“The universe shifted, and something dark burst from a yawning crack in the nature of being.” And with those words, the adventures of Myke Phoenix began.
A bit of an homage to all of the tropes and formats that have kept me spellbound for decades – comic books, pulp heroes, TV, movies, science fiction, superhero tales – Myke is a crusading journalist in his day job who occasionally swaps bodies with a super-powered ancient warrior named Mychus in order to battle the more challenging challenges facing Astor City, a growing metropolis. We’re not talking challenges like urban sprawl or budget restraints, of course; we’re talking giant spiders and alien invasions and a talking dinosaur bent on world domination, the kind of challenges not easily addressed by a stern editorial.
Myke Phoenix first came to me around 1990 and urged me to share his stories in a regular (monthly?) magazine, comic-book-length stories but told in text form like the old Shadow and Doc Savage stories. I completed four stories and started several others, but self-publishing was an expensive and complicated process in those days, and the stories and the idea sat on the shelf until 2008, when I finally printed
The Adventures of Myke Phoenix.
The start-and-stop process of continuing those adventures finally bore fruit earlier this year with the release of
The Song of the Serial Kisser and
Firespiders, which pick up our story 18 years later in present-day Astor City. I am now in a position to unveil to the world that those are the first two installments of a 12-story arc full of adventures the likes of which, I hope, will
thrill and delight not only those who have been thrilled and delighted by our story thus far but a new generation of enthused Mykelings.
As these breathless words are written, I have a general map of the journey Myke and his friends will be making over these 12 stories and a plan to commit them to words over a specific time frame. The plan involves resuming the story in January with the terrifying
Invasion of the Body Borrowers, followed not long afterward by the suspenseful
Night of the Superstorm, and then the surprising
Duck Man of Astor City, and after that by the long-awaited and near-legendary story called – but I’m getting ahead of myself.
As the story proceeds, we’ll also be following along with audio editions of each episode, for those of you who’d rather listen to stories than stare at your Kindle all day. I plan to release the first two audiobooks in early November and early December, respectively. Then watch for the simultaneous release of the ebook and audio versions of
Invasion of the Body Borrowers and subsequent episodes.
Also coming this fall will be a new print edition of the original
Adventures of Myke Phoenix, which is currently available only for Kindle. The new edition will include the first appearance in print anywhere of
Song of the Serial Kisser as a preview for the new adventures.
If you want to keep updated on the progress of these projects, just send me a note to
warren@warrenbluhm.com with the words “Myke Phoenix” in the subject line. I’ll be starting a conversation and sending out occasional emails chronicling the adventure of preparing these adventures, including early alerts when firm release dates are set. (P.S. I won’t share your email or anything about you with anyone else. The only purpose here is to keep you informed about this endeavor.) I'm also relaunching the
Myke Phoenix Facebook page for more frequent updates.
I am excited to be diving back into the amazing world of Mychus the Warrior and his friends. You may not be quite as excited as I am, but you will be. You will be!
Someone is kissing the women of Astor City. He's sneaking up on
unsuspecting ladies and planting a big wet one on them, or as big and as
wet as circumstances will allow. The police are baffled; the culprit
knows how to evade security cameras and surprise the women alone.
Longtime Astor City superhero protector Myke Phoenix is unaware of the
spree until it gets personal. And when the city's underworld decides to
take matters into its own hands, he must decide which side he's on. The
first new Myke Phoenix adventure in years relaunches and reboots Warren
Bluhm's whimsical world of wonder.
