Category Archives: Uncategorized

Balticon 2018

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Continuing my fortnight of events, from my sister’s graduation to the Nebulas and beyond, Balticon 52 is this weekend. Here’s my programming schedule for the weekend.
Friday, May 25
5pm – How to be a Good Moderator
Room 8029, 5pm – 5:55pm
Saturday, May 26
10am – Readings: Jared Axelrod, Val Griswold-Ford, Michael R. Underwood
St. George, 10am – 10:55am
12pm – Dangerous Voices Variety Hour
Kent, 12pm – 12:55pm
5pm – Serialized Fiction – Is it Viable Today?
Room 7029, 5pm – 5:55pm
Spoiler: The answer is yes
6pm – Comics Without Superheroes
Room 9029, 6pm – 6:55pm
Sunday, May 27
4pm – Kickstarter, Patreon, and Crowdfunding Your Novel
Guilford, 4pm – 4:55pm
And outside of these events, you can find me kicking around here and there. I will have cool postcards for Born to the Blade and am just about always game to talk shop about writing and publishing. See you there!

Born to the Blade is here!

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It’s launch day! Born to the Blade has arrived!

Born to the Blade is my new epic fantasy series from Serial Box Publishing. I’m the creator and lead writer, working in a TV writers-room-esque team with Marie Brennan, Malka Older, and Cassandra Khaw (whose work you should definitely be reading!)

Here’s the Hollywood pitch – Avatar: The Last Airbender meets Babylon 5 and The West Wing with magical sword duels. It’s got diplomacy and intrigue, magic and swordplay, and dynamic characters forced to choose between friendship and duty.

Serial Box is a cool, different publisher, so I’ll explain a bit more about what you need to know about the series. It’s a little more involved than some of my other series but in a cool way.

Instead of book one, book two, etc., Born to the Blade will be released in episodes and seasons. Today is the publication day of the first episode of season one. You can get that episode for free on all ebook stores (Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Google * Kobo) and the later episodes will be $1.99 each.

Born to the Blade arrivals - by Michael R. Underwood - read or listen for free now!

You can also subscribe and get both the ebook and audiobook edition (via the Serial Box app) for $1.99 per episode. Subscribing or buying the whole season outright will get you the best deal. You can do both of those here.

A new episode will launch each Wednesday for the next eleven weeks until season one is complete. Like a TV show, Serial Box will decide whether to renew the series based on how season one is doing.

I’ve learned a ton about writing and collaboration with this series, and we’ve worked very hard to deliver a compelling story with twists and turns, cool magical sword fights, and characters to fall in love with. I’m very grateful to my collaborators Malka, Cassandra, and Marie, as well as the whole Serial Box team.

Join us for a new adventure today!

If you want to find out more, you can read about how Babylon 5 influenced Born to the Blade at Book Smugglers, you can read an interview about the series and listen to an audio excerpt at io9.com, or you can read a big excerpt at Tor.com.

 

Farewell, Robot Pals!

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Hi all,

Here’s some big professional news: I will be departing Angry Robot at the end of March. AR’s parent company Watkins Media has decided to consolidate the sales group and my position is going away.

Robot Retrospective

I’ve been the North American Sales & Marketing Manager for Angry Robot for about five and a half years. I interviewed for the job the weekend before my debut novel hit the digital shelves in July of 2012. The job saw my then-girlfriend and me moving to Queens so I could work in the main office. We shortly moved down to Maryland for her job, but thankfully, I was able to keep working for Angry Robot – it’s just as easy to hop on Skype from Maryland as NYC, and getting up to the Big Apple isn’t too hard from Baltimore. Since then, I’ve taken on more and more at AR and learned a lot about art direction, editorial, strategy, and more. I’m very grateful to Marc, Penny, Nick, Phil, and everyone I’ve worked with at Watkins/Osprey/Angry Robot.

But for a couple of years now, I’ve been running myself a bit ragged – trying to do right by Angry Robot and the company’s authors AND pursue my own writing career with writing, self-publishing, and promotion AND participate in two podcasts AND maintain a healthy home life AND pursue hobbies/interests outside of writing. It’s been hard to do everything, just like it’s hard for so many people to do everything they want.

 

Since before I sold Geekomancy (really, before I sold my first short story), my professional identity in publishing has been this Author/Professional two-in-one. I’ve gotten used to switching hats, to speaking from multiple positionalities. My view on the industry was always about using one perspective to inform the other.

And now my day job is going to be Author. I’ll be working primarily for myself. I’ve been looking at a variety of options moving forward – including some consulting work that might let me continue to apply my skills beyond working an author. But mostly, I want to write more.

What’s Next?

My wife makes pretty good money in her job and is very supportive of my writing career, so this isn’t at all a Panic Stations kind of situation. I’m focusing on the opportunities this presents – now I’ll be able to spend time working on new projects – comics, non-fiction writing, etc. I’ve been meaning to break ground on Genrenauts Season Two for some time, but I have been prioritizing the space opera novel since my agent and I want to find it a home with a good SF/F trade publisher.

Obligatory Plugs

We’re also less than a month (!) from the launch of Born to the Blade. Serial Box has been a great publishing partner and writing with Marie, Cassandra, and Malka is a dream come true. Be sure to subscribe to the first season or pre-order the pilot for free.

I just turned 35 last month, making this an even clearer delineation of “okay, new life chapter coming up.”

So come April, you should expect to see more and different things from me. I won’t be traveling nearly as much in the short term, but I am looking to find other ways of putting coolness out into the world while also getting more writing done. I’ll probably be more chatty on my blog and on social media, and maybe trying out some cool stuff like restarting my Twitch stream, launching a Patreon/Drip, that kind of cool stuff. I’m eager to see what life looks like when I can direct my full attention toward my own work with Born to the Blade, Genrenauts, and more.

Onward, to new awesomeness!

Born to the Blade cover reveal

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Book Smugglers has the reveal for the cover of Born to the Blade, art by Will Staehle.

 

I am absolutely delighted by the cover, and the whole process of developing the art was a delight. I hope we’ll be able to show off some of the alternative approaches since there’s some great other work in there.

The serial launches on April 18th with my series premiere “Arrivals”. You can subscribe to the serial here or pre-order for free on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, (other retailers to come).

Introducing Born to the Blade

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Hi folks! I’m very happy to bring you something I’ve been working on for a long time and had to keep under my hat until now.

I’m working with Serial Box on Born to the Blade, an epic fantasy serial with co-writers Malka Older, Cassandra Khaw, and Marie Brennan. I’m the creator and lead-writer on the team, and the series is releasing in April.

Born to the Blade is like Avatar the Last Airbender meets The West Wing–with magic sword duels. 

In Born to the Blade, a desperate ambassador, a conflicted loyalist, and a brash duelist will help determine the fate of nations with spell and steel.

You can subscribe to the series here: https://www.serialbox.com/serials/borntotheblade.

Here’s how Serial Box works. If you’re a subscriber, you get both the ebook and audio edition of each episode automatically every week as they release for one discounted price. Serial Box also has a specialized app where you can seamlessly switch between reading and listening.

We just have a placeholder page for Born to the Blade right now, but there’s more information coming. You can go ahead and subscribe to the series now if you’re interested.

I’ll have more information on the series soon, along with the Promonado (TM) that will accompany the release.

Wherin I Heap Love Upon Blades in the Dark

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After reading Austin Walker‘s comments over the weekend (read the whole thread), I dipped back into the tabletop RPG Blades in the Dark. Reading the game, I was struck again at what a fabulous accomplishment it is. Every page and section makes me want to play the game.

As Walker indicates, each chapter has Questions to Consider, and the entire text of the game does a great job of drawing back the curtain regarding how the game fits together. The creator John Harper invites the reader to step up to become a co-designer of Blades in the Dark as they’ll play it. Everyone’s version of a given game is different, and Harper doesn’t shy away from that reality.

You might have heard me talk about Blades before, as I got in on the game early in the Kickstarter and have been a vocal fan ever since even though I haven’t gotten to play the game yet.

Blades in the Dark is set in an industrial fantasy city called Duskvol, a trade city in a world that suffered a magical apocalypse a thousand years ago. That event shattered the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead and now the known world is ruled by an immortal emperor and cities are protected from hungry spirits roaming free across the world by giant magitek electrical fences. The tone and flavor of the setting are conveyed throughout the core book, with hooks abounding and a clear manifestation of the default grim tone of the setting in the writing. The game is designed not just for telling the tales of daring scoundrels, it’s designed for telling tales of daring scoundrels *in this particular world*. It’s very much gothic dark fantasy ala the Dishonored and Thief video games (both specifically invoked as inspirations for Blades).

I prefer more optimistic worlds and games, especially these days (*waves to 2017*), so I’m also excited for the Broken Crown, a playset about trying to take down the Immortal Emperor, and other alternate setting playsets. Especially Null Vector, the cyberpunk playset. Blades is an amazing game for Cyberpunk because Blades is designed to drastically reduce the amount of planning a group has to do for heists. I have a sad memory of spending over two hours arguing with a game group about how to pull off a kidnapping in Shadowrun, and in Blades that conversation would have been five minutes deciding which general approach to take and then we’d have gotten right into the action.

Thinking back to the way tone informs the design, I’m hoping to see these playsets to adjust the mechanics in order to convey the setting’s tone. If they don’t, I’ll need to do it myself, but I’m hoping that the transparency of how the tone is built into the design means that a change in setting comes with an adjustment in the design tone.

I have spent more than a little time thinking about how I’d hack Blades in the Dark to make a Shield and Crocus RPG. I even have a working title: War in the Bones.

Fun Side Notes

  • The game’s publisher, Evil Hat Productions, has given an open invitation to designers who intend to make hacks of Blades in the Dark (new games using the system/design) to submit to them. This is likely to help foster a new family of RPGs the way that Apocalypse World became a games lineage with games like Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, Monster of the Week, etc. Blades is heavily informed by Apocalypse World but is, IMO, a full iteration forward compared to the above hacks.
  • I love that hacks of Blades in the Dark are called “Forged in the Dark” like Apocalypse World hacks are “Powered by the Apocalypse.”

I don’t get to play nearly as many RPGs as I want or even as much as I did before I started working at Angry Robot, but I still love delving into new games to see where the discipline of RPG design is headed. Anyone similarly interested needs to be following Blades in the Dark.

Gratitude

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Today I am grateful to every person that rose to the challenge this year. Mostly in the US because that’s where most of my friends live, but everywhere, really. Here I’m going to mostly speak about the USA, but I know that what happens here impacts people everywhere.

I’m grateful for people that called/wrote/faxed their elected representatives. For people that protested at airports or in the streets or at the capital. That marched or filled a town hall to demand action. To the people that donated to candidates they believe in, who energized, encouraged, and educated their fellow citizens.

I am grateful for the fact that when a thoroughly unworthy corrupt bigot took the office of the presidency he was met not just by his adoring public, but by a loud chorus of patriotic opposition, by marches around the world filled with people that made their voices heard and found one another.

I’m grateful for civil servants that refused to follow unjust orders. For people that stepped up to run for office, wanting to make the system work better, to fight for their neighbors and the future.

I’m grateful for the fact that even in this year that has been so long, so hard, and so dispiriting, there is still hope. And that hope is you all. I have hope because I know we are not alone.

It may get worse before it gets better, but we can do this.

Baltimore Book Festival 2017

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This week I’ll be participating in the Baltimore Book Festival as part of the SFWA pavilion.

I’ll be there mostly on Friday and Sunday, spending some time on Saturday to see folks at the Comicon.

Here’s my full BBF schedule:

Friday

12PM – The Business of Writing
Let our panel answer your questions about the business side of writing. Whether you’re a curious reader or a new writer, our panelists will discuss how they got started, how to keep going, and other tips and traps of the industry.

Authors: Kate Baker, Sarah Pinsker, Bud Sparhawk, Bill Campbell, Michael R. Underwood

2PM – Pitches & Queries: How I Sold My Book
SF/F authors talk about how they got their agent or book deal, and how they crafted attention-getting queries.

Authors: Addison Gunn, Arkady Martine, K.M. Szpara, Michael R. Underwood. Moderator: KM Szpara

5PM – When Genres Collide! What happens when you mix SF and mystery, or fantasy and romance?
From robot detectives to demon lovers, literature is full of genre mashups. Let’s talk about where mysteries and SF/F and romance and literature all collide.

Authors: Anatoly Belilovsky, Marianne Kirby, Paul Levinson, Sunny Moraine, Michael R. Underwood. Moderator: Jon Skovron

 

Saturday

12PM – Signing: Carrie DiRisio and Michael R. Underwood

3PM – Where is Westeros: Secondary Worlds in SF & Fantasy
We’re not in Kansas anymore – or on Earth, for that matter. Our authors discuss how they create new worlds, whether they’re through the looking glass or in a galaxy far far away. Step through the wardrobe and into a whole new read.

Authors: Jamie Lackey, Erin Roberts, Lawrence M. Schoen, Vivian Shaw, Michael R. Underwood. Moderator: Scott H. Andrews

 

Sunday

1PM – Dangerous Voices Variety Hour Presents Daniel Jose Older and Sam. J Miller
A fast-paced quiz show in the vein of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! brought to you by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. Win free books and learn things you never knew about your favorite authors.

Authors: Sarah Pinsker & Michael R. Underwood host guests Daniel Jose Older and Sam J. Miller.

Light a Candle

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Things have been pretty scary the past few weeks, even within the hard year that 2017 has been. We had a family health scare just a little while ago (all better now), plus the ongoing garbage fire that is US politics.

So I wanted to spend a bit of time focusing on things that have been bringing joy and light into my life, in case these things could do the same for you. At the bottom, I list some resources I’ve been using to stay up to date on politics with a minimum of hassle/frustration.

Sources of Joy

One of the things I do to relax is listening to podcasts. I started listening to podcasts over ten years ago when I was out in Oregon doing my M.A. in Folklore. Back then, the only show I listened to was Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing. These days, I’m a part of two podcasts and subscribe to many more. The two below have been particularly helpful for me this summer:

Friends at the Table – A marvelous actual-play tabletop role-playing game podcast with great players, engrossing worlds, and amazing music by composer Jack de Quidt (who is also one of the players). The current season Twilight Mirage is especially engrossing, telling the tale of a far-future utopia in crisis.

Waypoint Radio – The home podcast of video game website Waypoint. They focus less on giving games scores and more on story structure, design, and the political dimensions of games. They sometimes also talk politics (esp. labor and health policy) and are clear and open in their progressive leanings.

When I’m not listening to podcasts, I am often chilling out with my wife watching TV or watching something in the background while I work on this or that. Here are some shows and video series that have brought me joy the past few months:

DuckTales – The original show was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, and the 2017 remake on DisneyXD is very amusing so far. I am a total sucker for anything that plays in the ‘modern multi-genre pulp’ mode where mummies and vampire and Atlantis and so on are all real.

Breakfast & Battlegrounds – This is a video series on Waypoint comprised of recordings of the game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. Breakfast & Battlegrounds is complete with a (funny, loose) continuity, special music (boat jazz!) and fun special guests. Austin & Patrick from Waypoint play as father & son team Crowbar & Sickle, in search of the elusive Chicken Dinner of victory. The most fun I’ve had watching a video game in some time.

Killjoys – A fun, sexy, space-based action-adventure series which starts with great episodic stories and builds to a cool metaplot. The showrunner is the same as the urban fantasy series Lost Girl. Killjoys is about a pair of space-age bounty hunters called Killjoys who travel The Quad (four planet/moons bound together by a corporate-owned government).

And of course, since I’m a gamer, here’s a recent game I loved playing:

Pyre – The new game from Supergiant Games, who created Bastion and Transistor. It’s a cool fantasy combination of a visual novel/choose your own adventure and a magical sports game. The biggest draw for me in this game is the cool characters and their evolving relationships with one another. Also, you can complete a play-through in about 10-12 hours.

Podcasts
Pod Save America – Ex-Obama staffers break down the news and snark along the way. Unabashedly Democrat-leaning & progressive, a bit bro-y, though not gross.
Pod Save The People – Activist Deray Mckesson provides a grassroots view on politics, with a strong focus on the impact to and organizing by communities of color.

Website
What The Fuck Just Happened Today? – Trump-focused digest of American political news.

A Break in the Clouds

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I was shocked and relieved this morning to see that the latest ACA repeal effort failed last night. McCain came through for America in surprisingly actually sort of keeping his word from his much-lauded speech. More laudable are Senators Collins and Murkowski for sticking to their principles, and the entire Dem Senate caucus for their unified opposition to this parade of successively more terrible bills presented in ever-more-terrible fashion.

Most deserving of praise are the people of the USA. Everyone who called, emailed, faxed, wrote, rallied, marched, protested, and made their voices heard. The heroes at ADAPT deserve a special shout-out for their visible, powerful direct actions, as well as groups like Planned Parenthood, Indivisible, MoveOn, and more.

This is a big victory, and we should celebrate it. I don’t doubt that McConnell will try again, but we can win again, like we’ve won three times now in the Senate.

While we’re energized, let’s make sure to speak up in defense of and solidarity with our LGBTQIA countrypeople, especially trans countrypeople, who are being targetted by the president and his cartoonish racist asshole of an Attorney General. I will be making calls to push back on the President’s attack on the ability of trans people to participate in the armed services, and to oppose the re-interpretation of Title VII being made in order to exclude LGBTQIA people from civil rights protection.

Here’s a breakdown of the events of last night.

And information about the attacks on LGBTQIA rights.

Trans people in the armed services
Title VII