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The Wasteland War by Michael R. Underwood: The Genrenauts are (FINALLY) Back—Are They Up for the New Challenges?

The Wasteland War

The Wasteland War

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, Episode 7

E-Book, 53 pg.
2021

Read: March 26, 2021

The first thing Leah noticed was the dust. It whirled and whorled and danced everywhere. Orange and brown and soot-gray, this place had it all. She pulled the scarf up to cover her nose, holding it in place with her goggles.

She’d felt like a steampunk raver when she’d first put the outfit on, but now it totally made sense, both aesthetically and practically. It was hard to keep your eyes open when they were constantly filled with dust.

What are The Genrenauts?

Many of my readers weren’t reading this blog back in 2015-2016 where it likely seemed I talked about the Genrenauts every couple of weeks (14 posts from November 2015-December 2016, and one the following June), so let me give you a quick idea about the series, taken from the author’s site:

In Genrenauts, our Earth is just one of many in a multiverse. Each other Earth is the home to a familiar narrative genre: Westerns, Fantasy, Romance, Crime, etc. Each world is constantly playing out stories from its genre – archetypes and tale types smashing up against one another making tragedies and happily ever afters. But like any system, sometimes entropy takes hold, and a story breaks down. When that happens, the Genrenauts step in to fix the story.

Because if they don’t, the dissonance from the broken story ripples over and changes Earth on a fundamental level. (Science Fiction world goes off-track and scientific innovation stagnates, exploration halts; Fantasy world goes off-track and xenophobia rises, cultural rifts widen).

Our series starts when Leah Tang, a struggling stand-up comic, is recruited to join the Genrenauts and discovers that her seemingly useless genre savvy is suddenly an essential skill for survival in the story worlds. She arrives just in time, as story breaches have been ramping up – coming faster and causing more ripples.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

What’s The Wasteland War About?

There are two things going on in this brief novella—first, Angstrom King, the AWOL Team Leader, stumbles upon a story breach while he was trying to resupply his stores. He believes that this breach will help him get evidence to support his theory so that he can eventually convince the High Council that he’s right about the rogue Genrenauts—or just that he’ll be able to find a way to stop the rogues himself.

While he’s trying to understand the nature of the breach and find this evidence, his old team arrives—adding a layer of difficulty and danger to everything he’s doing.

That breach is the second storyline—two communities in this wasteland—one a safe haven for those who need one, and a battleship with resources the other needs—had recently formed an alliance sealed by a marriage. And now, a few months later each side is convinced the other is betraying that alliance and are starting to retaliate against the other.

Hey, Where’s Leah?

Leah’s the point-of-entry character for the reader, we came into this world with her and she’s the one we understand things through. She’s largely sidelined during this mission, which makes it a little harder for me to connect with it. We’ve had extended periods where we focus on others in the team before, but Leah still carried the narrative weight of the novel/novella. This novella focuses so much on King and Shirin that there’s not that much time for Leah.

It was absolutely the right way to tell this story, King and Shireen ought to have been the focus of this novella, but I don’t want that to be the case for too long.

There’s another team member who’s even more absent from this mission—but it makes sense story-wise (as fun as it would’ve been to have them around).

The New Guy

Shirin and King exchanged messages…Shirin keeping King updated on the team and how Mendoza was leading—like a man that only has a hammer and therefore sees nothing but nails.

I know we’re not supposed to like the Team Leader brought in to replace Angstrom King, but it’s like Underwood went out of his way to ensure we wouldn’t. He’s proof that King had a very special thing going on, and that the Genrenauts as an organization might not be as great as Leah and the readers might have thought. King assembled a team with a variety of skills, interests, and abilities—and a team that relies on and trusts each other to function. Mendoza doesn’t value that variety and doesn’t care how it functions best, he’s only concerned with how he wants it to function.

I hope Underwood shows us enough about Mendoza so that we can appreciate him, and maybe even see that he’s trying to do the right thing, even if it’s not the way the King would’ve done it.

On the other hand, I don’t mind not liking the guy at all, so if he doesn’t do that, I won’t complain too loudly.

So, what did I think about The Wasteland War?

Entropy had its teeth in every world. But here, they were serrated.

First, it was so, so, so good to be back in this series. The last episode of Season One came out in the Fall of 2016, and I’ve been missing this series since. I’m glad Underwood has been able to pick this up again.

Outside of the short story, There Will Always Be a Max, this is the shortest Genrenauts episode, and while that’s frustrating because of my greed, it’s a great length for this particular story (but I hope it’s not the beginning of a trend). It’s also a great way to get back into this world—we get just enough to remember who the players are, remember the ongoing arc, and are treated to another adventure in the Wasteland.

Post-apocalyptic wastelands in the Mad Max mold are probably never going to be my thing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy something like this. I actually would’ve liked a little bit more of the Wasteland War story to balance out the larger arc. It felt like it was given short shrift—not quite as much as the Western World story was in The Shootout Solution, but it was close—although that had to establish the series, introduce the characters, and teach us the concept of a Genrenaut.

My gripes aside, this was a good story with plenty of action and a great atmosphere, and it sets up the rest of Season Two. I’m eager to see where things go from here.


3.5 Stars

The Data Disruption by Michael R. Underwood

The Data DisruptionThe Data Disruption

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, #0

Kindle Edition, 68 pg.
2017

Read: May 27, 2017


It’ll come to no surprise to any of my longer-term readers that I liked this — it’s pretty established that I’m a Genrenauts fan. I dig the characters, the world(s), the type of stories Underwood’s telling — the whole kit and caboodle. This story is no exception — I liked it. This takes place just before Leah is recruited, so the team is functioning very smoothly — no growing pains needed — just King, Shireen and Roman doing their thing like seasoned pros.

It’s a pretty straight-forward, classic cyberpunk story (yeah, I’m old enough that cyberpunk can be called “classic”) — notorious hacker, D-Source, has gone missing. Which is causing all sorts of problems for the rest of his crew, and (by extension) all of Cyberpunk world as well as ours. So King and his team (minus Mallery, off in Western world) head out to save the day. They’ve worked with D-Source in the past and therefore have an easier time getting an “in” to the story in-progress. What results is a solid heist story with all the cyberpunk bells and whistles.

Underwood has been modeling this series after TV shows, and wrote this as a “lost pilot” to “serve as an introduction to the series, which I’ll use to invite more people into the worlds of Genrenauts.” Here’s my problem with that — no one watches a lost pilot until the show’s been around for a while, and usually only fans see it. No one sits down to watch “The Cage” (or the two-part version, “The Menagerie”) as an introduction to Star Trek, and for good reason. Similarly, Leah Tang is our point-of-entry character, and to remove her from the equation takes something away from the overall story. Also, there’s something that’s slowly revealed over the course of the first few books that’s just blatantly stated. I just think that works better the way that Underwood originally wrote it.

Still, Underwood knows what he’s doing, and if he thinks this will work to bring in new readers, I hope he’s right.

Putting that aside, I’m supposed to be talking about the story, not Underwood’s plans. The story worked really well. It was a little too short for me — but it’s supposed to be short, so I shouldn’t complain. Besides, I almost always complain about short story length — even I’m tired of that. While the story was told in its fullness, I just would’ve liked to see everything fleshed out a little more — also, I wouldn’t mind spending more time with my friends. Fast, fun, with good action — celebrating what makes a cyberpunk story work — and winking at the genre at the same time.

Still, any time with the ‘Nauts works for me. Good story, decent intro to this series that I can’t stop recommending — and a great price (free). Still, reading this after the sixth book would be my recommendation after starting with The Shootout Solution.

—–

3.5 Stars

Genrenauts: The Complete Season One Collection by Michael R. Underwood

Genrenauts: The Complete Season One CollectionGenrenauts: The Complete Season One Collection

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, #1-6

Kindle Edition, 544 pg.
2016


Parallel to our world are various worlds populated by fictional characters in a wide variety of genres (Western, SF, Romance, etc), and when things go wrong in the stories, things go wrong in our world. For example, broken Romance world stories = higher divorce rates here. In this world, there are a number of teams of story specialists who shift to the other worlds to fix the stories and set things back on course here. Leah Tang — a struggling stand-up comic by night, struggling receptionist by day — is the newest recruit. Join her as she learns the ropes, rights wrongs, struggles with ethics, and gets shot at while cracking jokes.

Originally printed as 6 episodes in 5 novellas, now collected in one season-long omnibus, Genrenauats as become one of my favorite series this year and I’m glad to get one more chance to talk about it with the release of the collection this week.

There’s a great cast of characters here, all of which deserve the reader’s time and focus. For example, I was tempted to not-really-ignore, but relegate Angstrom King to back burner status in my mind. He’s the leader, he points the team in a direction, but the real excitement’s with the rest. This was a mistake on my part — think of him like Capt. Picard. Sure, for the most part he sits around in his ready room with some Earl Gray (hot) — but really, some of the more interesting things that happen in he series are because of his actions. King’s not Jean-Luc, but there’s a similar quality.

I love a good team — fiction, TV, comics, you name it — the interaction, the teamwork, the dynamics, there’s really nothing like it. There’s a great team in these novellas — some of the intra-team camaraderie got pushed aside for a little romance that doesn’t really work for me (but I get why it would for others and appreciate the way Underwood’s tackling it). Overall, it’s built on solid interactions and relationships that have plenty of room to grow and develop over the many seasons that we hopefully get of this.

Each adventure gives Underwood an opportunity to talk about various genres — to talk about the clichés, tropes, archetypes, pluses, minuses, and so on of each genre. And one visit to each won’t be enough to fully explore these. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not talking Master’s Theses-esque discussion, he jokes about them, plays with them, sometimes turns them upside down while telling his tale.

The collection includes:
The Shootout Solution — We meet Leah Tang, Angstrom King and the rest of his team. We’re also introduced to the concept of Genrenauts, Story Worlds, the effects that they can have on our world — also, we get a pretty decent story in Western World. Not bad for 148 pages. (For more details, you might want to read my original blog post, my blog post about the audiobook)

The Absconded Ambassador — The team goes to Science Fiction World to help out on a DS9-like Space Station. On the verge of a major treaty being finalized and signed, the Terran ambassador has been kidnapped. It’s up to King and co. to rescue the ambassador and keep the shaky alliance from crumbling in her absence. We learn a little more about everyone, and while having a lot of fun with genre conventions. ( my original blog post, my blog post about the audiobook)

The Cupid Reconciliation — The team gets back up to full strength in time to go rescue a Rom-Com gone awry. Underwood really lets things fly when it comes to observations about the genre and playing with conventions while using them for comedic — and narrative — value. Also — a couple of seeds that were planted in the first two novellas are watered enough that you can see season/season-plus story arcs beginning to grow. The series took a big jump in quality here. ( my original blog post)

The Substitute Sleuth — A Police Procedural needs some help, a no-nonsense cop’s off-the wall/out-of-the-box partner takes a bullet and another pair of mismatched detectives needs to come in and close the case. We get some major backstory stuff here, and the season arc is moved along nicely. The detective story itself isn’t my favorite, but what Underwood does with the tropes, themes, conventions, etc. is really good — it is more of a TV detective story than a novel detective story. Think Castle, not Harry Bosch (whoops, thanks Amazon, you ruined that point…). ( my original blog post)

The Failed Fellowship (Part 1 & 2) — This think kicks off with Leah Tang ranting about fantasy fiction and 5 episodes later, she gets to spend 2 episodes in Fantasy World, where a Chosen One with a Magic Artifact story has fallen to pieces. Leah’s in hog heaven, the rest of the team are at the top of their game and Underwood is, too. Rollicking good adventure. Best of the batch in every way. ( my original blog post)

I dig this series, and having all of the novellas in one handy collection is going to make it easier (I hope) for others to discover it — the collection is also a little cheaper than buying all the individual stories, which will also going to make things easier for people to discover it. If you haven’t dipped your toe in this world/these worlds yet, what are you waiting for?

—–

5 Stars

The Failed Fellowship by Michael R. Underwood

The Failed FellowshipThe Failed Fellowship

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, #5 & 6

eARC, 181 pg.
2016

Read: September 16 – 17, 2016

Her job was to fix the story, not right every little wrong in the entire world.

But was that really enough? If you force someone to work with shoddy equipment and they get hurt every week, eventually, shouldn’t you fix the tool instead of sending them to the doctor? She’d spent the last several months playing the doctor, applying spot fixes along with the team, keeping to the shadows. Help the real hero, delay the problems until the real hero came back.

I want to come back to talk about Leah’s continuing difficulties adopting the right attitude as a Genrenaut, but we’ve got some work to get through first.

A band of intrepid warriors, in possession of a magic artifact carried by the one person capable of stopping a great evil enters a castle and fights through untold numbers of warriors through magic and feats of strength and skill. Only to have the Chosen One killed before they can challenge the leader of the forces of evil. Clearly, not the way this story is supposed to go — which creates problems on Earth Prime, and a need for Angstrom King’s team to come to Fantasy World, get the band back together, and fix the story.

The first thing the team does when they get to the world is track down Ioseph, the wizard who assembled the failed heroes. Leah describes him as:

Gandalf if Gondor had already fallen, Dumbledore facing a fascist wizard state under Voldemort.

Which is a great descriptive line, wholly genre-appropriate. This is Underwood at his best — not that he’s not great in SF or the other genres we’ve seen this season — but in Fantasy, he’s at his strength (see the Ree Reyes series for further examples).

It’s not just Underwood being comfortable, either — one of the first things we learned about Leah is that she’s a big Fantasy Fan. So her being here was is just what she’s been waiting for — and she makes the most of it. She jokes, she fights, she sings (her character is a bard), performs heroic deeds and she eats a lot of stew (while making the requisite snarky remarks about the stew). Everything you want in an epic fantasy novel or game, it’s celebrated and commented on at the same time. It’d be very easy to do a quick edit to remove all the references to other worlds/Genrenauts/etc. and come up with a decent novella-length story here — with a pretty good twist. Thankfully, we don’t have to read that hypothetical edit — we get Leah and the gang guiding us through it.

In addition to the pretty fun story — we get to see these Genrenauts function like a fully formed team — which is not to say they’re perfect, part of it is Leah’s rookie status, part of it comes from the length of time they spend in this world (as we learned last time), and part of it is the uncertainty that the tall woman they’ve been chasing brings to the story. There’s at least one other part, but you have to read the book to learn about it. Roman gets to tell Leah where he came from and what that means, which helps him a lot (the rest of the team, too). King’s and Shirin’s part of the story is the more straight-forward, if for no other reason than their temperaments and experience. Which is not to say that their parts are dull — in fact, one of the best characters from this world (with the obligatory annoying ‘ in his name) comes from their portion of the story.

The focus is, of course, on Leah — she loves being surrounded by a fantasy story and lets the setting get to her. Also, as the opening quotation shows, she’s struggling with her role as a Genrenaut in various worlds. Much like Kirk bristling under the constraints of the Prime Directive, Leah has a hard time adapting her sense of right and wrong to the world and culture she’s in — and I’m not sure she’s getting better about it, maybe she’s getting worse the more comfortable she is with the team. Frankly, I’m glad to see her struggle here, and I’m not sure what side I want her to come down on.

Leah’s now at the end of her probationary status — and if any of the Genrenauts were analyzing their own story, they’d clearly see that this was the end of a narrative arc and that something big was about to happen — enough to close this chapter and lead into a new one. It does, and it’s a doozy. Man, I hope things went well enough on the sales front for Underwood to be able to bring us a second season (if not seven) — I’m more than ready to support the next Kickstarter.

Underwood seemed more confident, a little more willing to have fun with the genre in these entries than he has with the others (not that he’s been all that restrained before). I loved this. When (for example) Leverage was on the air — there were better shows on, but few that I enjoyed as much. Similarly, I’ve read better books this year than The Failed Fellowship or any of the others in this series, but not that many and none have made me as happy reading these. There is one line towards the end of this that made me laugh out loud (and groan, too — Leah has no shame) and if I read an interview where Underwood said he wrote the previous 5 books in this series just to set up this line? It’d be justified.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from the author in exchange for this post — I thank him for it (and for releasing the cover image in time for me to post this without my lousy placeholder).

—–

5 Stars

Pub Day Repost: The Substitute Sleuth by Michael R. Underwood

The Substitute SleuthThe Substitute Sleuth

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, #4eARC, 88 pg.
2016
Read: July 11, 2016

Adventure, excitement, hypothermia. All of this and more await you in the Genrenauts!

Once again, Leah Tang is having a rough time on her first visit to a genre world. It’s Chicago, there’s a snow storm, her primary partner on this particular mission is getting a bit too wrapped up in the story, and she had to see her second dead body (not that such a sight is ever pleasant, but this one is well, is fit for the opening scenes of Castle, Bones, etc.). Thankfully, her sense of humor isn’t only welcome on this mission, it’s required.

It all starts when poor Leah has to wake up early, summoned for a mission to patch a small story breach on Crime World — the Police Procedural region to be precise. King’s going to let her take the lead on it as a training exercise. And then things go wrong. Because, well, that’s just how things are going for this team lately — and the one story breach they came to Crime World to patch is overshadowed by a bigger one. Crime World breaches left unpatched bleed over into our world in the form more, and worse, crimes. Every bleed from a Genre World into ours sounds bad — but this one is worse. Leah is still having qualms about the ethics involved in what her team does, but given the stakes, she’s willing to put them aside.

Probably more than in the previous adventures, Leah and King lean on and exploit the tropes of this world and region. As a fan of the Whacky Investigator/Straight-Laced Law Officer partner stories/shows, I loved watching the two of them use, critique, and play with the story beats, types and clichés. White Hat hacking, convenient recovery periods after being shot, how clues show up at just the right time, and so on. At one point, Leah sees a pair of detectives that work in the precinct with the detective at the center of the breach:

Leah took them to be the friend cops, the other team that would work another part of a case—the cases that would all too often end up being related, thanks to the laws of narrative conservation.

I love that phrase “laws of narrative conservation,” I am stealing that, period. I talk about that phenomenon all the time here, and this phrase is going to save me so much typing.

Between this and the Max novella, we’re learning a good deal about Angstrom King — I think I’m getting a really good sense of him, and I’m liking him more than I expected. Leah is pretty much Leah, just a little more confident in her place and moving onward from where she’s been so far in the series. The rest of the team faded to the background to an extent that I found surprising, and I hope it’s not a sign of things to come. I’m pretty sure it’s not, Underwood wouldn’t have spent so much time establishing the team and characters if he was going to drop them. Everyone was present, but their roles were very diminished. Mallery’s got a bit more to do than the others, but really not much.

The closing pages of this do a great job of setting-up the two-part season finale in the next two novellas. I can’t say more than that — but how any fan of this series can be patient waiting to see what comes next is a greater mystery than the ones the team encounters on Crime World. Best of the bunch.

N.B.: As this was an ARC, there’s a chance that the quotations above might not be in the published version, I’ll try to confirm them as soon as I can.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of novella from the author in exchange for this post–thanks, Mr. Underwood!

—–

4 1/2 Stars

The Substitute Sleuth by Michael R. Underwood

The Substitute SleuthThe Substitute Sleuth

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, #4

eARC, 88 pg.
2016

Read: July 11, 2016

Adventure, excitement, hypothermia. All of this and more await you in the Genrenauts!

Once again, Leah Tang is having a rough time on her first visit to a genre world. It’s Chicago, there’s a snow storm, her primary partner on this particular mission is getting a bit too wrapped up in the story, and she had to see her second dead body (not that such a sight is ever pleasant, but this one is well, is fit for the opening scenes of Castle, Bones, etc.). Thankfully, her sense of humor isn’t only welcome on this mission, it’s required.

It all starts when poor Leah has to wake up early, summoned for a mission to patch a small story breach on Crime World — the Police Procedural region to be precise. King’s going to let her take the lead on it as a training exercise. And then things go wrong. Because, well, that’s just how things are going for this team lately — and the one story breach they came to Crime World to patch is overshadowed by a bigger one. Crime World breaches left unpatched bleed over into our world in the form more, and worse, crimes. Every bleed from a Genre World into ours sounds bad — but this one is worse. Leah is still having qualms about the ethics involved in what her team does, but given the stakes, she’s willing to put them aside.

Probably more than in the previous adventures, Leah and King lean on and exploit the tropes of this world and region. As a fan of the Whacky Investigator/Straight-Laced Law Officer partner stories/shows, I loved watching the two of them use, critique, and play with the story beats, types and clichés. White Hat hacking, convenient recovery periods after being shot, how clues show up at just the right time, and so on. At one point, Leah sees a pair of detectives that work in the precinct with the detective at the center of the breach:

Leah took them to be the friend cops, the other team that would work another part of a case—the cases that would all too often end up being related, thanks to the laws of narrative conservation.

I love that phrase “laws of narrative conservation,” I am stealing that, period. I talk about that phenomenon all the time here, and this phrase is going to save me so much typing.

Between this and the Max novella, we’re learning a good deal about Angstrom King — I think I’m getting a really good sense of him, and I’m liking him more than I expected. Leah is pretty much Leah, just a little more confident in her place and moving onward from where she’s been so far in the series. The rest of the team faded to the background to an extent that I found surprising, and I hope it’s not a sign of things to come. I’m pretty sure it’s not, Underwood wouldn’t have spent so much time establishing the team and characters if he was going to drop them. Everyone was present, but their roles were very diminished. Mallery’s got a bit more to do than the others, but really not much.

The closing pages of this do a great job of setting-up the two-part season finale in the next two novellas. I can’t say more than that — but how any fan of this series can be patient waiting to see what comes next is a greater mystery than the ones the team encounters on Crime World. Best of the bunch.

N.B.: As this was an ARC, there’s a chance that the quotations above might not be in the published version, I’ll try to confirm them as soon as I can.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of novella from the author in exchange for this post–thanks, Mr. Underwood!

—–

4 1/2 Stars

The Cupid Reconciliation by Michael R. Underwood

What? Another Genrenauts/Michael R. Underwood post? Yup. Don’t worry, I’m going to slow down a bit (well, after this and then next week’s post, “What’s in Underwood’s Sock Drawer?”) — but trying to get the word out about the Kickstarter and the series takes some repetition.

I’m pretty sure that there’s a paragraph missing from this — I just don’t know what it was supposed to be about. I may end up revising this tomorrow.

The Cupid ReconciliationThe Cupid Reconciliation

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, #3

eARC
2016
Read: May 17, 2016

This is my life, Leah thought . . . My amazing, confusing, totally screwed-up life.

Just as Leah is getting to the point that she’s starting to feel comfortable, maybe even a little confident, in her new job — her new life — things get shook up a little. Mallery, the member of the team whose injury led to Leah’s recruitment, is back from her convalescence. That alone will change the team dynamic in the field, and maybe even effect Leah’s standing in the team. The fact that they’re headed to Romantic-Comedy world, Mallery’s specialty, doesn’t help Leah’s spirits (particularly because she’d like that to be her specialty, too).

Speaking of the various worlds, I don’t know if we’d ever been given insight into how life in a Genre World would start to change a person after awhile. Or if we were, it wasn’t explained the way it was here. That was just a cool touch.

While Leah continues to be our point-of-view character, our entry into this world, this is really Mallery’s book. The rest of the team are there, and contribute but the major non-Leah narrative weight is all carried by Mallery. Which I’m fine with, she seems to be a fun character (maybe a little hard to take in real life, but that could just be her nerves about getting into the field/dealing with a probie) and we need to get to know her, but she’s a force of nature.

Mallery beamed, which Leah was realizing was pretty close to the woman’s resting face. Some women had resting bitch face, but Mallery glowed. It was impressive. A little annoying, but impressive.

There was something in the “Coming Next” page in the last episode that made me worry about the relationship between these two not getting off on the right foot — thankfully, it seemed to get off on a decent (if not the right) foot — but nothing’s perfect. The two characters are going to have to fumble a bit to get a strong working relationship.

Don’t get me wrong — King, Roman, and Shirin all had their moments and made their presence felt — but they were bit players in this one. I did appreciate getting to see Roman’s softer side on display, he’s a deeper thinker than you might take him for and his efforts to help the “male lead,” were borderline sweet.

Straightaway when they get to the world, they come up with a strong candidate for the couple causing the breach — and the team is wrong, they have to work harder than the last two times to find where the problem is. I appreciated that move — and didn’t realize until then how smooth that step had gone in the previous adventures.

Maybe it’s because this particular world so closely resembles our own, but Leah got a bit of insight into how the Genrenauts’ activities might seem to one of the people from that world — and it’s not that pretty. The Genrenauts violate the Prime Directive more than Kirk ever did (to put it in genre-terms). And Leah’s not so sure that their particular brand of meddling is all that ethical. And I have to admit, she may have a point. Mallery shuts down that kind of thinking/talk — at least until they’re safely back home. I trust that Leah’s doubts and questions will be all dealt with in a way that’s honest in the near future. Regardless, Leah’s ethical qualms add a good dimension to things.

I enjoyed seeing this world through Genrenaut eyes — the availability of fantastic (and cheap) apartments with amazing views, how easy it is to get a cab, the fact that there’s a romantic scene seemingly everywhere in the background — happy couples everywhere.

. . . Leah walked up to a double-wide window facing the park. The leaves were changing, making for a sea of rich oranges and yellows beside a crystal-clear lake. The view was postcard-perfect. And as a cherry on top, there was a couple rowing a boat in the lake, one carrying a parasol. And Leah could even make out a picnic basket. The energy of the place was contagious. Western world was cheesy and scary. Science Fiction was cheesy and a bit confusing. Rom-Com world was cheesy and delightful.

There’s sort of a happy ending montage at the end (or the narrative equivalent of one, anyway) that was just perfect. Once I realized what exactly Underwood was up to there, I couldn’t help grinning. I know it’s part of the series premise for him to play with, celebrate, comment on genre tropes, clichés, conventions and so on — but sometimes what he does seems to capture the essence of the particular genre in a way that just feels like he did it better than usual. This is one of those times.

If you’ve been reading this series already, you’re going to really enjoy this. If you haven’t started — go back to Episode 1 and start fresh, you won’t be sorry. Underwood has a good thing going here, and it’s just getting better. Fun, yet thoughtful; action-packed, but pretty restrained in use of force. A great balancing act that should inspire more to do this.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author as part of his promotion of the Season One Kickstarter.

—–

4 1/2 Stars

A Few Quick Questions With…Michael R. Underwood

The first time I’d heard of Michael R. Underwood was on an episode of The Once and Future Podcast back in August of ’14, when he was promoting his first novel, Geekomancy, and I had to get my hands on it as quickly as I could. Reading it confirmed what I’d thought listening to the interview — this is my kind of writer: the interests, the sense of humor, the kind of story he was telling — if we weren’t members of the same Geek Taxonomic Rank, we were close enough. Every book/story since then has just increased that impression (even the ones that didn’t bowl me over). Naturally, I jumped at the chance to help promote his Kickstarter for Season 1 of Genrenauts with this little Q&A.

Man, I so wanted to go full fan-boy on him asking all sorts of detailed questions about his various books — especially this series — enough to make him shout, “Alpha 3-9!” while running away. Instead, I stuck with keeping it short and sweet, so he can focus on the Kickstarter, his job, his books, etc. (and because I like not having Restraining Orders taken out on me).

Michael R. UnderwoodMichael R. Underwood is the author of seven books: Geekomancy, Celebromancy, Attack the Geek, Shield and Crocus, The Younger Gods, and Genrenauts, a series in novellas (The Shootout Solution and The Absconded Ambassador). By day, he’s the North American Sales & Marketing Manager for Angry Robot Books.

Mike lives in Baltimore with his wife and their ever-growing library. In his rapidly-vanishing free time, he geeks out on comics and games and makes pizzas from scratch. He is also a co-host on the Hugo Award-Finalist The Skiffy and Fanty Show and Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers, and Fans.

Between your job, family, social life, social media, writing, media-ingestion (which based on your twitter feed and books is pretty impressive) how do you do it? Have you figured out how to survive without sleep?
I am actually a huge fan of sleep – I need at least 6 to 7 ½ hours a night to stay in peak form. I fit everything in because so many of the things I do fold into two or more others. Watching TV informs my fiction, it gives me stuff to blog about, or to discuss on the podcasts I do. Same with reading and video games. My wife is also a geek, so watching TV/movies, talking about media, and sitting around reading all still counts as time spent together.

My day job and my writing career support one another, since they’re both in the same field. I’m very lucky that my boss at Angry Robot, Marc Gascoigne, doesn’t expect me to put in long hours the way that some publishing professionals have to (I work 40 hours a week on the job, not 50-70 that I know some folks do). If I were an editor, I think it’d be much harder to keep everything balanced.

Even with all of that double-counting, I have still really streamlined my life. I used to have several more hobbies, but I haven’t been making time for tango or historical martial arts in the last few years. I’d like to get back into the martial arts, especially since I have a series in development which draws on that world.

What’s the one (or two) book/movie/show in the last 5 years that made you say, “I wish I’d written that.”?
The movie I most wish I’d written and/or been involved in the creation of is Mad Max: Fury Road. Watching Fury Road for the first time was something akin to a conversion experience for me. The way that action drove (heh) the narrative, how action foregrounded and revealed character, and the way that the film told a very specific story about combating toxic masculinity and rape culture through the lens of an extended chase scene – all of those elements totally blew me away, and have served as a call to action, a challenge to do better in my own writing. It’s a phenomenal example that a story can be exciting, commercial, and have something to say in addition to “whee!”
In between installments of the Ree Reyes series, you had a couple of other works published. Are you exclusively a Genrenauts author for the rest of this season/through season 5, or do you have another iron or two in the fire?
Since the Genrenauts Kickstarter is going very well so far, things are looking good for that series, with the Season One omnibus scheduled for this fall. I’d then start working on Season Two at the start of 2017, looking to pick the series back up in the Spring/Summer.

But I definitely have some other projects in development. There’s the fencing-oriented series I alluded to above, and I’m also eager to get back to the first draft of a space opera that I’ve been working on (it’s so much fun, folks. Some of the most fun I’ve had writing fiction).

My goal is to keep Genrenauts going for all five planned seasons, and to fit other projects in between those seasons, including at least one novel a year if possible. I’d also love to do some writing in the comics medium, but right now my wish-list of projects far outstrips the time I have available to write them, so I have to prioritize based on what projects have the best prospects in terms of finding a good home or method of getting to readers.

Up to this point you’ve been writing Urban Fantasy and SF, is that home for you, or have you thought about trying something else — or are the various worlds in Genrenauts scratching your itch to dabble in something else? Is there a genre that you particularly enjoy, but could never write?
My tastes range across the genres of speculative fiction, so I’m definitely planning on continuing to stretch my skills and write in a variety of modes and sub-genres. Genrenauts really helps with some of that, though there are some places where I have a more specific idea in a sub-genre for something that wouldn’t be a good fit for Genrenauts. Those ideas get their own chair in the Green Room of my writing brain. It’s very crowded in there. Don’t let the Story Idea Fire Marshal know.

I’d really like to write some romantic SF/F, where the romance plot is as developed as the SF/F story. The Ree Reyes series has some romantic elements, but I’ve been reading more Romance novels/novellas and am continually impressed at how Romance writers draw out such intensity of emotion and characterization. I’m trying to learn from those writers and see where I can use those skills to strengthen the relationship plots in my own stories.

I’m not likely to ever write a Literary Fiction work – one without SF/F elements and focusing on the super-deep language, slow-burn, internal exploration that is expected in that mode. It’s just not how I approach storytelling.

The whole point of this was to help promote the Kickstarter campaign, so we’d better talk about it a little — How’s the Kickstarter going (especially compared to what you’d expected/hoped)? What do you want people to know about the campaign that you haven’t already said?
The campaign is going really well! We hit 70% a week from the initial launch (almost to the hour), and it’s looking very likely that we will not only fund, but we might hit several of the stretch goals to have Mary Robinette Kowal return to perform audiobook editions of further episodes in the series. I’m really excited by the outpouring of support I’ve seen for the series, from Kickstarter backers to people offering to help me spread the word to people eager to review the new episodes, and so on.

When I was first developing the idea for Genrenauts, I started to hope that this might become a Big Thing for me, a series that could become a major portion of my creative output over several years, something that would help me develop a community of readers and storytellers, and to contribute to the discussions about why we tell stories and what they can do socially and personally. Every new backer for the Kickstarter, makes that dream ever more a reality, and I am deeply grateful to everyone who is helping make it happen.

Thanks so much for your time. I hope the Kickstarter campaign succeeds, and look forward to reading the rest of the Season.

And, folks, even if you’re not that interested in helping Underwood out, go help out so we can get more of these audiobooks for my sake, okay?

A Genrenauts Reminder

Today was . . . well, let’s call it a day (yesterday by the time this posts, technically). No time for a real post, and I’m too fried to format one of the guest posts I have for times like this.

So instead — let me remind you that Michael R. Underwood is kickstarting the rest of “Season One” of his Genrenauts series, a real favorite around these parts. Here’s a couple of good interviews he’s done to help promote it:

Check ’em out!

GENRENAUTS Kickstarter

Genrenauts: The Complete Season One Collection/widget/video.html

If you read this blog regularly, you know I’m a huge fan of Michael R. Underwood’s Genrenauts series. If you don’t, take my word for it (or go read my posts on both novellas, the short story, and the audiobooks). Now, there’s the opportunity to back the production of the rest of “Season 1” of the series.

I encourage you to back it, buy the books, read the books, and then maybe back it at a higher level 🙂

I’ll try not to be annoying, but I will remind you about this a time or two in the next 29 days.

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