Born to the Blade, the magic swordplay + diplomacy series I created for Realm and co-wrote with Marie Brennan, Cassandra Khaw, and Malka Older, is now available on all podcast platforms!
When it was released, it was only available to buy or to subscribers at Realm (formerly Serial Box), but now the series is being released as a weekly podcast to listen for free (supported by ads).
I’m very proud of the work we did on Born to the Blade and I’m excited for this chance for it to find a new audience thanks to a very low barrier to entry for listeners. Two episodes are live right now, with new episodes coming every Friday.
You can find Born to the Blade on Apple Podcasts here and (hopefully) by title on all other podcast platforms!
I’ve relaunched my channel “TurboTango” on Twitch, which I’m hoping to use to stream both video games and some future TTRPG actual play.
In last Sunday’s re-launch stream, I played a run on Trials of Fire, a fantasy post-apocalyptic roguelike deckbuilder. It’s a recent favorite of mine, and I’ll be playing the game again (with a new scenario) this Sunday!
My current streaming schedule is as follows:
Wednesdays and Sundays, 1-4pm EDT – Games With Mike (Video games, mostly roguelikes and/or deckbuilders)
To get reminders when the streams go live, you can follow my page at Twitch.tv/TurboTango and turn on notifications.
The class will be held on April 8th at 1 pm Pacific (4 pm Eastern) Daylight Time. The class will be two hours long and costs $99 USD ($79 if you have taken other classes at the Rambo Academy before).
Here’s the course description:
Characterization and the emotional arc of a novel don’t step aside when the blasters start firing or people start throwing punches. The best action storytelling uses chases, misadventure, and fight scenes to foreground emotion, to show characters making big choices based on their feelings. Instead, the best action stories include the audience in the emotional rollercoaster of the characters. This class will talk through techniques for using action scenes to advance the plot and the emotional journey of your characters and how to make sure that the scenes are far more than choreography and flashy explosions.
This class draws heavily on the experiences I had writing Annihilation Aria and what I’ve learned as a reader in the past few years as well as through analysis of some of my favorite action scenes in media over the past decade.
After a long break while other projects took precedence (from Born to the Blade to Annihilation Aria to drafting my next novel) and the world was especially hard (2017-2020), I’ve finally released a new novella in the r/fantasy “Stabby” Award-finalist series! The Wasteland War picks up a few months after the conclusion of season one and takes the team to the Wasteland region of the Post-Apocalypse.
Patrons at $3 and up get the book as part of their backer rewards, and the book is coming to retailers this Friday, March the 5th.
The cover for Genrenauts: The Wasteland War. A single butte in the open plain, with scattered clouds in the distance.
If you’d like to pre-order The Wasteland War on ebook retailers, here are some handy links:
The Stabby-Award finalist Genrenauts series returns with a new short adventure across the worlds of narrative!
Exiled team leader Angstrom King has spent the past three months tracking the mysterious world-hopping gang that cost him his job. When an alliance goes sour in the Wasteland region of the Post-Apocalypse world, he may have found his chance.
Things get more complicated when the story breach attracts his former team, now under the stern command of a former friend. Can King help his team, solve the mystery, and keep off of the High Council’s radar? In a world where hope is more precious than water, he’ll have to fight for every chance to redeem himself—or die trying.
This short novella (~18,000 words) continues the beloved Genrenauts series of interdimensional adventures for fans of Leverage, Planetary, and Quantum Leap.
I’m very pleased to be participating in another SFWA bundle with StoryBundle. This time, Annihilation Aria is available alongside seventeen other books as a part of the Expansive Futures StoryBundle. You can get eighteen books for a contribution of $15 or more, and your money goes to paying the authors a well as benefitting SFWA, which has done great work during the pandemic to support authors in need!
In case you missed it, I’m GMing a miniseries of Michael Dunn-O’Connor’s Rebel Crown for Speculate with my co-hosts Greg and Brandon and returning Speculate players Alex Acks and DongWon Song. You can watch the first episode now on YouTube.
From the game’s description:
Rebel Crown is a tabletop roleplaying game of courtly intrigue, obsessive ambition, and perilous conflict. One player takes on the role of the Claimant, former heir to the throne who was betrayed by their family and robbed of their rightful titles. Others play their most stalwart allies: wise chancellor, devoted knight, idealistic noble, vengeful soldier, or opportunistic outlaw. Conflicting duties and ambitions will push them into points of tension, but their commitment to the Claimant’s ascent ties them together.
The players did a great job bringing their characters to life and taking bold action. I’m very pleased with this beginning and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next!
Also – Speculate patrons get some behind-the-scenes materials as well!
This weekend is online NASFIC, and they’ve pulled together a schedule for an online con very quickly. I’m very happy to be a participant on a couple of panels as well as doing a reading. Attendance is totally free – find out how to join in on the fun here.
All three of my programming items are on Friday the 21st (all times EDT):
5pm COVID-FX: Selling Your Wares – How has the pandemic affected our SF/F professionals and creatives who’ve relied on foot traffic to sell their wares? Join our panel as they share impact stories and strategies. Panelists: Alison Scott, Michael R. Underwood, Valerie Estelle Frankel, Wendy Van Camp
7pm Librarians, Booksellers, Collectors, Oh My! – Panelists discuss the different roles that librarians, booksellers, and collectors play in keeping science fiction alive. Panelists: Isabel Schechter, Merav Hofman, Michael R. Underwood, Misha Stone, Sarah Loch
8pm Reading: Michael R. Underwood – I will read from ANNIHILATION ARIA, my found-family space opera adventure.
Here’s the first chapter as an excerpt to whet your appetite!
And if you’ve already read Annihilation Aria, please consider writing a short, honest review at your retailer of choice and/or Goodreads! Reviews help readers decide which books are and aren’t for them and makes it more likely that Aria will find readers that will enjoy it. 🙂
Annihilation Aria has been out in the world for one week now, and it’s been a fabulous whirlwind. I started writing Aria in the spring of 2015, and worked on it on and off for several years before making the final revisions and selling it in 2018.
The book’s road to publication has been longer than most (the longest for me being Shield & Crocus, which started as a short story at Clarion West in 2007 and published as a novel in 2014). I’m so glad to have the book out in the world, and especially to have something fun and diverting and hopeful to offer during this ludicrous hurricane of a year.
Annihilation Aria is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Kobo, Apple, Indiebound, and wherever else books are sold. The audiobook edition (digital audio, CD, and mp3 CD) will release this Friday the 31st.
Here’s a quick roundup of all of the activity from the last week. There was a lot, and it’s easy to miss things given how hectic life is right now for a lot of people.
And as a reminder – if you’ve already read the book, please consider writing a short, honest review at your retailer of choice (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc.). Reviews help readers decide whether a book is right for them and allow the book to better find its way into the hands of the folx that will most enjoy it!
Thanks to everyone that has bought, read, tweeted about, and/or Annihilation Aria already – you helped make this last week an amazing and exciting time, and I’m very eager to see the book continue to make its way in the world.
As part of my online promonado for Annihilation Aria, I’m teaming up with fellow space opera author Valerie Valdes to do an event with The Ivy Bookshop on July 29th at 6:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time!
Get your ticket here and join us for out-of-this-world adventures!
