Birthday Giveaways!

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Michael R. Underwood

Hello, all! Today is my birthday, and to celebrate, I’m hosting three giveaways for copies of my novels.

One giveaway is right here. Just comment on this post between now and Friday the 27th at 5PM EDT with your personal favorite birthday tradition: a food you like to eat, a restaurant you visit, some media you partake of, or so on. One lucky commenter will get a copy of all of my Ree Reyes ebooks so far: Geekomancy, Celebromancy, Attack the Geek.

Next, if you sign up for my mailing list, you’ll be entered to win a set of the Ree Reyes ebooks or a copy of The Younger Gods. Everyone signed up by Friday at noon will be entered to win.

And third – I’ve posted a giveaway on r/fantasy here. I’ll give away two copies of Shield and Crocus as well as a copy of The Younger Gods.

Also, I reserve the right to give away additional prizes because I feel like it. 🙂

The Daily Deal!

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Michael R. Underwood

Shield and Crocus is the SFF Kindle Daily Deal today, on sale for just $1.99.

This means if you’ve been meaning to buy the book and haven’t gotten around to it, today’s your day to take the plunge.

And if you’ve already bought the book, and loved it, this is a great chance to buy a copy to send to a friend who you think would enjoy it </subtle>

The KDD is a big deal in the ebook sales world, so I’d love any signal-boosting folks could give. I’ve prepared a ready-made tweet for you to ease the process:

Monsters, heroes, and a city built in the bones of a titan – SHIELD AND CROCUS, a Kindle Daily Deal for just $1.99 http://amzn.to/1v16jVZ

Newsletter drive

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Michael R. Underwood

Hi folks,

I’m working on beefing up my newsletter as a way to reach out to readers directly, good marketing strategy and all.

As an incentive, I’m going to release the original short story version of “Shield and Crocus” written at Clarion West in 2007 to my newsletter when I hit 50 subscribers. And if we hit 50 before the end of August, I’ll do a subscribers-only giveaway of a Cool Prize.

Rocket Talk!

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Michael R. Underwood

A few weeks ago, I recorded an episode of Rocket Talk, the Tor.com podcast, with host Justin Landon. We talked about Planescape, the New Weird, SHIELD AND CROCUS (as a new weird/superhero mashup), and then we had a bonus discussion about urban fantasy).

You can listen to the episode here.

Since I didn’t get to mention it during the chat, I want to plug a couple works that I think are worth looking at as part of a broader discussion of the New Weird and its effects:

THE CRAFT SEQUENCE (starting with THREE PARTS DEAD) by Max Gladstone
THE MIRROR EMPIRE by Kameron Hurley

and because it doesn’t get talked up enough, THE ETCHED CITY by KJ Bishop.

Happy listening!

PROMONADO Report

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Michael R. Underwood

June was a whirlwind, and now moving into July, we’ve come through the eye of the PROMONADO and are now going through the second half, with CONvergence and ReaderCon, as well as more podcastery.

Today, I’m on Adventures of Sci-Fi Publishing, talking about SHIELD AND CROCUS, Tor.com’s new imprint, the Hachette/Amazon situation, and more. There’s also a giveaway for a SHIELD AND CROCUS bundle (paperback, audiobook, ebook).

And just a couple of days before that, my spot on the Reader/Writer podcast went live.

Fangirl Nation has a review of CELEBROMANCY– “a creative look at an intricate movie culture and works as a commentary on the power of that culture. Underwood continues to write a series that is engaging, filled with pop culture references and entertaining to boot.”

SHIELD AND CROCUS gets a mention on Literologie’s Summer Reading List.

And lastly, I squee about Beth Cato’s THE CLOCKWORK DAGGER for Tor.com’s Writers on Writing segment.

Shield and Crocus launch report

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Michael R. Underwood

Last Friday, Atomic Books hosted the launch for Shield and Crocus, my first book in paperback format. It was amazing, wonderful, and I will cherish the memory for all of my days.

I was greeted by a lovely stack of bookness upon my arrival:

I took the lay of the land, remembering how cool it was to be in a book/comic shop with its very own bar:

When the time came, Benn from Atomic introduced me, and I faced the crowd (it got even bigger later!)

Fellow Codexian and Team Novelocity member Fran Wilde snapped this photo during my reading, which I love and very well may want to use as my next author photo:

I read from the beginning of Shield and Crocus (featuring a messy apartment, a grappling hook, and robot voices), answered a few questions, and then we broke out into social time. I was excited to meet several fellow writers in the area, re-connect with local friends, and make several new friends.

There was even cake! (It was not a lie)

And I was so excited as we were arriving that I didn’t even notice the poster they put in the front window! We snapped a quick picture before heading home for the night.

Thank you to Atomic Books for hosting me, and to everyone who came out to help launch the book!

For those who weren’t able to make it, Atomic Books still has a number of signed copies of Shield and Crocus, which you can order from their website.

AMA after-action

Posted on June 13, 2014 by Michael R. Underwood

My fingers are still sore from last night’s amazing AMA over on Reddit’s r/fantasy community. I had questions about publishing, pizza, Shield and Crocus, writing technique, Geek-fu, the Ree Reyes series, fencing, board games, and tango – basically, my whole life. 🙂

Check out the AMA archive here for all of the fun.

SHIELD AND CROCUS is here!

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Michael R. Underwood

Today is the day!

You can get Shield and Crocus on Amazon as well as several different bookstores. It’s also available in audiobook, performed by the amazing Luke Daniels.

If you’d like to read a preview first, Tor.com has you covered.

What have others been saying about it?

“…with Shield and Crocus, everything I love in a summer blockbuster. was contained between two covers. I think it’s safe to say that summer is officially here.”
-Eric Christensen, Fantasy Faction

“Blindingly creative, Shield and Crocus delivers action-packed, four-color fantasy with a lot of heart.”
-Michael J. Martinez, author of The Daedalus Incident

“Audec-Hal is a city where dispassionate robots co-exist with mad sorcerers and unpredictable storms that warp the fabric of reality itself. Fans of China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station or David Edison’s The Waking Engine will surely enjoy the mad inventiveness on display here.”
-Marie Brennan, author of A Natural History of Dragons

“The book is fast-paced, especially impressive considering the amount of world-building. The fight is desperate. The tyrants are villains in the truest sense. Superheroes + Epic Fantasy = Awesomeness.”
-Beth Cato, author of Clockwork Dagger

“I can’t say enough about the mythology and the world building. Underwood put a lot of thought into constructing the world of Audec-Hal, and it shows.”
-Beauty in Ruins

Shield and Crocus cover reveal!

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Michael R. Underwood

At long last, the cover to Shield and Crocus has been revealed on Tor.com!

Go over there and bask in the awesomeness, okay? I’ll wait here.

Back?

Super-cool, right? I was totally awed. Like, open jaw ‘Whaaa?’ awed. It think that Stephan Martinière is one of the best fantasy/science fiction artists working today (and might be the single best landscape painter among them), so the fact that he brought one of my worlds to life, and with a painting of that caliber, is still kind of mind-blowing for me, almost a month after I saw the first rough sketches.

While you’re basking in the cover’s awesomeness, you might as well go and pre-order Shield and Crocus in your preferred format 😉

Paperback
Ebook
Audiobook