Michael R Underwood Books in Order

If you want geeky urban fantasy: Geekomancy → Celebromancy → Attack the Geek → Hexomancy
If you want a darker supernatural thriller: The Younger Gods
If you want meta, multiverse science fiction: The Shootout Solution → The Absconded Ambassador → The Cupid Reconciliation
If you want strange, revolution-focused fantasy: Shield and Crocus → Arrivals
If you want a found-family space adventure: Annihilation Aria

Michael R. Underwood was born in Bloomington, Indiana, to parents who met through musical theater. He moved around a lot while growing up, but stories were the constant, comics, movies, tabletop games, video games, and books. He has said that seeing Return of the Jedi before the age of one probably helped lock in a lifelong love of mythic storytelling and speculative fiction.

That mix of fandom and folklore runs straight through his fiction. As a teenager, he spent long hours at the Game Preserve in Bloomington, playing card games, miniatures games, and RPGs with the kind of intensity only hobby stores really inspire. Those years later became a major seed for the Ree Reyes books, starting with Geekomancy.

He studied what he loved.

Underwood earned a B.A. in Creative Mythology and East Asian Studies from Indiana University, then an M.A. in Folklore Studies from the University of Oregon. He also attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2007. Before fiction became his main public identity, he worked a long list of jobs, including game store clerk, student archivist, web design instructor, bookseller, and publisher's representative.

That varied background helps explain why his novels feel plugged into real communities and real obsessions. In Geekomancy, Celebromancy, and the rest of the Ree Reyes sequence, pop culture fandom becomes a working magic system. Genrenauts turns genre awareness into literal survival, as a rookie recruit jumps between story-worlds that run on the rules of westerns, romances, crime fiction, and more. Shield and Crocus pushes into stranger fantasy territory, while The Younger Gods follows the one decent son in a family of cultists trying to stop the apocalypse.

He also likes big canvases. Born to the Blade imagines sky nations where diplomacy and power run through formal magical duels, and Annihilation Aria goes full space adventure with scavengers, imperial rule, ancient alien secrets, and a found family aboard the ship Kettle. Across these very different books, a few interests keep showing up: chosen family, humor under pressure, people who know weird niche things, and heroes who have to build trust before they can win.

Travel mattered, too.

In 2003, Underwood joined Semester at Sea and circumnavigated the globe, visiting countries across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Later, he also spent years on the publishing side of the industry, including a run as North American Sales and Marketing Manager for Angry Robot Books. Alongside the fiction, he has worked in podcasting, actual play, and tabletop game design, which fits the way so many of his stories are built around teams, systems, and collaborative problem solving.

These days, Mike lives in Chicago with his wife and an ever-growing library. He has also talked about loving video and role-playing games, historical martial arts, and making pizza from scratch, which feels right for a writer whose books are full of energetic ideas and people who care deeply about what they love.