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!
The day long-awaited has finally come! Annihilation Aria aka [REDACTED NOVEL] is live and ready to purchase in ebook and paperback formats. The audiobook from Dreamscape Media will follow soon on July 31st.
Here’s what people have said about Annihilation Aria so far!
“[A] bright and exciting space opera […] Underwood’s
prose is brisk and funny without ever sacrificing his skilled sf world
building. Highly recommended for fans of action-packed space opera and anyone
else looking for a fun and fast-paced read.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
“This fantastically
fun series launch harkens back to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy[…] The
interpersonal dynamics are delightful,
however familiar they may be, and the tightly constructed world, cinematic
fight scenes, and ambitious scope
combine to evoke a sense of wonder. This is a rollicking good time.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This is pure space
opera, wild and wacky and silly and strange, high-stakes and deeply
personal all at once. I could not be happier to have read this book.
Recommended for fans of AXIOM by Tim Pratt, TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE (the
RPG) published by R. Talsorian Games, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel Studios),
and KILLJOYS (SYFY Channel).”
—Seanan McGuire, author of the
October Daye and InCryptid series
“Underwood takes us
for an intense ride through a cacophony
of alien civilizations in conflict. This is an exuberant space opera
that dares us to lose ourselves in battle songs and nonstop action. I can’t
sing its praises enough!”
—TJ Berry, author of SPACE UNICORN BLUES
and FIVE UNICORN FLUSH
“Fast, fun, inventive! ANNIHILATION
ARIA is a wild, delightful ride for fans of explosive space fantasy like Thor:
Ragnarok.”
—Valerie Valdes, author of CHILLING EFFECT
“If the characters of The
Mummy had been transported onto the Millennium Falcon, ARIA
would be the result—a rollicking space opera,
both literary and musical, with a diverse cast and strong relationships.”
—Gregory A. Wilson, author of GRAYSHADE
“Annihilation Aria is
a classic 80s science-fiction novel with all those troublesome sexist bits stripped off. It’s got that simplified, pulp, curl-under-the-covers reading
that reminds me of being a kid, wolfing down exciting adventures.”
— Ferrett Steinmetz, Nebula Award nominee and author of
AUTOMATIC RELOAD and THE SOL MAJESTIC
Here’s a quick overview of some events/activities I’m doing to promote the book over the next few weeks!
August 5th Ask Me Anything at r/Books on Reddit (all day)
A note about the future of this setting: Annihilation Aria is listed as Book One of a series, but it will be a stand-alone unless there are enough sales to justify a sequel.
If you want more books in the series, please tell your friends and fellow readers that might enjoy it!
I’m very proud of it and can’t wait to see it find a readership and bring some respite to people during this uncannily trying year.
Pre-order your copy from your favorite local bookstore or via Bookshop.org and support indie bookstores, who could especially use the help given how many are still closed to in-store browsing or only doing mail-order.
If you pre-order, not only will you get the book as soon as possible, you’ll also help tell bookstores that there is more demand for a book, which then tells the distributor and the publisher that there is more demand, which means that they are more likely to be able to put additional resources into promoting the book.
My promotional efforts have already started to ramp up, with guest posts, podcast appearances, and more. Here’s a quick round-up of what I’ve been up to lately:
In the next few weeks, I’ll have a lot more, including AMAs at two different subreddits, panel appearances this weekend for JulyCon, running a Scum & Villainy actual play miniseries, guest posts around the SFF blog-o-sphere, and more. This is my first book release since 2016, so I am trying to pull out all of the stops, even with the weirdness of launching a book during a global pandemic.
Underwood’s prose is brisk and funny without ever sacrificing his skilled sf world building. Highly recommended for fans of action-packed space opera and anyone else looking for a fun and fast-paced read.
What’s a starred review, you ask? According to Booklist, “a star is assigned by Booklist editors to indicate that the title is exceptional in its genre or format.” Pretty cool!
If you want to blast off for adventure with the book that has now earned praise from reviewers at Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Black Gate Magazine, pre-order your copy in paperback, ebook, or audio and board the Kettle on July 21st!
