Michael G. Munz is today's interviewed author on One Thousand Worlds. An award-winning writer of speculative fiction, Munz was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Washington State at the age of three. Unable to escape the state's gravity, he has spent most of his life there and studied writing at the University of Washington.
Developing his creative bug in college, he wrote and filmed four amateur films before setting his sights on becoming a novelist. Driving this goal is the desire to tell entertaining stories and give to others the same pleasure with those stories as other writers have given to him. He enjoys writing tales that combine the modern world with the futuristic or fantastic.
Munz has traveled to three continents, and has an interest in Celtic and Greco-Roman mythology. He resides in Seattle where he continues his quest to write the most entertaining novel known to humankind and find a really fantastic clam linguini.
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| Michael G. Munz's Latest Book |
Tell us about your latest book.
The latest one I've written, or the latest
one I've published? Let's go with the latter! It's called A Memory in the Black, and it's a sci-fi thriller set in the
mid-21st century. On the surface, it's about a struggle between various groups
to control an alien spacecraft found buried in a lunar crater, but on the
character and thematic side it deals with the power of our memories to affect
who we are and how we behave. Different characters explore that theme in
different ways: One is forced to reconnect with a dangerous ex-mentor he
thought he'd kicked out of his life, another is haunted by a tragedy she alone
survived, and others are driven to extremes in the wake of a murdered man's
memory. Memory brings these separate threads together in different ways to
affect the outcome of the story. While it is the second book in the series, with
some characters and events having been introduced in book one, its story and
character arcs can be experienced without having read the first book.
How many books have you written?
I've written four
novels. Two of these, both science fiction, are published as the first two
books of my New Aeneid Cycle: the
aforementioned A Memory in the Black,
and its predecessor, A Shadow in the
Flames. The others, both of which are flavors of contemporary fantasy, I am
currently pitching to agents and publishers. I've also released in ebook form a
trio of comedic short stories about characters from Greek mythology interacting
with the modern world called Mythed
Connections.
What are you working on at the moment?
I'm working on
the third book in the New Aeneid Cycle,
the working title of which is A Dragon at
the Gate. I'd put this series on the back burner for a couple of years while
I took a break from writing sci-fi, so I'm having a great time getting
re-acquainted with the characters after releasing A Memory in the Black (long after it was actually completed) last
August.
What are the most important attributes to remaining
sane as a writer?
Wait, what? Remaining sane? I think I have
to be just a little insane to spend my free time toiling away at fictional
worlds, so I think actual sanity would only be a hindrance. Besides, insanity
is far more inspiring and fun!
If you could meet any of your own characters, who
would it be?
I'm terrible at
choosing just one, but I think I'd have to say Thalia. She's from my
not-quite-yet-published novel Murdering
Zeus for Fun and Prophet, which is a comedic contemporary fantasy about the
Greek gods returning to our world after Zeus gets assassinated. Thalia is the
muse of comedy and science fiction (the nine Muses had to take on new duties
with all of the modern genres): smart, geeky, cheerful, and awesome. She's a
blast to write because everything she says is pure stream of geeky-consciousness
with the confidence of someone with a half-dozen millennia under her belt. It's
entirely possible that talking to her in person would drive me insane, but it'd
be worth it just for how meta the process would be of talking to a muse who is
also a character that I've brought to life.
Do you have a favourite character among the ones
you've invented?
Again, I'm
terrible at picking favourites, but Felix Hiatt, from the New Aeneid Cycle, is certainly among the top. He tends to deal with
stress through humor, even at inappropriate times, so when I'm writing him I
can usually just stop filtering all the odd, goofy thoughts that pop into my
head and let them come out of his mouth. It gets him into trouble at times, but
he's usually pretty good-natured about it. He's also a pretty darned nice guy.
Of all the characters I've written, readers seem to like Felix the most. Plus
he has the memories of a seventy year-old man implanted into his brain, so
that's got all sorts of implications for me to work with, both serious and not
so serious.
If you could trade places with any other person for a
week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would
it be?
I'd trade with
one of the tenth Doctor's companions (Doctor Who), but during one of the times
between episodes when they're NOT actively being chased by Daleks or Cybermen
or militant rhinocerous-folk. That way I've got a time machine and can use the
week to pick all sorts of places to go.
What do you think about when you are alone in your
car?
My mind tends to
wander and my imagination starts to play. I might try to figure the details of
whatever creative project I've got on my plate. I might try to come up with
something funny to tweet (after I'm done driving). I might just riff to myself
on things I see, songs/ads on the radio, or just random thoughts that pop into
my head. If I'm lucky, I'll even get an idea for something new to write!
Oh, and at some
point I think about the road and making sure I don't plow through a building.
That's important, too.
What song best describes your work ethic?
I don't know that it describes my work
ethic, but I have sometimes related to Sarah McLachlan's "Building a
Mystery" in the sense that when I'm writing it can feel like I'm
painstakingly crafting something in secret designed to capture an eventual
reader's imagination and lead them, sentence by sentence, into a place of my
own weird creation. It's entirely possible I've missed the point of that song,
but if I have, I don't want anyone to correct me. ;)
Where to buy Michael G. Munz's books:
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