This weekend, I attended my first convention as an Angry Robot, which also happened to be my first WorldCon.

For those who don’t know, WorldCon is a traveling convention, meaning that it changes locations each year. Convetion organizers bid on the chance to host the convention. This year the con was held in Chicago as Chicon7, and it for me, it was both delightful and exhausting.

I spent most of the weekend working the Angry Robot Booth, selling brand new books such as Seven Wonders, Mockingbird, The Corpse-Rat King, and the first two books from our new YA imprint Strange Chemistry, Blackwood and Shift.

Working the booth was very tiring, but just as rewarding. I put my bookseller hat back on and spent hour after hour hand-selling our books to visitors and passers-by. Working the booth helped me learn the line much faster, and thanks to the help of our marvelous editors Lee Harris and Amanda Rutter, as well as a rotating guest-star cast of Angry Robot and Strange Chemistry authors, we had a great weekend of sales.

Team Angry Robot had several outings, including a bowling night at a bowling alley that was way more upscale than the ones I was used to, and a fabulously-attended author event at The Book Cellar.

Angry Robot authors Adam Christopher and Chuck Wendig read from their books Seven Wonders and Mockingbird, and Strange Chemistry authors Gwenda Bond and Kim Curran read from Blackwood and Shift. There was a fun Q&A including questions like “Who is your favorite angry robot?” as well as homemade cupcakes by a Strange Chemistry author.

Luckily, I also got away for a few panel sessions, including a fantastically fun panel on Old-Fashioned Storytelling, a fun fannish panel on the Game of Thrones TV show (made all the more awesome by a visit from actor Ron Donachie aka Ser Rodrik Cassel).

I was also on a panel for new writers, which interestingly turned into a ‘New writers helping even newer writers learn important things about the business’ panel, which I really enjoyed. It was great to be able to take the pains I’d gone through on writing query letters and pass on the lessons learned.

And on Monday, the last day, as most everyone wore the look of end-of-con-exhaustion, I did the midlist author thing of sitting at the autograph table with the hope that people would come by. And a couple did, but they were mostly people who already knew me. 🙂

The parties were great, the company was even better, and I was tremendously excited to get to meet many authors, readers, and other SF/F folk. One of the highlights of my weekend was the agency dinner which my fabulous agent Sara Megibow set up. Sara was coincidentally in town, so she gathered up Nelson Literary authors Betsy Dornbusch, Jason M. Hough, Shanna Swedson, Hugh Howey and myself for a lovely dinner. It was the first time I’d met Sara in person, and she is even more of a Publishing Faerie Godmother in person than I guessed from talking on the phone. The six of us had a great bit of shop talk and hanging out, though I’m sad I had to run off a bit early to get to a panel.

Another highlight for me was attending the Hugos. The Hugo is the most prestigious award in Science Fiction/Fantasy (some argue that the Nebula is its match, but for me, the Hugo is the big one). It was a chance to suit up and see the SF/F community celebrate excellence in and service to the community. John Scalzi was a fantastic toastmaster, and the love in the room was palatable. Or maybe that was just the body heat of more than a thousand people in one room at the same time. 🙂

I was completely bushed by the end of the con, but thankfully, I had great new music for the ride home (the Hugo-nominated Wicked Girls by Seanan McGuire and Hazardous Fiddle by Amy McNally).

Two days later, I am still recovering, but it was a world-class bit of fun, and I look forward to going again next year for WorldCon in San Antonio.

Now that the book has been out for a few weeks, I have questions that count as frequently asked, so I thought I might as well give the answers in a centralized location.

Will there be a sequel to Geekomancy?

Yes! I was contracted for two books in the Geekomancy universe, and I am working on the second one right now. The book is currently scheduled for a 2nd half of 2013 release. Book two will shift focus a bit onto Hollywood and show business, as Ree gets a chance for big break as a screenwriter. But there will still be in-jokes galore and Ree’s signature snark and heroism.

I don’t like reading on computers/tablets/phones. When can I read a paper copy of Geekomancy?

Currently, there is no scheduled print edition of Geekomancy. However, my publisher (Pocket Books) is interested in doing a paper edition if the eBook edition sells well enough. That threshold is intentionally vague, but I  believe it is attainable. If you don’t like reading books on a screen but still want to support Geekomancy and/or me, consider getting a copy for a friend you think might enjoy it and does like reading on screens.

Can I read Geekomancy if I don’t have a tablet or smartphone?

Google, Kindle, and Nook all have browser-based reading programs available, so you can read the book on nearly any computer.

I’m driving up to Chicago today to set up the Angry Robot booth and rock the Windy City for WorldCon.

My panel schedule is unchanged:

Thu Aug 30 4:30:pm Thu Aug 30 6:00:pm Storytelling the Old-Fashioned Way
Buckingham — An exploration of the oral tradition of storytelling and how it relates to writing fiction. This panel of storytellers and writers will discuss tricks and techniques of oral storytelling that will and won’t work in the written form.

Sat Sep 1 7:30:pm Sat Sep 1 9:00:pm New Writers Session 4
Addams – A panel for new and debut authors to discuss their work and careers.

Sun Sep 2 12:00:pm Sun Sep 2 1:30:pm Winter is Coming
Field – A look at seasons one and two of the TV adaptation of ‘Song of Fire and Ice.’

Mon Sep 3 10:30:am Mon Sep 3 12:00:pm Autograph Session 17
Riverside center Exhibition Hall

Or you can probably find me at the Angry Robot booth, shilling the awesome tales of our authors, including the first books from Strange Chemistry, our brand-new YA SF/F line.

See you there!

I’m headed to the GenCon game show in Indianapolis this weekend, swinging by on Saturday and Sunday to check out the newest games, say hello to my fellow writers in the Author’s Alley, and meet all sorts of geeky people.

If you’re going to be at GenCon and want to say hello, you can Tweet @MikeRUnderwood to say hello and we’ll see about meeting up!

Yesterday was the pub-day for my friend Jim C. Hines’ eighth book, LIBRIOMANCER, the first in a new series.

That’s right, LIBRIOMANCER.

Unwittingly, independently, Jim and I both wrote geeky self-referential urban fantasies with a ‘mancy’ root for the title, which just happened to come out less than a month apart. This actually happens fairly often in publishing. Not this exact case, but the idea of similar-ish novels coming out from two different houses is usually more a sign that the two books are both hitting a part of the zeitgeist than that one person is copying from the other (I can assure you, we did not copy from one another. I was neck-deep into GEEKOMANCY before I even knew that Jim was writing LIBRIOMANCER. It was just kismet. Nerdy, geeky, kismet).

I’ve read about half of LIBRIOMANCER, more than enough to tell you a few things:

1) It’s delightful. For anyone who grew up with a love of reading, who ever wished to be whisked away into a book’s world, this novel will scratch that itch.
2) It’s funny. Just as in GEEKOMANCY, there are tons of in-jokes and geeky references. LIBRIOMANCER is more literary-focused, but there’s a scattershot across geek culture, as Hines’ protagonist Isaac Vainio, is a big geek himself.
3) It’s different from GEEKOMANCY. The two leads are very different people, with different approaches to conflict, different magical skills, and very different plots.

So if you’ve read and enjoyed GEEKOMANCY, I can wholeheartedly recommend LIBRIOMANCER for a fairly similiar kind of fun. Each novel stands on its own, but I hope that coming out close together will prove to help both LIBRIOMANCER and my own GEEKOMANCY.

Check out Jim’s launch day post on his blog for more about LIBRIOMANCER.

I have programming to do! WorldCon this month will be my first participating on a discussion panel as an author at a convention. I’ve presented as a scholar or served as a moderator at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts and other academic conventions, but WorldCon will kick off my time as ‘Mike Underwood — Author Panelist’.

Here is my tentative schedule — still subject to change as necessary for the convention.

Thu Aug 30 4:30:pm Thu Aug 30 6:00:pm Storytelling the Old-Fashioned Way
Buckingham — An exploration of the oral tradition of storytelling and how it relates to writing fiction. This panel of storytellers and writers will discuss tricks and techniques of oral storytelling that will and won’t work in the written form.

Sat Sep 1 7:30:pm Sat Sep 1 9:00:pm New Writers Session 4
Addams — A panel for new and debut authors to discuss their work and careers.

Sun Sep 2 12:00:pm Sun Sep 2 1:30:pm Winter is Coming
Field — A look at seasons one and two of the TV adaptation of ‘Song of Fire and Ice.’

Mon Sep 3 10:30:am Mon Sep 3 12:00:pm Autograph Session 17
Riverside center Exhibition Hall

I’m excited for the chance to talk out of my different areas of interest — my Folkloristics background for the Storytelling session, my GoT fandom for Winter is Coming, and talking about my own work in the New Writers session.

If you’re heading to WorldCon, I hope you’ll stop by during a panel or the autograph session to say hello!

Alex and I decided to do a blog post swap, and I’m very happy to hear about his thoughts on the apparent pirate boom of the last few years, and where his influences for the newest Eddie LaCrosse novel  Wake of the Bloody Angel, come from. I read the first Eddie LaCrosse book (The Sword-Edged Blonde) a couple of years back, and I loved the way he fused the hardboiled detective feel with a more familiar action fantasy setting. It’s a smooth, fast ride, with some fun twists and a great character to spend time with. I’m very glad the series is ongoing, and since I love me a good pirate story, it’s great to have Alex by to talk about swashing bucklers, old-school movies, and eyeliner.

Surfing the Wave…or Not

by Alex Bledsoe

When I told people that the next Eddie LaCrosse novel, Wake of the Bloody Angel, would feature pirates, there were a few skeptical raised eyebrows.  I knew what they were thinking, too: “bandwagon jumping a bit, aren’t we?”  And I can understand why they’d think that, although my interest in pirates began long before Johnny Depp applied all that eyeliner.  But it also made me look at the current “pirate boom” in some detail, and I realized something surprising: there’s not one, at least not in the movies.

The first wave (no pun intended) of pirate popularity began in 1926 with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. in The Black Pirate.  Then came such classics as Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, The Black Swan (the one with Tyrone Power, not Natalie Portman) and The Crimson Pirate.

Over the years there were attempts to revive the genre, such as Swashbuckler with Robert Shaw, Nate and Hayes with Tommy Lee Jones and Pirates with Walter Matthau.  There was even a big-budget movie of The Pirates of Penzance, starring Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt.  But none of these caught on.  Pirates, it seemed, were old (tri-cornered) hat.

Then came Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

The modern pirate era started with him.  And it also stopped with him.  Because it’s not really about pirates, any more than Twilight, to its fans, is really about vampires.  What people are enamored of is Captain Jack Sparrow.  Not Johnny Depp, as his subsequent flops (The Rum Diaries and Dark Shadows) bear out. It’s entirely that character.

And I can’t argue with that.  Especially in that first movie, Jack Sparrow is one of the most eccentric action heroes ever, a full-blooded oddball standing in where common sense says there should be a modern Errol Flynn.  Only an actor of Depp’s talent and stature could get away with making the hero vaguely effeminate, apparently stoned and almost entirely (within the story) sexless, and yet still have audiences love him.  Each subsequent movie has, to me, gotten weaker and weaker as they attempt to make them bigger, burying the most unique thing–Jack Sparrow–under more and more generic tropes of tentpole action movies.

And that’s sad, because people love Jack Sparrow. It’s not pirates, or sea monsters, or mermaids, or sailing ships.  They want Captain Jack in yet another story, mincing around and spouting odd non-sequiturs.

It’s significant that there have been no other pirate movies to speak of in the wake (heh) of Jack Sparrow.  No one’s put Depp into another pirate role, the way Errol Flynn went from Captain Blood to The Sea Hawk to Against All Flags.   No one has appeared to challenge him, as Tyrone Power did in The Black Swan.  There have, in fact, been no other big-budget pirate films at all, and very few low-budget ones, despite Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest being one of the top-ten grossing movies of all time.  Why is that?  I honestly don’t know, since modern filmmakers love nothing more than a success they can copy.

And so, since none of the pirates in Wake of the Bloody Angel resembled Jack Sparrow, I didn’t really feel like I was jumping on any bandwagons.  My inspirations came from movies such as Errol Flynn and Maureen O’Hara in Against All Flags, and real-life pirates like Black Sam Bellamy and his ship the Whydah.  But if a Jack Sparrow fan decides to pick up Wake of the Bloody Angel, I hope they’ll enjoy what they find–swashbuckling, sea battles, supernatural mysteries and just a hint of romance–equally as much.

The 2012 Clarion West Write-a-Thon is complete, and I’m very happy to say that I oblitterated my original goal of writing 10K words while promoting Geekomancy and traveling for work.

My final word count for the six weeks was 25059 words, and that’s not including several thousand words in interviews and guest posts that I wrote along the way, as well as my guest spot on the Write-a-Thon Twitter chat during Week 4, talking mostly about motivation and digging deep to keep going.

The Write-a-Thon has always been a good way for me to add some motivation and push for more productivity, but never have I been so productive as a result. Big thanks to the Write-a-Thon community, to all my sponsors, and to the many people who have shared their excitement for Geekomancy.

You can still donate to Clarion West and help writers pursue their passions.

The $1.99 discounted sale price for Geekomancy is ending soon! The book is scheduled to re-set to the original price of $5.99 on Monday the 23rd, so if you’d like to get a copy (or get another copy for a friend), this weekend would be a great time to do it.

http://pages.simonandschuster.com/pocketstar/featured

And-if you’ve read Geekomancy and care to leave a review on Amazon, BN.com, Goodreads or wherever, I’d really appreciate it. Having more reviews makes it easier for readers to decide if a book is going to be up their alley.