Martha Wells -- Interviews and Questions

Interviews

Interview at the Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review Blog: Martha Wells, author of The Serpent Sea March 6, 2012

Interview by Chuck Wendig at the Terrible Minds Blog: Martha Wells: the Terrible Minds Interview February 9, 2012

Laura Anne Gilman: Guest Post: Martha Wells, on character, gender, and society in The Cloud Roads January 17, 2012

Guest post on the Books Smugglers Smugglivus Fest: Smugglivus 2011 Guest Author Martha Wells December 7, 2011

Insite Magazine interview Local Authors Pen A Wide Array of Titles Novermber 16, 2011

Austin American Statesman: Three new novels speak to health of Texas fantasy and sci-fi writing tradition April 24, 2011

Inside Track: Martha Wells - The Cloud Roads April 19, 2011

The Big Idea on John Scalzi's Whatever Blog for The Cloud Roads March 15, 2011

Jim Hines' First Book Friday October 22, 2010

Absent Willow Review Interview September 15, 2010

Journal of Transformative Works and Cultures, Interview with Jo Graham, Melissa Scott, and Martha Wells, September 15, 2010

Podcast: Escape From Cubicle 17: Martha Wells

A Wicked Convergence of Circumstances Interview June 2009

WriterCon Interview May 2009

RisingShadow.net Interview April 2009

Fantasy Faszination Interview September 2008
(in German)

ActuSF Interview, April 2007

Shaun Farrell Interviews Martha Wells, March 2006

Insite Article June 1998

Talk City Chat Session, 03/19/98

Talk City Chat Session, 08/06/98

Brief Article on The Wizard Hunters Written for the HarperCollins Eos Newsletter

The Wizard Hunters is something of a departure for me, even though it revisits my favorite setting of Ile-Rien, which was introduced in my first novel The Element of Fire and appeared again in The Death of the Necromancer. The Ile-Rien of The Element of Fire is based on a seventeenth century time period where magic exists and the world of Fairy is a very real threat to the human inhabitants. The Death of the Necromancer took place a couple of centuries later in Ile-Rien's history and showed it in a more nineteenth century period, complete with gas light and trains. The Wizard Hunters is set about thirty years after the end of The Death of the Necromancer and involves travel to another world/dimension completely unlike Ile-Rien, the home of the main characters. So I had to update Ile-Rien to the early twentieth century, show the effects of three years of violent war and the looming threat of invasion, and create a different setting for the other world. The Wizard Hunters is also the first book in a trilogy, which is very different for me since I've never done a direct sequel to any of my books before.

One of the elements I've enjoyed including in the trilogy is the Queen Ravenna, a ship based on the Queen Mary, a Cunard ocean liner which has a fascinating history and can be toured now where she is permanently docked in Long Beach, California. The Queen Ravenna is named after one of the characters in The Element of Fire, who is now a historical figure in the present day Ile-Rien of The Wizard Hunters.

The trilogy also explores the story of two radically different cultures having to not only interact but learn to trust one another. The characters from Ile-Rien, some of whom are sorcerers, all of whom are accustomed to magic, travel to a world where magic is considered a curse and all wizards are homicidally insane.

So instead of one setting, one book, I've got two settings in three books. The sequel to The Wizard Hunters also involves the characters traveling halfway across both worlds, and further in incursions into other worlds, so the complications continue.

© 2003 Martha Wells

Questions on The Element of Fire, City of Bones, and The Death of the Necromancer

What countries and time periods did you research for the books?: For The Element of Fire it was 17th century France. I basically wanted to do a The Three Musketeers sort of swashbuckler in a world where magic worked. Almost all the fay described are from European folklore.; For City of Bones I didn't research any time period in particular. I looked at any place that had a desert -- the Middle East, Australia, Arizona, California. All but one of the plants described in the book are real plants, and I think most of them are found in America or Australia.; For The Death of the Necromancer it's 19th century France, with some Victorian England thrown in.
What books were especially helpful in your research?: For The Death of the Necromancer:; Nineteenth Century Decoration: The Art of the Interior by Charlotte Gere; Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet by Otto Friedrich; Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations by Donald Reid; Paris Babylon by Rupert Christians; For The Element of Fire it was:; At the Court of Versailles: Eyewitness Reports From the Reign of Louis XIV by Gilette Ziegler; An Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katharine Briggs; The King's Minion: Richelieu, Louis XIII, and the Affair of Cinq-Mars by Philippe Erlanger; A Visual History of Costume: The Seventeenth Century by Valerie Cumming; Seventeenth-Century Interior Decoration in England, France, and Holland by Peter Thornton
What were some of the more interesting things you learned in your research (even if they didn't end up in the books)?: I always discover a lot of historical detail that is far stranger than anything you would believe in fiction.
What actors could you see playing your characters?: For The Element of Fire it was Oliver Reed for Thomas, definitely, and Katherine Hepburn for Ravenna. And I think Sean Connery would make an interesting Galen Dubell.; For City of Bones I always had a young Harrison Ford in mind for Khat, and Morgan Freeman for Sagai.
What do you think of the cover art? Does it suggest the spirit of the books?: I like both the covers, but I think the one for City conveys the idea of Charisat better, even though it doesn't exactly match the description in the book.
What comments did you receive about the books that were particularly meaningful?: One reviewer said that City of Bones reminded him of an Andre Norton novel. I was glad to hear that, because I think her work has had a great influence on my writing. I was really trying to capture that feel many of her books have, of starting out somewhere terribly strange, and then heading into somewhere even stranger.
What words summarize some of the ideas of the books?: I tend to explore a lot of trust/betrayal issues.
Anything you want readers to know about the books or the characters?: City of Bones has been reviewed as a post holocaust novel, and in a way I suppose it is, but some people give the impression they think the earlier civilization was meant to be Earth, either a futuristic Earth or our twentieth-century Earth. This is not the case at all. It was a world that would be just as strange to the reader as the world Charisat currently exists in. The characters are never going to go around a corner and find the Statue of Liberty's torch sticking up through the sand. If it was our world, they would find more relics made of plastic than they would glazed tiles or murals.
Any possibility (not certainty) of sequels for the books?: Right now the strongest possibility of a sequel would be one for City of Bones, but I'm at a different publisher now so all that's very undecided.

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