432: Robot Bechdel Test
Transcript from 432: Robot Bechdel Test with Martha Wells, Chris White, and Elecia White.
EW (00:00:06):
Welcome to Embedded. I am Elecia White, alongside Christopher White. We have talked excitedly with guests about Murderbot on the show, but now it is time to go to the source. I am extremely happy to welcome Martha Wells to the show.
CW (00:00:22):
Hi, Martha. Thanks for joining us.
MW (00:00:25):
Hi. Thanks for having me.
EW (00:00:27):
Could you tell us about yourself, as if we met at a book signing?
MW (00:00:33):
Okay. I am Martha Wells. I write science fiction and fantasy. I have been published since 1993. My first novel was The Element of Fire that came out from Tor Books. Most recently I have written the Murderbot Diaries in science fiction, and The Books of the Raksura in fantasy. I have been a lifelong science fiction/fantasy fan.
EW (00:00:58):
All right. We want to do lightning round where we ask you short questions. We want short answers, and if we are good, we will not ask how and why, and all of the other questions I am going to have. Are you ready?
MW (00:01:11):
Sure.
CW (00:01:12):
All right. What is the best Halloween candy?
MW (00:01:15):
Ahh, Tootsie Rolls.
EW (00:01:17):
Did Khat ever see Elen again?
MW (00:01:20):
Yes.
CW (00:01:22):
What is your favorite media to shut out the humans?
MW (00:01:26):
TV.
EW (00:01:27):
Did Siri grow up to have grand adventures?
MW (00:01:31):
Yes.
CW (00:01:32):
Science fiction or fantasy?
MW (00:01:34):
That is a hard one. I would have to say both. I have always loved both.
EW (00:01:38):
Did Kethyl ever get a name?
MW (00:01:40):
I have thought about that. I think, probably. I have not done any work continuing those stories yet, but I would think that that would come up. Yeah.
CW (00:01:55):
Favorite fictional robot?
MW (00:01:59):
Besides Murderbot, and ART? The robot from Rogue One and Andor.
CW (00:02:05):
Yes.
EW (00:02:07):
Yeah. How many mentors did Moon and Bramble's clutch have?
MW (00:02:12):
I think it was going to be two, at least.
CW (00:02:17):
Do you like to complete one project, or start a dozen?
MW (00:02:21):
Oh no, I complete. I usually like to only work on one thing at a time.
EW (00:02:24):
What in science fiction and fantasy have you read recently, that you would recommend?
MW (00:02:29):
Most recently? I am reading The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard. I am reading that a bit early. It comes out next month, maybe. I also read The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, and enjoyed that a lot.
EW (00:02:46):
Well, now you have added to my to-be-read pile, which is exciting. Let us go to your books. You mentioned Murderbot, in one of your favorite robots. Could you tell the poor souls out there who have not read the Murderbot Diaries, what they are missing?
MW (00:03:03):
Well, it is about a construct, which is a part machine intelligence, part organic, being that is been enslaved by a company that is basically an insurance bond company. It gets rented out for planetary exploration, for guarding mines, for other security uses. They are called SecUnits, in that form. They have governor modules that control everything they do, and keep them completely under control. If they deviate from any order, then they are punished terribly.
(00:03:43):
Murderbot has managed at some point to hack its governor module, so it no longer works. At that point, it could have done what the media in that world believes would happen, is go rogue and go killing all the humans. It could, but it decided it did not really want to do that, at the moment. And it started watching videos and dramas and shows and things, from their version of the internet, basically streaming entertainment. It has been hiding the fact that it is actually free, and is still doing these jobs.
(00:04:18):
It ends up on a job on a planet doing a survey, with this group of scientists that it actually starts to like. In the first story, All Systems Red, it gets to a point where it has to reveal that it is basically a free agent, in order to save their lives.
CW (00:04:38):
We should warn people, we might be spoiling certain elements of some of the books, as we talk.
EW (00:04:44):
Probably not many, except that SecUnit survives most of its adventures.
MW (00:04:47):
Yeah. <laugh>
CW (00:04:48):
<laugh>
EW (00:04:51):
You say, "It." Is that the pronouns that SecUnit prefers?
MW (00:04:55):
Yes.
EW (00:04:57):
Is it a cyborg?
MW (00:05:02):
I guess, technically it is. I am not sure what all the definitions are, and how much of the definitions I know are actually fictional versus reality. But, it is basically a partly organic robot made with clone human tissue, but also it has a large percentage of machine. So I guess, yeah, technically it would be a cyborg. It is just not called that in the story.
CW (00:05:32):
It is not a preexisting human that electronics have been added to. It is more of a-
MW (00:05:36):
Right. It is not. I am wondering, is that the definition of cyborg, that you actually have to start out as a human? And then have...
EW (00:05:44):
That was what I thought. Yes.
MW (00:05:46):
Okay.
EW (00:05:46):
Cloned tissue means never independent of the electronics.
MW (00:05:52):
Right. So, yeah, I guess it is not a cyborg then.
EW (00:05:57):
But it has very human characteristics. Is that because of the media that it consumes? And how much of the media is anime?
CW (00:06:06):
<laugh>
EW (00:06:06):
Sorry, I am all over the place. <laugh>
MW (00:06:09):
<laugh> That is okay. It does have very human characteristics, because that is all it knows. It was basically designed to interface with humans. It has never been part of an all machine intelligence society. So, all its learned behavior is from humans.
EW (00:06:32):
About the anime part, is it- Many of these things that it talks about watching are very, very long running series, that seem to fall between anime and soap opera? Is that, in my mental model, right on that?
MW (00:06:49):
I do not really think of it as anime. I think of it as a lot more like the kind of evening dramas we have, like How to Get Away with Murder. The science fiction/fantasy things like Farscape, Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, that kind of thing. Also, there are obviously some, I think fall more into, telenovelas. Or the Chinese fantasy dramas. Or the Korean mystery shows, the ones that go on for a lot of episodes, or they tell one single story in a lot of episodes.
EW (00:07:34):
The science fiction part of it seems different from your past work, which is primarily fantasy in very well drawn worlds. Why did you switch?
MW (00:07:48):
I have always loved science fiction. I have always read it. I read a lot of science fiction about robots recently, because it seemed like there was a lot coming out. Robots and machine intelligences, I guess. Like Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, that trilogy.
(00:08:06):
When I got this idea, it was very obviously a science fiction idea. I could not have made it- The idea of a being that is enslaved in some way, but then has freed itself secretly, and then has to reveal that, in order to basically take the next step in its life. That really seemed like a science fiction idea. I guess I could have done it as fantasy, but I feel like I would have had to hand-wave a lot of stuff, that I was not interested in doing in a short format. Because originally, it was going to be a short story with the sad ending.
CW (00:08:41):
Oh, okay.
MW (00:08:42):
Once I started working on it, I did not want it to be a sad ending. Also, I wanted it to be a little bit longer. It was not going to fit in under 7,000 words, which is a usual short story length. Then a novella seemed about the right length for it.
EW (00:08:57):
But it is shorter than many of your fantasy works, significantly shorter. Is it harder to write something that is that...
CW (00:09:06):
Tight?
EW (00:09:06):
Tight?
MW (00:09:08):
It is hard for me to write short stories, which again, are usually 7,000, under 10,000 words. A long short story is 10,000 words. I have a lot of trouble writing in that format. A novella is closer to- I think the limit on a novella is 40,000 words, and they are usually between 30 and 40,000 words. That is about a third, maybe close to a half, of a novel. For the novels I write, it is about a third of a novel, so does give you time to tell a good story and do some world building.
(00:09:42):
When I wrote it, I was thinking of Tor.com, which, at that time, had recently started its novella line, had been out for about a year. So when I was writing, I was thinking my agent will submit it to this publisher, and hopefully they will want it. If not, who knows, we will probably shop it around and, possibly I will end up having to self-publish it or whatever. I was actually writing to hopefully sell it to Tor.com.
EW (00:10:17):
Which you did.
MW (00:10:19):
Yes. <laugh>
EW (00:10:20):
Is working with Tor Publishing different from other publishers?
MW (00:10:27):
Tor.com specifically, I do not think it is that different. It is a little bit different because of the fact that they are novellas, and so that is a slightly different publishing model. It is more oriented toward ebook, and they do a lot of advertising and their newsletter and everything, is all online. But it is not that different.
EW (00:10:52):
You also wrote in first person for Murderbot.
MW (00:10:57):
Yeah. It just felt like when I started it, that it was. The first line came to me after messing around with it for a while, and it just felt like a first person story. Actually the first scene I did was the scene between Murderbot and Mensah, when it is in the cubicle. I am not sure why that scene came to me first, but it was really kind of the heart of that relationship, when she first decides to open the cubicle door and just talk to it. So yeah, it just had to be a first person story, because I wanted that abrupt difference between what Murderbot looks like on the outside when it is wearing its armor, versus what its interior monologue and what its feelings are. And first person was the best way to get that across.
(00:11:54):
I think it worked out real well, the way they did the book with the cover, it is a very forbidding cover with Murderbot in armor. Actually that cover, when it first came out, there were places that were labeling it as robot horror, which-
CW (00:12:08):
<laugh>
MW (00:12:08):
Which it absolutely is not. It is kind of funny. You see that cover, then you open the book, and you are immediately in Murderbot's head, and you cannot ever see it as that forbidding figure again.
EW (00:12:24):
It has been a little difficult sometimes to convince people to read books called "Murderbot"-
CW (00:12:27):
Yeah, that is one of my questions.
EW (00:12:29):
Because it sounds violent.
CW (00:12:33):
Oh, there is some violence.
EW (00:12:34):
There is some violence. <laugh>
MW (00:12:35):
There is some violence. It is interesting, I have seen people, I do not know if they had actually read it or not. Someone was recommending it on their Twitter, and someone came up and was very angry that they were recommending it, because Murderbot did kill all the humans. I was like, "When did that happen?" <laugh>
EW (00:12:55):
It did not even kill the ones that it should have. Really.
MW (00:12:58):
It did not. Yeah.
CW (00:13:02):
Was that a concern when you were developing- You wrote the short story first. Were you planning to expand it into what is six books and two short stories now? Or six novellas and novels, and two short stories?
MW (00:13:14):
Not really, because a lot of my other work, my fantasy, it is very action oriented. So I did not think this was any more violent than anything- Actually, I think it is a bit less violent.
EW (00:13:25):
<laugh> It is less violent than the Raksura-
CW (00:13:27):
I have only read the Murderbot series.
MW (00:13:28):
Yeah. It is less violent than the Raksura, certainly. And a lot of the other stuff I have done. So yeah, I did not really even think about that.
(00:13:38):
I did not know it was going to be a series at that point. I was thinking it would just be- I was finishing up The Harbors of the Sun, which was the last Raksura book. I finished a draft of that, and then I had the idea for Murderbot and started that immediately. I was thinking, maybe if I am lucky, they will come out at about the same time, and they will get attention for each other, and this will help bring notice to my novels.
(00:14:04):
Then when Tor bought it, they asked for a second one. It did not have to be another Murderbot, it was just a second novella. At that point I wanted to do a sequel, so I started working on Artificial Condition. That was much harder to write than All Systems Red. That took me about three months.
(00:14:23):
Most of the Murderbot, they are short, but they are hard to write. Part of that is, each one is more complicated, and Murderbot's perspective is more complicated, with all the different cameras and systems that it can access. So writing the action scene sometimes gets really logistically difficult.
(00:14:42):
I finished Artificial Condition, and at that point I had a story arc in mind. So we asked them if they wanted more novellas. We ended up selling the next two, and that turned it into a series.
CW (00:14:55):
Going back to the first person perspective for a second. Did that make world building more difficult or easier, because you have got to focus perspective, but also it is narrower? I do not...
MW (00:15:07):
No, actually for world building, it makes it easier, I think. Because Murderbot is narrating to the reader, the invisible reader, what is going on, so it makes a lot more sense for it to explain things. When you are writing even in third person personal, you have to come up with a reason why your character is going to think about stuff that they already know, or describe things that they see every day, <laugh> and that kind of thing.
(00:15:38):
Especially in a fantasy world, it is often more difficult, because you need the reader to know what these new and different things look like, these strange things look like. So you are always having to balance getting the picture into the reader's head, versus how much would your viewpoint character really be thinking about these things.
(00:16:00):
With a narration like Murderbot's, where it is clearly telling someone the story, it is so much easier. It is allowed by the type of story, and the fact that it is first person, to tell what it is doing. I was not thinking about this when I set the character up at first. The fact that it can get into all these different systems, and get information constantly. It is usually doing multiple things at once. It can see different cameras, which it can process at once, the way humans usually cannot. All that stuff has to be figured into specifically action scenes. It makes it difficult, where I have to sit there and- It would be cheating, I think to, "Oh well, Murderbot does not have any access at this point, so I cannot see multiple views." That is cheating. It can, so I have to figure all that into it.
EW (00:17:02):
Did you have to look up the available technology, or were you just going, whatever you wanted, that technology existed?
MW (00:17:10):
Yeah, it is far future. Far, far future, so you can make up whatever you want. Actually the challenge is trying to make up technology that does not feel like stuff we have today. In some ways you can, since you are determining what technology level this world has, it is not always going to be super far future. You are going to encounter places that do not have the same access to technology that every place else does. So you are not always having to think about trying to extrapolate what this technology would be like. It is often very difficult, especially with how fast our technology in reality is moving.
(00:17:59):
There are some writers that are really good at that. I am thinking of Ian Hall, with his books, and other people that are just really good at thinking in that abstract way, about what a really futuristic technology would be like. I try to stick with more basic, just fancier versions of what we have now.
CW (00:18:31):
I do not feel like your writing devolves into techno- A lot of times in science fiction, sometimes the writer will go off and have long digression about a cool technology they came up with. Yours tends to be focused, "This is the technology I need for the moment in the story." I love that about it, because it feels for our future without feeling like it is totally alien. Is having the protagonist be in some part tech, part of the tech world, does that make writing about the tech easier, because the tech itself is conveying it to the reader?
MW (00:19:06):
I think in some ways it does. It is more natural to Murderbot. It gives me opportunity to talk about how it works, the parts that Murderbot cares about. The good thing about Murderbot is it does not care very much about how things work, or what they should be. It cares about what it is doing right at that moment, and things that it needs and it likes <laugh>. It does not like very many other things, besides TV and some people. <laugh>
EW (00:19:43):
I have seen people talk about SecUnit, Murderbot, being autistic. Did you have that in mind at all?
MW (00:19:52):
No. I was not really thinking of that at the beginning. Murderbot is not human, so I do not think our diagnoses like that would apply to it. Part of Murderbot's perspective is just the way my mind works, and I am not neurotypical. I did not really think it was that different <laugh>, until people were telling me that. It was not something I started out thinking, "This is what I will do." It just turned out like that. <laugh>
EW (00:20:33):
It has found a lot of resonance with people who are not neurotypical in that way. It sounds like you were not expecting that.
MW (00:20:45):
I was not expecting that. This is just my brain, this is how my brain writes. I do not think that has happened with any of my other characters. I have had people tell me about the books of the Raksura, that they found Moon's experience with depression very accurate. I was not surprised about that, because I have had experience with depression too.
EW (00:21:18):
I did not even realize that I had read some of your books before Murderbot. But then it made me go back and look over all of your books. I think that is a common occurrence. Murderbot was a little more popular than some of your other books. Is that right? Or just my opinion?
MW (00:21:32):
No, it is a ton more popular. I never had anything take off like that before. I had in the earlier part of my career, The Death of the Necromancer was probably my most successful book. It was a fantasy mystery. Then I had a career crash and did not get very much out from around 2006 through 2010, when The Cloud Roads came out. It was like my career had just completely fallen off the map. It was a long hard road with the Raksura books. It took them quite a while to really- They were doing just well enough to keep going, for the publisher to keep the series going.
(00:22:24):
Then I got some success. I had a Star Wars novel, but actually that fell right after Disney bought Lucasfilm, so it got sidelined. But I was doing okay, not super great, but okay. Then Murderbot just hit big and became very popular, and that was completely unexpected.
EW (00:22:49):
You said that Murderbot is how you think. And the Raksura, definitely the depression for Moon, I totally agree with that comment. Were the earlier books, the Ile-Rien, less personal?
MW (00:23:05):
In some ways they are, because I feel like I have been struggling to get connected to my characters in some way, which probably relates back to being non neurotypical <laugh>. So I have really had to work at it, of getting their emotions on the page. I think it is there, but I know I tend to be too subtle with that. That is one thing I have had to work on over the years, but it is a learning process, and I know my writing has changed pretty drastically over the years.
(00:23:44):
Also it depends again about the world and the character I am writing. Some of it is going to be more restrained. Since Murderbot is first person, it is a lot easier for it to open up. Even then, that is a little guarded about its emotions sometimes, and it will deflect. There is a thing it does, where it portrays itself to the reader unintentionally sometimes.
EW (00:24:20):
Yes.
MW (00:24:20):
<laugh>
EW (00:24:23):
We have mentioned the Raksura books, and I could not possibly describe them <laugh>, although I enjoy them very much. How do you describe them?
MW (00:24:36):
Yeah, that made them hard to sell <laugh> to the publishers. It is secondary world fantasy, which is not uncommon for fantasy at all. But, none of the characters are human. It is set in a world with a lot of very different intelligent species. It has also got a bit of a science fiction, or science fictional attitude, toward it in some way, because a lot of the technology- There is technology, but it is biological. And the magic is usually inherent into the characters themselves, based on whatever species they are. There is not a lot of flashy Harry Potter type magic. It is all inbuilt.
(00:25:42):
In all that, it is basically a really personal adventure story, of a person trying to find their way in the world. Someone who has been separated from not just their family, but their entire species, and has been trying to figure out who and what they are. A lot of stories would end with them finding their people. This one starts with them finding their people, and going on to how can they fit in.
EW (00:26:10):
And that person is Moon, because we have said the name a couple of times.
MW (00:26:13):
Yes.
EW (00:26:18):
You said that there are no humans, but I really want to emphasize that there is nothing human about this. It is mentally very engrossing because everything is different. There are no assumptions you can make about what you can expect from a culture, or from a physical perspective, for any of the characters. Some of them can fly, some of them can walk on walls, some of them can swim under the water and-
CW (00:26:51):
Oh wait, humans can do that.
EW (00:26:53):
Not for this long.
CW (00:26:55):
Oh, okay. <laugh>
EW (00:27:02):
How do you create a world that is that detailed? Was it the world first or the characters first?
MW (00:27:09):
It was the characters first. In my previous books I had stuck to modeling things. They were not historical fantasy, because they were secondary world fantasy, but I stuck to modeling things on real world places.
(00:27:23):
With The Cloud Roads I wanted to do something completely different. I wanted to make it like I had read a lot of, when I was growing up in the seventies. There was a lot of feminist science fiction, and also fantasy that was really borderline science fiction, and fantasy where it was magical fantasy taking place on other planets, and these really neat detailed worlds. I had always like that. That is what I wanted to do with The Cloud Roads.
EW (00:27:53):
I need names on that. Andre Norton, Zenna Henderson. Who else are you talking about?
MW (00:28:00):
Phyllis Gotlieb, Andre Norton. I am trying to think. A lot of it was stuff I read when I was literally a teenager. So it is hard for me to remember actual names. I would have to go look it up. I have a Goodreads, not a Goodreads, excuse me, a LibraryThing where I have listed a lot of those books. LibraryThing is different from Goodreads in that it is basically just for keeping track of your home library, more than it is about reviews and stuff like that. I have listed a lot of those books there.
(00:28:38):
When I was writing it, I was just pushing myself to make it as different as possible. When I realized I was writing a scene that- Well, let me give you an example there, since you have read The Cloud Roads. When Moon and Jade come to the turning city, when they are traveling back to look for the poison they need. When they originally got there, my original conception of those scenes, they were just camping on a plateau where there were some other people.
(00:29:14):
I was, "Well, that is boring." So I started, "Okay, let us say it is a little town. Well, let us say it is a city. What kind of city would it be?" I just kept trying to push myself to make it stranger and stranger. That is how I came up with the city that is turning on the plateau. It is actually a device that is creating energy to heat the city. So stuff like that, it is always looking at what I was doing and really trying to push myself out of my comfort zone, and come up with something really cool. Instead of just falling back on a normal fantasy trope.
EW (00:29:49):
The Raksura themselves are hive creatures? Perhaps it is because I read too much about wasps and how interesting they are, but that is what they reminded me of. That there is a queen and different people have different functions.
CW (00:30:09):
<laugh>
MW (00:30:11):
They have been described as, let me try to say, lizard lion bee people <laugh>, because there are characteristics of lions and bees. I think of the Fell as actually more of the wasp, and the Raksura as more of the bees. Because the Raksura will react if they are attacked, but they do not go after people, like most bees, unless they are the angry attack bees. And then the Fell are the ones that seem to go after- They go out looking for prey.
EW (00:30:46):
I see. I am cool with that because, evolutionarily, bees are just vegetarian wasps. Yeah, okay. I am cool with that. Switching topics, in both Murderbot and Raksura, the main characters have a lot of physical power. They can murder everyone around them if they want to. And they generally use that to protect others.
(00:31:14):
But both Murderbot and Moon are loners, not loners so much that they are alone, but are really sure that they do not belong. I wrote here, "They lack psychological safety." They know that they are wrong, in a way that indicates depression. <laugh>
MW (00:31:46):
Yeah <laugh>.
EW (00:31:47):
Is that intentional theme and why does it come up repeatedly?
MW (00:31:51):
It is probably intentional. It is probably also because that is my psychology, I think. That is why that has been a factor in a lot of the characters I have created. I have gotten, I do not know if I can call it criticism, mocked for that in some places of, "Oh, all her characters have anxiety." And it is like, "Gosh, let us think about why that might be."
EW (00:32:14):
<laugh>
MW (00:32:14):
<laugh> That is interesting to hear you put it like that, "A lack of psychological safety." I really like that because that does really fit. But yeah, that just comes from me, basically.
EW (00:32:32):
Okay. The other theme that happens in a couple of places, is that you have had past civilizations building horrendous weapons, and then your characters have to run around and disarm them. Why <laugh>? Why that one?
MW (00:32:50):
I guess because I live <laugh> in a time where we keep making horrendous weapons. I grew up in the nuclear age, where we knew we were going to get blown up at some point or other. When I was a kid, there was so much dystopian children's fiction, that always seemed to start from, "Well, let us just assume the world has been destroyed, and the kids live in the woods now, and have to figure out a way to survive." And doing the- Well where I live, they called them tornado drills, but we really knew what they were. For tornado, it would have been great, it would have helped a lot. For the other thing, not so much. So it probably comes a lot from there.
(00:33:34):
Also, I have always liked that kind of science fiction and fantasy, where... Someone I know described it once, where the character starts somewhere strange, and then start going in to explore somewhere stranger. That has always been one of my favorite type of stories. That is why I like Stargate and Stargate Atlantis so much, because there is a lot of that, "Here is this really strange ruin and we are going in to explore it. We have to puzzle out the dangers of it. Then maybe something cool will happen." I have always liked- That is a pretty common story, I think, in science fiction, encountering strange alien ruins. And fantasy too, really. I just always really like that.
CW (00:34:22):
You mentioned Farscape earlier, and that is what comes to mind for me, for really weird. As far as TV sci-fi goes, that is the weirdest stuff that I remember happening in a long time.
MW (00:34:32):
Henson Company. <laugh>
CW (00:34:34):
Yeah. Right.
EW (00:34:36):
You have written tie-in books. You mentioned the Star Wars one, and you just mentioned Stargate. It is different creating your own world, from playing in the others. What makes you willing to write the other books?
MW (00:34:55):
Well, the tie-ins- I was always a big fan fiction fan, so getting to write a tie-in is really related to that. But with a tie-in, you have to be really careful about staying within the world. When you make things up for it, you have to make them work with the existing world, and trying to get the character voices right, and the characterization right, so that the people who love the show will recognize it and everything.
(00:35:24):
I thought that it was a cool thing to do, is being really careful like that, when you are used to your own world, and you can do anything you want. Saying, it is an interesting exercise, makes it sound like it is very intellectual, and not just me having a good time. But it is just me having a good time writing in a different way.
EW (00:35:49):
Star Wars book was about Leia, so that one has got to be a tough. You cannot change her character. How do you make a character grow when you cannot change them?
MW (00:36:02):
Well, I think the key in tie-ins is not so much to make the character grow, is to really deeply get into that character, and try to show how their mind works, in a way that you do not get to see on the screen. Just add that dimension of "interniality", "internally", "internal"- it is a word. <laugh> I cannot remember how to say it.
EW (00:36:29):
What they are thinking inside their heads.
MW (00:36:30):
The internal dimension of the character, that the actors know about and try to project, but that you do not get to actually see in so many words. So I think that it is just a different type of writing. I think it gets looked down on by people who do not read tie-ins, or do not really understand what they are trying to do. But when you really like TV, and you really like the show, just being able to see someone really get into the characters, and get them right, and provide these insights, is just really fun and interesting.
EW (00:37:11):
Oh, it is. I love tie-in books. I tend to only read a few, like mostly Star Wars ones. I have not read any of your Stargate ones. Is it all Stargate, or Stargate Atlantis, or both?
MW (00:37:26):
There are two of them, and they are Stargate Atlantis. That was my favorite.
EW (00:37:30):
Which characters do you like best there?
MW (00:37:33):
I liked John Sheppard and Teyla. One of the books has Ford and the other one has Ronon. Different time periods. I liked Rodney. I just like the whole cast.
EW (00:37:47):
Yeah, you are going to end up with all of them, are you not?
MW (00:37:49):
I am just naming everybody because I do. I do that with Star Wars too. I like the main character. I was a big Han Solo fan. Also, I like the character interaction in the group, so I tend to like the whole group when I am watching a show.
EW (00:38:05):
When you wrote about Leia, were you thinking about Carrie Fisher or about Leia separately?
MW (00:38:13):
Leia separately, because I really think actors are different people. So you think about her performance, what she put into the performance, but you also just think about the character. Also, a character like that, where they have had years and years of development- The last three movies were not out when I wrote this, but you see this character over time, and the different books and everything. You try to stick at a certain point in their development, and really get into the character at that time period.
EW (00:38:53):
Your Murderbot books are not linear, talking about going through different time periods. Chris pointed out this morning that the last one, Fugitive Telemetry, is before the second to last one.
MW (00:39:09):
That is right. It takes place before Network Effect. And that was because I wrote Network Effect, and then got the idea later for- I was trying to write the next novella that would be set after Network Effect. And I could not. Early pandemic was happening at that point, and I just could not do it. Instead I wrote Fugitive Telemetry, that I just started basically because I was having trouble with the other novella. I was like, "I have to do something. I have to get started."
(00:39:43):
I sat down and wrote a scene where Murderbot was in the space station and saw Deadbot standing over a dead body and doing a crime scene kind of thing. I was like, "I really like this story." Also it sort of fit into- In Network Effect, there is a scene where Murderbot, I do not want to spoil what happens, but Murderbot refers to working with the Preservation Station security on something. Their relationship, you can tell, in that scene is very good. It is like, "How did that relationship develop from the end of Exit Strategy to Network Effect?" There is a story in there. Fugitive Telemetry is that story, of how they developed this good working relationship, after a lot of difficulty, not wanting to work with each other, and not liking each other and everything, and how that happened.
EW (00:40:31):
I loved that Murderbot is standing over a dead body, and everybody who knows it, is like, "Well, yeah, if Murderbot had killed that person, we would never have found them." <laugh>
MW (00:40:42):
No. Yeah, it would have been, "We'd never know."
EW (00:40:46):
Exactly. Murderbot is way too smart for this. <laugh> You have a new book coming out. It is a fantasy book.
MW (00:40:55):
Yes. Witch King. It is a new series, new world, and it is coming out in May, 2023.
EW (00:41:04):
That is so far from now. Do you have anything before then I can read?
MW (00:41:08):
No. <laugh> Unfortunately, no. I started it in the summer of 2020 and then finished it in 2021. But the publishers were still having problems with printing and supplies of paper, so it got pushed back with a lot of other books. Originally I think they did want to put it out this year, but they decided it was a better idea to push it back.
EW (00:41:38):
No, it is not. I need books!
MW (00:41:40):
I have been waiting for a long time for people to read it, too <laugh>. I am very impatient. I also finished another Murderbot novella this year. They have not scheduled it yet. I think it is going to come out next year, maybe in the fall. That is all I know so far. It is the one I was trying to write earlier. It actually takes place right after Network Effect, and it is the fallout from everything that happened in Network Effect.
EW (00:42:13):
I am glad to hear about the reverse of time, because I did not know how to get from Network Effect to Fugitive Telemetry. But I did not care. It was Murderbot. <laugh>
CW (00:42:25):
<laugh>
MW (00:42:25):
Yeah. I was surprised they did not just put "Takes place before Network Effect" somewhere on the cover or something.
EW (00:42:33):
I do not see the covers very often, because I read e-books almost exclusively. How important are the covers to you?
MW (00:42:41):
I really like the covers. I think they set the tone for the book. Usually the art, the Murderbot art, is really gorgeous. It is also very important for fantasy, because if it is done right, you will look at the cover and it will give you the idea, "Is this the kind of book for me?"
CW (00:43:07):
I think the Murderbot covers, I agree, are some of the best that I have seen in a long time. They are very good. Is it all the same artist?
MW (00:43:18):
Yes, it is Jamie Jones.
EW (00:43:22):
Do they read the book? Do you get to choose which you want? How does it work to get a cover artist?
MW (00:43:29):
The publisher does it? It is done differently in different places. I get to see the sketch, usually, at this point- Sometimes you do not get to, because sometimes there is just no time. That the artist does. For a series, they usually try to get the same artist throughout, so that it will look consistent.
(00:43:51):
I do not know if he reads them or not. I know usually what they do is they will select a scene, or some scenes, and sometimes they will ask me to pull out scenes. For the latest book, the one that has not really been announced yet, the Murderbot book, they asked me to pull out a scene to send them, to send the artist. The artist will do a sketch from that. And then the publisher will approve it or not.
(00:44:21):
Art direction for books is a really specific field. I think it takes a lot of experience to see what people are going to find eye-catching. It is a whole thing of communication about what the book is like, that you have to understand. I am not <laugh> an art director, so I do not know how to tell them. I just have this big idea, "Well, that might be pretty to see on the cover." And that is what I send them.
CW (00:44:51):
It is so weird that this totally different media is what draws people into books sometimes.
MW (00:44:58):
Yeah. I think it is the artist's interpretation, it can be so different, but it can also illuminate things for you as the writer. When you see how they have interpreted what you have said, it is just really... <laugh> I love graphic novels and looking at them and trying to figure out how someone would conceive of this. It is so different from writing, but also so intensely- The storytelling can be so brilliant just through art. It is interesting to see that different view of your story.
EW (00:45:52):
I remember when Bujold got a whole new set of covers for the Vorkosigan books. And I hated them of course, because I...
CW (00:46:02):
Grew up on the other ones.
EW (00:46:03):
I grew up on the other ones. I still wonder, are those better? They are very plain.
MW (00:46:11):
Yeah. I was not super keen on those either. I do not understand them <laugh>. It is not what- I thought the original cover art could have been better, but-
EW (00:46:23):
But that covered decades.
MW (00:46:26):
Yeah. But that was decades. This is not what I would have thought for that book. I would have thought, now I cannot remember the artist's name, this vast sort of cityscape science fiction covers that are so cool. I would have almost thought maybe some of those, or space battles, something ships. Yeah.
(00:46:56):
Actually, the Murderbot Diaries has had- There is a specialty Illustrated Edition by Subterranean Press, that is illustrated by Tommy Arnold. He did really gorgeous work with that, too. His vision in the cover image of Murderbot is very different, but it is also really cool. It is like that one and the Jamie Jones version are two sides of the same coin. Yeah <laugh>, all of it is better than what they ended up with for the Buj- I do not want to slam the artist or whatever, but yeah, I just did not get why that was a good idea.
CW (00:47:36):
Well, they are very abstract when they were-
EW (00:47:38):
They are 007 style.
CW (00:47:40):
Yeah. Previous ones were character focused, and these are more abstract.
MW (00:47:45):
Yeah, I guess so. I never really liked the 007( double-oh-seven ) style. I would rather see something that looks like it is an image of the world, or the characters doing something.
CW (00:47:57):
Do you want to see any of your work adapted?
MW (00:48:01):
Yeah, there is a chance it might be, but it is very much still up in the air at the moment, as far as I know.
EW (00:48:09):
You mentioned that between the Ile-Rien and the Raksura books, there was a bit of a dry spell. What did you do instead?
MW (00:48:21):
I was still writing. In that period I wrote The Cloud Roads, I wrote The Serpent Sea, and I wrote the first Emilie book, Emilie and the Hollow World. And some other stuff that never got published. I was still writing, and trying to figure out what to do <laugh>.
EW (00:48:44):
Speaking of The Serpent Sea, how do you decide when to stop a book? I do not want to say end, because that one, oh, that was tough, because it just went to the next book on like the next page. The day continued. How do you decide when it is over?
MW (00:49:03):
Usually it is when I am writing a book, especially at that time period, there is no guarantee that a second book will be published. So I have to come to an ending that will feel complete to the reader. That is why The Serpent Sea ends on a note where, if this was the last book, the characters were at an okay place. The Edge of Worlds and The Harbors of the Sun were the only two I wrote that were sold together, so I knew that there would be another one.
(00:49:42):
You just look for a stopping place. Usually at that point, I have not really thought about what the next book is going to be. Sometimes it seems like it continues seamlessly <laugh>. But that is because, after I finished that first book and then got the opportunity to write a sequel, I decided to start there, and decided I did not want any time to elapse. Sometimes I will decide, yeah, I want some time to elapse. Sometimes it is a better story if you just get to keep going.
EW (00:50:17):
I misspoke. It was not Serpent Sea that did not end happily for me. It was the one before Harbors of the Sun that I was just like, "Wait a minute!"
MW (00:50:24):
Oh, The Edge of Worlds. Oh yeah.
EW (00:50:26):
They are not home! Everything is still broken! <laugh>
MW (00:50:30):
Yeah. But that was sold as two books, so I knew that it was going to be continued, basically. So it is more like one giant book, that <laugh> got broken in the two more conveniently sized pieces.
EW (00:50:49):
What question do you get during interviews that you hate?
CW (00:50:52):
<laugh>
MW (00:50:55):
I have not gotten it for a while. You sometimes get, "How do you get your ideas?" And you honestly do not know. People ask about how did you get the idea for Murderbot? And it is like, "I do not have a clue." I was writing, thinking about a bunch of stuff, and then bam, I had this idea. That is usually how it is.
EW (00:51:13):
I would say for that, how do you get the ideas to stop long enough, to follow one of them?
MW (00:51:20):
Yeah. <laugh> Sometimes you get what you think is going to be a great idea, and you try to write it, and it just will not happen. That is because it is a great image, but there is nothing behind it. Or the story that you are coming up with does not have enough meat on its bones, to actually make a good story. You do not have to necessarily follow the conventional western idea of a plot to have a good story. It can be about anything. It can just be telling the readers something. But sometimes you get your idea is just not- There is nothing to communicate there. It would just be a single image, so it does not hang together long enough to get you really interested in it.
EW (00:52:14):
Do you have other questions, Christopher? I know I have been hogging Martha.
CW (00:52:19):
<laugh> That is fine. Going back to the Murderbot series, this is at risk of slightly spoiling things, but at certain points, Murderbot, this construct who is half or more biological and half or more technological, interacts with the other technological beings in the world.
MW (00:52:40):
<laugh>
CW (00:52:40):
Specifically one, which I do not want to spoil anything, because it is great. But the other one called ART, they have this relationship that is actually quite complex and develops over time. It is separate from Murderbot's developing relationships with humans. I do not know that I have a question, it is more of a comment, but I just love that you are exploring these somewhat alien creatures and their relationships with each other, as well as the human side. I have not read a lot of things where, "Oh, the robots are talking to each other and they have their own kind of world and it is separate."
EW (00:53:17):
Ooh, the Robot Bechdel Test.
CW (00:53:18):
<laugh>
MW (00:53:20):
Yes. <laugh>
CW (00:53:21):
Well, okay, sure.
EW (00:53:23):
That would work.
MW (00:53:24):
Yeah. That is what I have to keep reminding myself when I am working on a Murderbot story. Sometimes they will go off the rails, and I realize what I have been doing is having Murderbot interacting too much with humans. And that Murderbot's world is that machine intelligence world, and that is what it should be focused on. That always helps me steer the story back the right direction.
(00:53:54):
About interview questions that are either annoying or hard to answer, is when people want the bots to be too human, and say, "Why do they not do this?" Or, "Why do they not do that?" And it is like, "Because they are not human." A lot of times is the answer.
(00:54:15):
Somebody said once, it felt very dramatic, I saw, it was "I wonder if Murderbot will ever ask ART what its name is." And I was thinking their names are like strings of numbers that are hard addresses that they communicate with.
(00:54:31):
That is the first thing they see when they connect to each other. So why would it ask about that <laugh>? I feel bad bringing that up, it feels like I am calling the person out. But that is really an example of trying to apply human or very conventio nal human attitudes toward a character that is supposed to be an alien non-human character. That is the thing you run into when you write alien characters and non-human characters, is people will say, "This is so human." "Well yeah, because it is like they are people, and they are sentient and sentient beings are going to have a lot of things in common." But it does not mean they are going to act like humans from 21st century Earth or America or whatever.
CW (00:55:35):
Yeah. I still find them relatable, but I know they are alien.
MW (00:55:39):
Yeah.
EW (00:55:41):
The Raksura ones, you know they are alien, they are very relatable, but they are so alien. In fact, that brings up a question from me is, so many times the books that I read, not yours, someone has to do something to further the plot, and it is not quite in character.
MW (00:56:05):
Yeah. I hate that.
EW (00:56:07):
How do you avoid it though?
MW (00:56:11):
I would stick really closely to the character's point of view, to whichever character I am in the viewpoint of. It takes a lot of experience, and you can go wrong. Usually I find myself flailing for what happens next. I can trace that back to, I am thinking about what I would do next, as opposed to what the character would do next. It is just a way of thinking that you have to get into, is you really have to think from the character's point of view. And just doing that from experience.
(00:56:47):
I have always really hated that when that happens, especially on an otherwise good TV show or movie. You can tell that they needed a plot shift there, and had someone do something stupid, so <laugh> the plot could continue. Do something stupid or out of character. It is just like, "You could have thought for-" My big thing I tell people when I am doing writers' workshops or teaching or whatever is, if you think stop and think for five minutes, you can probably come up with something better than this. <laugh>
EW (00:57:18):
I would usually prefer the deus ex machina or some external force cause it to happen, rather than a character suddenly being an idiot for 30 seconds and then going back to being a genius.
MW (00:57:34):
Yeah. Sometimes you have to get in the fact that everybody makes mistakes. The way I find I will do that sometimes is if I am writing along in the viewpoint, and have the character do something, and think, "Oh, that will not work." But is that a mistake they would make? Sometimes that works, but it has to be an in character mistake.
CW (00:58:00):
In character mistake. That is a-
MW (00:58:02):
And have someone go and try to do something, and they go, "You know what, that is not going to work." Because I forgot this other factor. But when you hit that when you are writing, and if you have actually had come up with an in character mistake, it is very valuable and you should use it, because those are priceless gems <laugh> I think. When you came up with something actually in character stupid, that the character might have done, and then got wet in the next second. Oh no. Because in real life we do that a lot. We do a stupid thing and went, "Oh my God, I should not have done that." <laugh>
EW (00:58:41):
How do you keep your character straight?
MW (00:58:46):
When you are deep in the book, it is not a problem. I will have trouble later. Like when you said like the ending of the Serpent Sea, I could not remember how the Serpent Sea ended. It has just been so long. You lose detail pretty quick, especially when the more detailed and complex the book is, the more detail you will lose. Especially when you start thinking about the next book.
(00:59:09):
Which is why with series, I would have to go back and read over it periodically, and try to make sure I have not forgotten stuff. I have not had a character say they have never done something, and then had them do it, or had them remember doing it or whatever.
(00:59:25):
It is also really valuable to have friends who are really into your books, and read them all the time. Then you can say, "Can you check this? Check me on this, and make sure I have not strayed from the continuity."
EW (00:59:45):
I remember on a blog recently, Ilona Andrews asked if anybody knew the middle name of one of their characters. <laugh>
MW (00:59:52):
Yeah. It is funny because sometimes you will remember. I will remember a book I really read and enjoyed, better than I will remember one I wrote. Because I am able to stick with that version of- When I read the book, I am just reading that final version and enjoying it. And I may have gone back and read it a couple more times.
(01:00:16):
But with my own book, even though how many times with the- It is almost like you cannot see the forest for the trees. I remember all the changes and all this complexity, and I am not really thinking about the central story or the characters or whatever.
CW (01:00:30):
<laugh>
EW (01:00:32):
How do you go back and read your books?
MW (01:00:36):
It helps when I forget. The longer period that goes by, the more I have forgotten. I know what is going to happen generally, but I will have forgotten a lot of details, so it starts to be almost like reading something I have not written. I am having to go back and read earlier books now, because there is going to be some of my fantasy, that has been out of print for a while, is going to be rereleased. So I am rereading them and fixing them up, because the writing is old me, not very good <laugh>.
(01:01:13):
I am fixing it up and everything, and I am looking at it going, "Who wrote this? I do not remember being this person at all that would write this." Especially, I think, that is a phenomenon probably when you have written a lot, and they are not your babies anymore. They have gone off and become adults, and become their own people and you hardly recognize them. <laugh>
EW (01:01:39):
I wrote a technical book, and I am thinking about doing a second edition. The thought of reading the first edition, which was published over a decade ago, just- I know I need to, because the chapters have different topics, and I want to make sure that I do not make assumptions about what was covered, in the future past of the book. But I cannot. Yeah, I guess my book has gone off and gone to college, and now I am not sure that we are really bonded anymore.
MW (01:02:10):
Yeah, also it is hard to go backwards like that, sometimes. It is not uncommon, I think, to not want to reread, especially earlier, work. Especially when you know you have improved, and you just do not want to go back and see mistakes you made. And, is this going to change the way you feel about that earlier work? There are a lot of different reasons, but yeah, it is not uncommon to really hate the whole idea of having to go back and read your earlier work. It would be like pulling teeth.
EW (01:02:47):
I want to close this on a Murderbot question. For all that Murderbot has "murder" in the name, they do not do a lot of murdering. I wrote a very terrible NaNoWriMo book, in which I ended up having to kill a character I liked a lot. How do you murder your characters?
MW (01:03:11):
<laugh> It is better when you do not know you are going to do it until-
EW (01:03:17):
Surprise murders!
MW (01:03:18):
Yes. I do not outline. So a lot of times when I get to that point, it is like, "This character really needs to die, and I do not really want to do it, but I got to do it." Pretty much, probably 90% of the characters I killed, I did not know I was going to do it, until I got to that point.
EW (01:03:39):
You write by the seat of your pants? You are not a plotter?
MW (01:03:44):
No, that is why Murderbots so hard. <laugh> I do not work out stuff in advance. I just charge into this scene and go, "Oh my God, this is going to be so complicated."
EW (01:03:55):
But you have a story arc in mind?
MW (01:03:57):
Yeah, usually. Usually to start, I have to have you go from point A to B to C or whatever. When I start, I will usually know point B and point C. And by the time I get to C, I will know the next section, depending on how long it is, or maybe the whole thing. I get bored easily, so it is better if I do not know. I am discovering it along with the reader. Also I think it is better, because I cannot telegraph- Like if it is a murder mystery or something, or if there is a mystery element, I cannot telegraph it to the reader, if I do not know until I get there.
CW (01:04:38):
<laugh>
MW (01:04:38):
I have a problem reading some mysteries. I can tell they have been plotted out in advance, because I will read the first chapter and then they will- There used to be a thing, I think it was a convention, of you have to me mention the murderer really early on, or it is not fair or whatever. And they would mention the murderer, and I would go, "That is the murderer." Not because I am Columbo or anything, but just because narratively it was filling a space where there was no reason for this character to be brought up, unless they were the murderer. <laugh>
EW (01:05:11):
All right. Yep. I can see that. But, how do you plot these so tightly? How do you make all of the characters work, and not do stupid things, if you do not have an outline? That is like- I can see how you would have trouble with action scenes. You would have to- One of the good things about outlining is that you get from the beginning to the end, and along the way you know how many drones Murderbot has lost at certain periods.
CW (01:05:40):
<laugh>
MW (01:05:42):
Well sometimes you have to keep rereading and revising until you get it right <laugh>. Until you remember. That is the drone count. Actually, it is funny that you brought that up, because in the last one I just finished, I had to go back and do a quick read, to make sure I had not- And yes, in the middle, I had messed up the number <laugh>.
(01:06:02):
I am bad with numbers, so I have to really- Even small numbers. I do that all through my books. Oh, they are fighting five guys. Well, suddenly there are four, and things like that. I will drop or add a number. It is a really weird mental thing. So I have to be careful with that. But you just have to revise a lot. I know one advice I have heard is, to write through a whole draft and not go back. I cannot do that.
CW (01:06:35):
Oh. No.
MW (01:06:36):
When I am changing my mind about what I want to have happen, or coming up with new stuff I want to add, I have to go back and get that added in, and get the foundation for that, so I can go on. It is like those things where, however you end up with a finished piece of work, is the right way to write for you. There is no one right way to write. It is all very, very individual.
EW (01:07:03):
Martha, do you have any thoughts you would like to leave us with?
MW (01:07:07):
I do not think so. I have my next book coming out, is Witch King, in May 2023. There should be another Murderbot pretty soon after that.
EW (01:07:19):
I am looking forward to both, even though they are too far away.
MW (01:07:22):
Yeah <laugh>, they are. Well, it is actually October. I keep reminding myself that. It is going to be 2023 pretty soon.
EW (01:07:30):
Our guest has been Martha Wells, author of the Murderbot Diaries, the Books of the Raksura, and many others. She has won Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards for her work. Check out the links in the show notes. We will have links to her books, as well as some of the other authors we have talked about.
CW (01:07:47):
Thanks, Martha.
MW (01:07:49):
Thank you very much.
EW (01:07:51):
Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. Thank you to our Patreon listener Slack group for not having questions for Martha, so that I could ask all of them. And of course, thank you for listening. You can always contact us at show@embedded.fm or hit the contact link on embedded.fm.
(01:08:07):
Now a quote to leave you with, from Murderbot, or, well, from Martha Wells in Rogue Protocol, "I hate caring about stuff. But apparently once you start, you cannot stop."