Michael R. Underwood is joining us today with his novel Shield and Crocus. Here’s the publisher’s description.
In a city built among the bones of a fallen giant, a small group of heroes looks to reclaim their home from the five criminal tyrants who control it.
The city of Audec-Hal sits among the bones of a Titan. For decades it has suffered under the dominance of five tyrants, all with their own agendas. Their infighting is nothing, though, compared to the mysterious “Spark-storms” that alternate between razing the land and bestowing the citizens with wild, unpredictable abilities. It was one of these storms that gave First Sentinel, leader of the revolutionaries known as the Shields of Audec-Hal, power to control the emotional connections between people—a power that cost him the love of his life.
Now, with nothing left to lose, First Sentinel and the Shields are the only resistance against the city’s overlords as they strive to free themselves from the clutches of evil. The only thing they have going for them is that the crime lords are fighting each other as well—that is, until the tyrants agree to a summit that will permanently divide the city and cement their rule of Audec-Hal.
It’s one thing to take a stand against oppression, but with the odds stacked against the Shields, it’s another thing to actually triumph.
In this stunning, original tale of magic and revolution, Michael R. Underwood creates a cityscape that rivals Ambergris and New Crobuzon in its depth and populates it with heroes and villains that will stay with you forever.
What’s Michael’s favorite bit?
MICHAEL R. UNDERWOOD
My favorite bit of Shield and Crocus is that I got to write a superhero novel. I could stop there, wrap up the email, and send it off. It’s that important to me. But it’s probably more fun to give some context.
When I was six, my family moved to Brooklyn from Texas, upending my entire world. But in that weird, noisy, dirty new world, there was a comics shop. And there, I found Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Justice League. My parents came upon an ingenious arrangement. We’d take our recycling to the grocery store, feed all of the cans and bottles into the machine, and then I got to keep the deposit we got back.
And where did I spend it? Comics. My love of superheroes was born out of that relationship, turning a chore into access to wondrous stories filled with heroes who were a world apart but accessible. Peter Parker lived in Queens, I lived in Brooklyn. The X-Men lived upstate. We were practically neighbors.
I’ve loved superheroes nearly my entire life, and so when I set myself the task of combining the superhero genre with the new weird, I brought decades of love, appreciation, and critical response to superheroes to the world of Audec-Hal.
Shield and Crocus takes place in a secondary world, in a city built among the bones of a titan, twenty miles from end to end. The heroes of the novel are men and women, no ultimately no more extraordinary than their neighbors, save for their will to fight and their commitment to putting their lives on the line. For me, that’s what being a superhero is about. You’re super because you’re a hero, and your extraordinary powers are put the service of the common good, not for personal gain.
My heroes do have extraordinary powers: First Sentinel can make wondrous objects with his skills of alchemy, Aegis bears a magical artifact that gives him speed and strength, and Sapphire is the mightiest of a race of bruisers – eight feet tall, muscled from head to toe, a juggernaut on the field of battle. But they are super more because they are heroes than they are heroes because they’re super. That, for me, is the greatest appeal of the genre, and the thing I most wanted to instill into Shield and Crocus.
The other delight writing a superhero book gave me was the freedom to embrace the kinetic action and genre-mashing inventiveness of the genre. Supers is as much a setting or a mode as it is a sub-genre, with many supers worlds embracing fantasy, science fiction, horror, sometimes all in one comic. And that cross-genre openness melded perfectly with the cross-genre aspects of the new weird, which frequently combines genres. For Shield and Crocus, I could merrily feature alchemy, sorcery, cyborgs, and super-gadgetry all under one story umbrella.
All of it adds up to a novel that seeks to combine high heroism and superhero action with a rich setting and the conceptual inventiveness of the new weird. I got to write about heroes swinging through a transmogrified city built among the bones of a titan to punch evil robots in the face. I couldn’t be happier.
It’s My Favorite Bit.
LINKS:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Shield-Crocus-Michael-R-Underwood-ebook/dp/B00HWI5OOK/
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shield-and-crocus-michael-underwood/1118811503
IndieBound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781477823903
Audible: http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Shield-and-Crocus-Audiobook/B00KHEKLFS/
BIO:
Michael R. Underwood is the author of GEEKOMANCY, CELEBROMANCY, ATTACK THE GEEK, as well as the forthcoming SHIELD AND CROCUS and THE YOUNGER GODS. By day, he’s the North American Sales & Marketing Manager for Angry Robot Books. Mike grew up devouring stories in all forms, from comics to video games, tabletop RPGs, movies, and books. Always books.
Mike lives in Baltimore with his fiance, an ever-growing library, and a super-team of dinosaur figurines & stuffed animals. In his rapidly-vanishing free time, he studies historical martial arts and makes pizzas from scratch. He is a co-host on the Hugo-nominated Skiffy and Fanty Show.
I’m waiting by the mailbox for my copy to arrive today!
Mike was kind enough to let me read an ARC and I gotta say I was blown away. This is a bad ass novel. I liked it so much that I immediately ordered myself a physical copy. Highly recommended.
Mike was kind enough to send me an ARC as well, and the final version dropped on my Kindle this morning.
A superhero story in a fantasy city. It’s a great concept.