The Absconded Ambassador Genrenauts Episode 2 (Audible Audio Edition) Michael R Underwood Mary Robinette Kowal Macmillan Audio Books
Download As PDF : The Absconded Ambassador Genrenauts Episode 2 (Audible Audio Edition) Michael R Underwood Mary Robinette Kowal Macmillan Audio Books
Fiction is more important than you think. When stories go wrong, the Genrenauts step in to prevent the consequences from rippling into our so-called real world. When a breach is discovered in Science Fiction World, rookie Genrenaut Leah Tang gets her first taste of space flight.
A peace treaty is about to be signed on space station Ahura-3, guaranteeing the end of hostilities between some of the galaxy's most ferocious races, but when the head architect of the treaty is unexpectedly kidnapped, it's up to Leah and her new colleagues to save the day.
Michael Underwood has circumnavigated the globe, danced the tango with legends, and knows why Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. He also rolls a mean d20. His novels include Geekomancy, Celebromancy, and Shield and Crocus. He lives in Baltimore with his fiancé and an ever-growing library, and when he's not writing/gaming/living the dream, he's the North American sales and marketing manager for Angry Robot Books. He's also part of the Hugo-nominated podcast The Skiffy and Fanty Show.
The Absconded Ambassador Genrenauts Episode 2 (Audible Audio Edition) Michael R Underwood Mary Robinette Kowal Macmillan Audio Books
After reading the first book in the Genrenauts series, reviewed here, I thought that being a Genrenaut would be a pretty sweet gig. Mike seems to want to disabuse readers of that notion. The book opens with the line “Genrenaut was like being a member of a theater troupe run by a burnt-out hippie who melded Devising with MBA management: the ideas were outlandish and random, but the execution was 100% corporate.” and that really made me pause for a bit. Don’t get me wrong, being a Genrenaut still seems like it’d be awesome, but now we find out that it’s not all running shoot outs and narrow escapes.Sometimes there’s PowerPoint.
Mike actually taps into one of my favorite sub-genres, what I call Bureaucracy Porn. Books like The Goblin Emperor, Articles of the Federation (Star Trek), and The Outback Stars peel back the layers and ask questions like “How does the King actually run a kingdom in an Epic Fantasy?” and “What does a junior officer actually do in a Space Opera?”
Mike’s POV character Leah Tang is brand new to the organization. As with most of us starting off, she doesn’t know what the heck she’s doing, relying on her ability to read situations and off her penchant for sarcasm. That’s a character I can relate to.
As with the previous installment, Mike uses his love of genre to spin a story that would feel right at home in a modern day episode of Star Trek, ramping up quickly, doing it’s thing, and then resolving. And just like later season DS9, we get a set of plot threads that we have to tune in next week to see the progression of.
While the plot alone would be a little threadbare, it’s experiencing it through the eyes of genre-savvy characters that really make this series special.
Final Verdict: Thoroughly Enjoyed and I’m definitely in for the next one in Rom Com Land!
Bonus Author Question:
BF: We’ve talked before about your love of Hamilton. Any chance the Genrenauts end up in Broadway Musical land?
Mike Underwood: I want to make this happen really hard, but I’d need to figure out how to convey the feeling of the music and the dancing. If I manage to get a Genrenauts TV show made, that kind of episode would be very high on my priorities.
Other Recommendations:
More unorthodox takes on Genre Tropes:Peacemaker by Marianne de Pierres, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination edit by John Joseph Adams
(Other reviews on blackfishreviews.wordpress.com)
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The Absconded Ambassador Genrenauts Episode 2 (Audible Audio Edition) Michael R Underwood Mary Robinette Kowal Macmillan Audio Books Reviews
This was originally posted at The Irresponsible Reader blog
Now this was a way to close out 2015 — the second episode in Michael R. Underwood’s Genrenauts delivers on the promise of Episode 1, and demonstrates that his special alchemy of Leverage + The Librarians + Quantum Leap + Thursday Next (just my current guess at his secret recipe) has legs — and will hopefully go a long time.
Leah has had about a week to get used to this new reality since her adventure in Western World — a week filled with meetings, reading assignments and trying to wrap her head around things. In the meanwhile, everyone at Genrenauts HQ is trying to prepare for the next breach (in the midst of a spike of 15% over the norm, for your corporate types), probably in Romance World. Which obviously means it’ll be pretty much anywhere else, like say Science Fiction World.
The station of Ahura-3, in the space opera region, to be specific. I’m sure the similarity between the name of the station and a certain Communications Officer is a huge coincidence. Ahura-3 is everything you want in a space station — it’s a melting pot of very-alien-looking/acting aliens, it’s a culture to itself, with strategic location, and very delicate intergalactic politics.
Leah’s excitement about being in “honest-to-goodness, Sally Ride is my homegirl zero-g” space was infectious. But even more fun was the amount of SF references Underwood fit into half of chapter 1 — truly astounding, and didn’t feel forced or overcrowded. He deserves a tip of the cap right there. I made it all the way to page 42 without having to Google one of them (I think there was only one other time I had to grab my smart phone). But the fun’s not limited to the references and allusions — it’s in the alien cultural practices (and appearances), the various factions (human and otherwise), businesses, and just watching the whole Science Fiction World thing at work.
One thing that’s been niggling at the back of my mind with these Episodes is what’s to keep Leah from being Ree Reyes 2.0? Underwood seems to be going with keeping Leah from the more Parker/Eliot Spencer-type roles and moving her into the Sophie Devereau/Alec Hardison-type roles. She and Shirin scramble all over the station trying to keep treaty negotiations moving forward. They’re thinking on their feet, using their wits, charm and SF knowledge to keep things under control — Leah’s on-the-job training under Shirin helps the readers acclimate to this world, too. The action-hero needs are served by the rest of the team, Roman and King — whose banter while throwing punches, engaging in dogfights, and so on, kept the fun going (honestly, maybe was a little more fun than the rest).
In Episode 1, I wondered if the pilot nature of the novella kept it from being everything I wanted it to be. The Absconded Ambassador built on that ground work and gave us a solid, fully-formed adventure — everything I hoped it would be. And that’s just in the main story, there’s all this other stuff going on not only do we have a sense of impending doom — or at least very big crisis — coming to the Multi-Genre-Verse. But now we’ve got some sort of secret within the team (not one that’s going to cause much trouble, I don’t think — but you never know), and (according to the preview for Episode 3) maybe some intra-team conflict. Underwood just nailed here, and Genrenauts is about half-a-novella away from being his most consistently entertaining work.
I won a copy of this in a drawing on the author’s website — which means I got to read it two months early — and I got a very nice autograph on the title page. The downside is, I have to wait longer than I’d have had to wait otherwise between Episodes 2 and 3. I still came out ahead, but not by much.
After reading the first book in the Genrenauts series, reviewed here, I thought that being a Genrenaut would be a pretty sweet gig. Mike seems to want to disabuse readers of that notion. The book opens with the line “Genrenaut was like being a member of a theater troupe run by a burnt-out hippie who melded Devising with MBA management the ideas were outlandish and random, but the execution was 100% corporate.” and that really made me pause for a bit. Don’t get me wrong, being a Genrenaut still seems like it’d be awesome, but now we find out that it’s not all running shoot outs and narrow escapes.
Sometimes there’s PowerPoint.
Mike actually taps into one of my favorite sub-genres, what I call Bureaucracy Porn. Books like The Goblin Emperor, Articles of the Federation (Star Trek), and The Outback Stars peel back the layers and ask questions like “How does the King actually run a kingdom in an Epic Fantasy?” and “What does a junior officer actually do in a Space Opera?”
Mike’s POV character Leah Tang is brand new to the organization. As with most of us starting off, she doesn’t know what the heck she’s doing, relying on her ability to read situations and off her penchant for sarcasm. That’s a character I can relate to.
As with the previous installment, Mike uses his love of genre to spin a story that would feel right at home in a modern day episode of Star Trek, ramping up quickly, doing it’s thing, and then resolving. And just like later season DS9, we get a set of plot threads that we have to tune in next week to see the progression of.
While the plot alone would be a little threadbare, it’s experiencing it through the eyes of genre-savvy characters that really make this series special.
Final Verdict Thoroughly Enjoyed and I’m definitely in for the next one in Rom Com Land!
Bonus Author Question
BF We’ve talked before about your love of Hamilton. Any chance the Genrenauts end up in Broadway Musical land?
Mike Underwood I want to make this happen really hard, but I’d need to figure out how to convey the feeling of the music and the dancing. If I manage to get a Genrenauts TV show made, that kind of episode would be very high on my priorities.
Other Recommendations
More unorthodox takes on Genre TropesPeacemaker by Marianne de Pierres, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination edit by John Joseph Adams
(Other reviews on blackfishreviews.wordpress.com)
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