Mecha punching Kaiju

2) Idris Elba yelling inspirational stuff.

And on those counts, it delivers in spades. A lot of people have called PACIFIC RIM a ‘big dumb action movie,’ but in my opinion, it’s quite a bit smarter than the average action movie.

I liked the movie so much that I bought the tie-in comic (good as far as tie-in comics go), the film score (excellent), and ordered a Gipsy Danger action figure (which will join the red Angry Robot and the dinosaurs on my desk).

Spoilers from here on out.

Continue reading →

Celebromancy launched seven days ago, and I’ve been about as busy as ever – I got back a week ago yesterday from attending three conventions in three weeks (ALA, Convergence, and ReaderCon), and am still recovering.

Since the book has launched, here’s what I’ve been up to:

I kicked off the week with a guest post at XOXO After Dark about “A Golden Age of Geekdom”

Talk Supe hosted me for an interview.

The fine geeks of Dungeon Crawlers Radio had me back – and the nerdery was rampant.

Braine at Talk Supe reviewed Celebromancy, and had this to say, “Once again, Michael R. Underwood gives us major ball-busting action courtesy of her queer, latina, super Geekomancer, Ree Reyes, in his latest urban fantasy,CELEBROMANCY. If you’ve read Geekomancy, expect to find the same level of fandom in CELEBROMANCY if not more, as MRUnderwood expertly weaves countless pop culture movers and shakers in this latest Ree Reyes installment.”

Mary Robinette Kowal had me come by to talk about My Favorite Bit of Celebromancy.

I caught up with the folks at My Bookish Ways with a new interview.

And in other fun, I joined the folks at Shoot the WISB to talk about Pacific Rim. We had a great old time. ELBOW ROCKET!

An Announcement!

I will be hosting a virtual launch party for Celebromancy tomorrow night, Monday the 22nd, at 9PM EDT (6PM PDT) on Google+. I’ll post instructions here and on Twitter/FB/G+ when the hangout goes live. You can join in to watch, or if you have a webcam/microphone, to chat directly with me! I’ll have prizes to giveaway, will do a short reading, and a Q&A. Friends, readers, all are welcome!

AND NOW, A BREAK FOR BLATANT PROMOTION –

As a reminder, Celebromancy is still available for $1.99 in ebook, and you can download the amazing audiobook from Audible.

If you’ve read Celebromancy already and care to leave a short review on Amazon/BN/iTunes/Kobo/Goodreads, it is a big help – the more reviews a book has, the easier it is for the book to connect with readers. Big thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far!

Today is the release of my first-ever second novel, CELEBROMANCY. *Happy author flail*

Since GEEKOMANCY came out last year, life has been an awesome-tastical blur. Among many awesomeness, the absolute best thing about being a published writer has been hearing from readers who saw themselves and their world in GEEKOMANCY, who responded positively to the celebration of Geek culture(s) which is at the heart of the novel.

CELEBROMANCY takes Ree’s story and pushes it forward six months – Hollywood has come to town, bringing its own secret magical history and a whole new type of magicians – Celebromancers – who wield the power of fame. Ree has just sold her first pilot script, and it’s being produced right in her backyard of Pearson. But when an invisible assailant comes after producer and star Jane Konrad, Ree gears up, Geekomancer style, to protect Jane and the whole production. CELEBROMANCY promises more geeky in-jokes, fun fight scenes, a love rhombus (33% better than a love triangle), and a for-realz Dragon (!).

And because today wasn’t busy enough, I just submitted the next Ree Reyes story, tentatively titled FORTRESS GROGNARD, to my editor at Pocket Star. The work never stops. 🙂

As a sweet bonus, the audiobook of CELEBROMANCY is also available RIGHT NOW! It is narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal (who is, in my opinion, one of the best audiobook narrators I’ve ever heard, as well as being a marvelous, award-winning writer). So if you like to consume books through your ear-holes, you won’t have to wait even a little bit to catch up with Ree and the gang.

CELEBROMANCY is being discounted to $1.99 for the first few weeks of its release, so you’ll save 66% if you act before August 26th.

So if you want some CELEBROMANCY in your life, here are some links to the relevant e-tailers:

Ebook:

Amazon

B&N

Google Play

iBooks

IndieBound

Kobo

Audio:

Audible

A few months back, I saw this post on Penny Arcade about Card Hunter: http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/card-hunter-closed-beta-hands-on-classic-dd-filtered-through-a-card-game-an

Which prompted me to go and sign up for the beta.

Last week, I finally got an invite to join. I decided to play against type on my Fighter, going Elf instead of Human or Dwarf. This means that my Fighter is more like a mobility Rogue, ad my Dwarf Cleric is in some ways a better tank than the Elf.

The thing that Card Hunter captures is the classic dungeon-crawling, cardboard stand-up using kind of game from the days when you were ten and playing D&D in the living room, no one particularly interested in story.

It’s been interesting for me to see the Deck Building game style applied to a very familiar setting and genre – Deck Building games have been building in popularity over the last few years, largely on the back of the success of games like Dominion, Ascenscion, Thunderstone, and so on. For more on Deck Building games, check out this list on Board Game Geek: http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/68782/top-10-deckbuilding-games

In Card Hunter, each piece of equipment for your characters comes with its own selection of cards. A sword for my fighter might come with several types of chop cards, which attack two enemies at once, but also include a parry, which gives a chance to block an opponent’s attack. A Wizard, on the other hand, would have Arcane Items that give them their rays, bolts, and blasts. Each character can level up and gain more slots, and with each new slot comes the chance to make your deck bigger an more diverse, able to handle stranger challenges like enemies with heavy armor, or who unleash devastating attacks. You can even equip racial or class-based skills that will give several-round buffs to the healing that you do or the damage dealt from certain types of attacks.

In terms of edition, Card Hunter most resembles 4th edition D&Din terms of how combat works, since the individual attacks all have specific statistics and levels of frequency. But again, that style of D&D was largely informed by MMORPGs, where you could have an array of special attacks and it was easy to use, since the computer did all the back-end mathematics and book-keeping.

Card Hunter, so far, is no revolutionary force in gaming, but if you want a dose of some old-school D&D and don’t have the time to gather a handful of friends around the dinner table and bust out the Dungeon Master’s Screen to send your friends through a module or your painstakingly-crafted homebrew setting, it may be just the thing to whet your appetite.