Martha Wells talks about her Nebula-award-winning new Murderbot book "Fugitive Telemetry", how Covid impacted writing/publishing/fan interaction, the role perspective plays in telling a story, and the positive power of fandom.
WW_2021_4_20_Martha_Wells
Patrick Rothfuss: [00:00:00] Hey there, everyone. My name is Pat Rothfuss and I'd like to welcome you to Worldbuilders Weekly, the podcast! Each week we bring you the best in everything geek: books, board games, interviews with authors and other notable cool people. Even better, this is all for a good cause because Worldbuilders is a charity that works to make the world a better place. And we are so glad that you've decided to join us.
Gray: Welcome to Worldbuilders Weekly. My name is Gray. I'm the Executive Director of Worldbuilders.
Zay: And I'm Zay, the Director of Operations at Worldbuilders. Hello, everybody!
Gray: We are here as usual on Tuesday with, all kinds of latest news from the world of geeks doing good, some special deals at the marketplace, trivia. This is actually, we just finished the biggest trivia contest ever in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. And by ever, I mean, it's really [00:01:00] big. There's probably other ones, but... and we also are here to welcome, cause we're so lucky to have Martha Wells with us.
Martha Wells: Hi.
Gray: Hi there! We are all excited to talk to you about things, especially your upcoming book, which launches in a week, Fugitive Telemetry.
Um, uh, But first we have some big news that literally just finalized today. You may notice the nice little poster back there on the wall. World builders is now officially a sponsor of FIYAHCON, , which is coming up. Actually I can't remember exactly what the date is. There it is, September 16 through 19th.
And we will have our own breakout room and programming in their tea house kind of thing. So, we are very excited about this and we're putting together our own plans for programming, but if you have ideas of what you would like to see, [00:02:00] please do let us know, and we will see what we can do. With that kind of lead up we probably could make some really cool stuff happen.
Zay: Yeah.
Gray: That's that's announcements.
Zay: Breaking out into trivia though. Last week we had an Ironman question. I like, the Avengers, so this is a cool question, but what fake name does black widow give to Tony Stark in Iron Man 2? So this is last week's. Hopefully some of you guessed it, right. The correct answer is Natalie Rushman. Is that right? Is this the correct answer?
Gray: That would be the answer, yeah. Actually that is one of my favorite scenes, because Black Widow, it was the start of her portrayal in the Avengers movies, which I think is good.
And then of course, this actually relates to something I'm talking about later on Martha, is that like in the movie she jumps out on Captain America's [00:03:00] motorcycle and, , picks up his shield and gives it to people. And when they released the toys, they did not have her on the motorcycle. We had, I think it was Captain America on the motorcycle or something like that.
Martha Wells: Yeah, well...
Gray: It was deliberately taken out of the movie.
So, I am happy that she is finally getting her own movie and, maybe we can correct some of the wrongs that have been done to that character. I might have opinions on it. I'll shut up now.
Zay: For the new trivia question. Gray, do you want to read it or do you want me to steal it?
Gray: Ah, you steal it.
Zay: Okay. All right.
If you got that last one, right, you'll be entered into our monthly draw as for the new one. You guys know the drill, do not put it in the chat and D M any of our social media platforms, including questions@worldbuilders.org. So for this week's trivia question, It's a trap! Our favorite Star Wars admiral, Admiral Akbar belongs to what alien race?
So, Star Wars [00:04:00] fans, hopefully you will delight and participate. I think our biggest responses come from these kind of big old blockbuster films. So when we get like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, , we get our biggest pool of people and we love to have y'all. So, answer the questions, be entered into our monthly, trivia draw. Maybe you'll win something.
Gray: I want to see, a board game, which has admirals from the Star Wars universe versus admirals from the Star Trek universe. Like to see whose strategy would do, which that would be interesting. Now that we're done with our housekeeping here.
Um, th the Zygons from Doctor Who as they shapeshift. Um, we're so happy to have Martha back on the, uh, I was about to say podcast because we do have a podcast now. Uh, but we're happy to have you here on our Twitch stream. And I'm going to quick read the biography for those few people that were off in the Mars mission isolation test chamber, [00:05:00] and don't actually know who you are.
Martha Wells has been a science fiction and fantasy writer since her first fantasy novel was published in 1993, and her work includes the Books of the Raksura series, The Death of the Necromancer, apology if I pronounce this wrong, The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, the Murderbot Diary series, media tie-ins for Star Wars, Stargate, Atlantis, and Magic: The Gathering as well as short fiction, young adult novels and nonfiction.
Take it Zay, you can finish off the bio.
Zay: She has won a Nebula award, two Hugo awards, two Locus awards, and her work has appeared on the Philip K Dick award ballot, the BSFA award ballot and USA Today bestseller list and the New York Times bestseller list. Her books have been published in 18 languages. Welcome Martha Wells. What an honor.
Martha Wells: Hi, thank you for having me.
Gray: And isn't this like the second [00:06:00] pandemic release you've had, like you had one early in the pandemic and now late?
Martha Wells: Yeah. I had Network Effect came out in May of last year and it was kind of terrifying because people really didn't know how books were going to do.
John Scalzi had his, I think it was The Last Emperox, just I think maybe two weeks before mine came out. And um, so actually a lot of publishers, I think were watching how our books did to see if they could gauge what this was going to be like. And I know a lot of publishers had to, particularly my publisher had to move some books to later in the year and postpone releases literally because they couldn't get the paper to do the printing.
Zay: Oh my gosh.
Gray: Yeah.
Martha Wells: Yeah, and it's like just places, you know, factories shutting down because of, COVID, not being able to get enough people to come in are worried about people affecting each [00:07:00] other and safety reasons and printing was one of those. So... yeah, it was an interesting time.
Yeah. I think during the pandemic, we had quite a few authors that we asked, like, what's your experience, but I don't think lack of access to materials is a topic.
Zay: Like that ever came up and that's super crazy to think about.
Martha Wells: Yeah, I guess I just know about it because my editor talked to me about it. That was kind of the first... cause it's still at that point, you know, I think a lot of people are sort of partially in denial or not really understanding what was, this was going to be like how bad this was going to be.
And he emailed me and said, well, your book is coming out at the right time at the, at the same, on the same date, but you'll see that we have moved other things. And this is why we're moving things. Um, and it was just like the printing factory. And then, and then all kinds of stuff, the whole supply chain of, you know, the trucks that ship things to the stores and then the stores were trying to do mail [00:08:00] order.
And some of them, I know weren't set up for it. And so it was just a lot of worries. So it was kind of a huge relief when it got on the New York Times bestseller list, which for like 99% of my career is not something I would have ever have even worried about, that there would be even the slimmest possibility I would have a book on the New York Times bestseller list. But this one, you know, it was, really supposed to be, it was probably going to be my biggest book release of my career up to this point. So yeah, it was really... it was some... I was, uh, I had some very stressful times waiting to see what was going to happen, you know, afraid something would happen and, you know, things would fall through and the book wouldn't be able to be released. Yeah, so it was just very interesting experience.
Zay: How was that comparing now to this one? How are you feeling leading up to the next book that's coming up?
Martha Wells: I think, um, it's, it's not nearly as nerve-wracking because[00:09:00] I think one thing we've seen is that people still want books. A lot of people felt like they... felt like they didn't have the concentration to read.
It was like the stress takes people, you know, everybody's an individual and the stress takes people in different ways. I was still able to read for the first... for most of the pandemic, but I couldn't write for six months. I just didn't have the concentration. Everything I tried to do would just fall apart.
I'm glad I finally got over that around mid summer. But then so many people were turning to books for comfort and solace the way, you know, you usually do. And so I don't think it disrupted. Um, the publishing industry is nearly as much as, people were afraid that it was going to.
Gray: Yeah, I think that people might have, you know, in some ways they, they started reading more because they, you know, say at home more and some people can only do so much Netflix in addition to their [00:10:00] Zoom watching. But yeah. , uh, by the way, uh, we did have, , at least one person who said, 'oh yeah, it's the lady who wrote the bee fantasy novel'. So you're, uh... someone read Cloud Roads way back when and loved it.
Martha Wells: Oh, the bee, yeah, the lion-ant-bee people. Line ant-bee-lizard people is what we're calling them.
You have to put the other parts on, or it's not going to make sense.
Gray: Gotcha.
Martha Wells: Lion-ant-lizard... lizard-dragon shapeshifter people.
Gray: For this book, I'm gonna read how Liz Bourke from Locus Mag described it. Fugitive Telemetry is an interesting hybrid of murder, mystery and space adventure from the beginning of her career, Martha Wells' characters have been relatable, understandable, complex, and human her world building depth and interesting filled with graceful detail and implying a universe beyond the page.
And of course, I'm saying that right before I say, you could pre-order this right now at our Worldbuilders Market. [00:11:00] But, in general, I mean I would agree with everything that that person has said. And how does it make you feel to have your work described like that? I mean, that's some pretty high praise.
Martha Wells: It's really, really nice. My first book came out in 1993 and I've been doing this a long time and I've never got nearly as much attention for anything as I have for Murderbot. It's been... it kind of took off from the beginning and it's been kind of getting more and more popular. And I'm sort of shocked by it and surprised and grateful and also sort of like not quite understanding what's happening. So it's just like, it's just, I've had a lot of experience as a writer, but being popular is really new for me. And it's been interesting to be, to kind of live this while basically, unable to go to do events and conventions and everything because it's a weird sort of...[00:12:00] I know this is happening, but in some ways it feels like it's just pretend. So yeah, it's been, it's been really strange.
Zay: We talked a little bit before we came on about how you've definitely had, during the pandemic, more access to like different showings and panels and stuff.
Do you though feel like you get more interaction from your fan base, um, in the gain in popularity?
Martha Wells: Um, I think I do. I definitely before last, uh, in 2019 when I was still able to go to conventions, it seemed like there was tons more people showing up for my events and people coming up and wanting to talk to me and that. And, that's a lot of fun, I think, in person. One of the problems with doing... you know, there's a lot of cool online conventions and online events and stuff. But the thing with authors that you miss out on is the interaction before and afterwards. It's like, there's no sitting around talking to people, people can't come up and ask you individual [00:13:00] questions as easily, you don't get to go out to dinner, you know, with your friends and you kind of don't get the whole experience. I did a couple of book festivals this month. , I think it was the Phoenix book festival and the San Antonio book festival and just doing an online panel and they were fun panels, and you get to see people you know, but then it's sort of like, that's it, you have to get off of video. We're also talking about how , I really hate looking at my face on the video.
Zay: Yeah.
Martha Wells: I don't want to see it. It's just like, I feel like I'm having Murderbot moments of 'my my face moved. What did that mean? Did it do something? I hope it's conveying what I mean it to convey', because you just see yourself so closely. I would rather do an event, a live event in a room with 2000 people than video, because it's like 2000 people aren't going to be like right here, up in my face. But , like I was saying before, I think I did enjoy the online events of the past year, because like the first one, I think one of the first ones I did was with [00:14:00] the Doubleclicks, and we just had a good time.
And at that point it was so nice to see kind of new people. Cause we had talked, I think just a little bit in email and maybe on Twitter, but we hadn't met in person or anything. So it was like we're meeting new people. It's so neat! In my house, which I haven't been out of for this month or whatever.
So those, you know, it's been a lot of fun, but it's a very different experience and yeah, like I said, it did, let me be able to go to more places. Like when my physical book tour was canceled, but tor.com arranged a online book tour and I was able to do things like do a bookstore in St.
Louis or a talk in New York and then turn around and do a talk, for a local bookstore, you know, all online in a way that I would never... you would never be able to do that in the physical world. So it had a lot of advantages, but I miss interacting with other humans in a non laptop environment.
Zay: Yeah.
[00:15:00] Gray: Yeah. I, feel the same way about, I feel like we're, we're slowly getting better at making the connections. Um, I know one of the changes that I made is to actually do the hide self view. So I have no idea what you're all seeing of, me, which is its own kind of level of stress though. I'm not recommending it because I'm always wondering like, you know, am I drooling or something and everybody can see or something.
So yeah, it's, weird the way we're having to adjust our behavior with this. You mentioned, you were kind of surprised by all this. Again for, for people that may not be familiar with the books, I'm going to quote another reviewer from Locus Mag, Adrienne Martini. 'For the uninitiated, Murderbot is a part organic, part inorganic machine originally designed to do exactly what it says on the tin: murder bot.
However, has hacked the governor unit and gone rogue by choosing who their client will be. And over the series of books that make up the murder about diary's murder, bud has been learning how to be', I love this description, 'how to [00:16:00] be a part of a human team and exist in a society that is, at best, uncomfortable with it'.
And I read that and I thought, I know so many people who could use that last sentence, that they're trying to live in a society and work with a team that is at best uncomfortable with them in whatever thing that is. I wonder if that might be part of why the popularity is there, because it resonates on so many levels with, so many people.
Martha Wells: Yeah, and I think it's because Murderbot is very specific about what it feels. It's very specific about it's depression and anxiety and how it affects it and what it goes through, what it's angry about, what it wants to do. And I think the more specifically characters express their emotions, the more people can find to identify with.
And because we know for a long time, especially in media, there's this belief that characters have to be very general to the point of almost being generic. Like, you know, generic white guy, who is [00:17:00] the hero kind of thing. And it's really, people, I think a lot of people identify with that character because they don't, you know, you're not offered any options. But the more specific a character is about, their issues, their problems, what they feel, the easier it is for more people to identify with them because you see things in common. And I think part of it's that because I just put a lot of myself on that page.
I wrote it in 2016. I was really angry, I was really stressed out and when I get angry and stressed out, sometimes I hit this real peak where I get really funny. I'm very bitter, very bitter and sarcastic, but also really funny. And so that's really what I kind of poured into that character. And it appealed to people for some reason. Um, I don't know.
Gray: The book design is always beautiful and especially, I think, you know, it was in the sarcasm font, so...
Martha Wells: Yes. [00:18:00]
Zay: Do you feel like your perspective of your, of the world changes as you are able to kind of spill out those emotions and that thing that appeals to so many?
Martha Wells: My perspective of the fictional world that I'm creating or of the real world?
Zay: The real world.
Martha Wells: Okay. Um, I don't know. I'm... I'm 57 years old, so my perspective of the world has always been pretty dim. I've dealt with anxiety and depression, so I really don't think it did change that much. I think that maybe for the first time I expressed a lot of it on the page.
A lot of my characters have borderline anxiety issues and I've actually been mocked for that. But I think this is where I really kind of just, pulled away a bit of a filter and, expressed a [00:19:00] lot more of my genuine frustration and put that into the character. I kind of developed a character where that would work and make sense.
And, um, I feel like that's probably what a lot of people are responding to
Gray: Well, that and the fantasy of having lasers in your arms, that you can deal with people.
Martha Wells: If you can just,
Also, I think one thing is Murderbot is vulnerable and very relatable because of its vulnerability and because of its openness on the page, but it's also... someone who can very well protect itself and the people... it's friends, people it loves. And I think that also appeals to a lot of people. Especially in very uncertain times.
Zay: Yeah. I mean, so we're kind of circling a lot around the story without actually saying the story. What do you, what would these books be about? How would [00:20:00] you describe them, say to the people who just got back from the Mars mission, isolation testing bubble? Yeah.
Martha Wells: It's far future science fiction and it's about a construct which is a part human or part human... part organic part inorganic, very like a cyborg that's been turned into a security unit. And in this society, this particular area that it lives in the corporation Rim, it has basically no personhood. It's enslaved as a security unit. It has a governor module in its head that keeps it... that forces it to obey orders, punishes it if it doesn't do exactly what they say, what it's ordered to by the security systems and hubs systems that it works with.
And, after a certain point, it managed to hack its governor module. And the perception in this world is that if a sec unit, were to... [00:21:00] when a sec unit hacks, its governor module, it's called a rogue unit. It would go rogue, it would run around and mass murder everybody it could catch, it would be a terrible thing.
And what this unit does is when it hacks this governor module, it doesn't know what to do. It basically keeps doing its job. It's able to get onto their version of the internet, where there's a lot of like, just like ours, where there's a lot of media content and shows and movies and things to watch and things to read.
And it's basically entertaining itself, which has never been able to do in its life before. And really kind of using this media for context for what it's feeling, for kind of exploring its feelings. And then in the first novella All Systems Red, it runs into... It's basically been rented out to a group of scientists who are doing testing on this world and it realizes to protect them from what's threatening them,
it's going to have to reveal the fact that it, that it's free. [00:22:00] It has, it has hacked it's governor module. And that's the first novella, and the rest follows on from that. So, yeah, it's kind of a robot slave narrative, in a lot of ways. it's can be very violent. It can also be very funny and, a lot of people seem to like it.
Gray: It occurs to me that, you know, you mentioned that, some of this came out of your own anxiety and anger. Deciding that you're going to use writing to do that is kind of like hacking your own governor module right there.
Martha Wells: That's an interesting way to put it, yeah.
Gray: Has it helped, you know, being able to put this out on the page?
Martha Wells: I think it really did, because it was, you know, it's been a hard four years for a lot of people and then we capped it off with a global spanning pandemic. It did help me to have that outlet and I've had people, a lot of people tell me that it was their comfort read, which people who haven't read the books think that's really strange.
It's like, why is, you know, [00:23:00] why is a murderous robot, your comfort read. It's like, well, it's hard to explain, but, um... and actually when All Systems Red first came out, it got labeled by some places as robot horror, which is funny.
Gray: I remember that. Yeah. I remember seeing that labeled as that.
Martha Wells: Which is really weird. And I think that was partly because I wish I had a copy of the first book, but the way they did the cover of the first book, You just see Murderbot in the armor with the visor down and opaque, which is a view that the humans in the story have of Murderbot, this very forbidding, frightening figure.
And as soon as you open the book, it's in the first page, it's in the first person and you're in Murderbot's head and you can't ever be afraid of Murderbot again. So I think that was very deliberate, but some people just looked at the cover and said, oh, it's robot horror. It's about, you know, robots killing people and murder and... which it kind of is, but not, not like that, not in a bad way.
Gray: What we need to do is just, we need to make a [00:24:00] Murderbot plushy, you know.
Martha Wells: Yes.
Gray: So that we could have those things.
Zay: How many times have you heard the mantra don't judge a book by its cover and it's literally what's labeling your books.
Gray: You know, speaking of the covers, they're really good. They, they remind me of some of the science fiction art that I loved as a kid growing up only they're more modern. and, I was wondering, like, it's been the same artist for all of the books, right, Jamie Jones. And actually I'm stealing Zay's question here because Zay is the painter among us. So I guess, Zay, I'll let you take it.
Zay: Oh yeah. So, I mean, we've had a couple others on here with some pretty distinct artwork. And you know and I mean, Murderbot is kind of that. It's painterly, it's got like a bit more beauty and intention than some of the, you know, some kind of very basic [00:25:00] author works.
But what was the process like for you? Did you have like control over the imagery? I'm just curious what your relationship was with the artist.
Martha Wells: No, I've actually never talked to him. Tor.com is run by Irene Gallo who is, uh, I think is still basically the creative director, art director for Tor and their covers are all just beautiful.
I think they're really distinct. You know, they're all different artists. But their cover art and their design, the design was by Christine Foltzer, it's just gorgeous and I didn't have any, I didn't have anything to do with it at all. I did have some... a little bit of cover consultation for my last two Raksura books, The Edge of Worlds and The Harbors of the Sun.
And I really wanted that. And then I got it and I had the editor basically came up, found the artist who was Yukari Masuike, who just did a beautiful job. [00:26:00] So, I'm not an art director myself. So I'm really glad that I don't have any control over things like that because it's a really specific job and I just don't know how to do it.
I think what they picked for it, his art is absolutely gorgeous and it just really fits the books and the characters. And it was interesting, one thing they did is, when I wrote the first one, it was originally going to be a sad, short story. And then I realized it needed to be longer, so I made it a novella. And then when tor.com bought it, they asked for a second novella and, I started writing Artificial Condition, but the cover for Artificial Condition was done before the book was turned in. I just gave them, usually what they'll do is they'll ask you if there's any kind of you know, scenes that stand out, and she'll copy out the scenes from what you're working on and send to them so they can give it to the artist to kind of give them an idea of what to do. And so he'd done a picture of Murderbot, an [00:27:00] art, I think. And he also, but he had Murderbot still in, the armor, which Murderbot isn't wearing after All Systems Red. And, you know, I think the editor emailed me and we were kind of thinking about it. And he's like, well, we didn't realize Murderbot was not going to be in the armor at this point, but then it kind of fits. And so Murderbot is always shown as in the armor, even like on Fugitive Telemetry where it's not wearing the armor inside the space station.
So that's kind of a neat concede. It doesn't exactly match what's going on in the books, but it really matches the feel of the story, I think.
Zay: Yeah. So what's that like for you kind of getting that back and seeing the art work for the first time?
Martha Wells: It's very exciting. And to see your artwork, especially when it's really great artwork.
And actually what had happened is they had... I hadn't seen it yet and I don't remember why I hadn't seen it, but they released a teaser of the, the [00:28:00] tor.com books that were going to be coming out that year. And there was it was basically like slivers of the covers in a row for different books.
I could see one that looked like the top of a helmet with a ring and the planet that they're on in All Systems Rred has a ring system and I was like, that's mine! I can see it's mine. And then I saw it, it was just like very exciting. It's like, this is perfect. This is the perfect cover.
Zay: That's such an odd way to be exposed to the book cover the first time.
Martha Wells: but, again, it's like, I wasn't worried because, um, Tor.com, again, has some of the most beautiful artwork and most fitting for the, for the story's art work.
So I was excited. I wasn't worried, I was very excited to see what, mine was going to be and what it was going to look like.
Gray: Yeah. There's also a lot of great, fan art out there.
Martha Wells: Yeah.
Gray: I [00:29:00] wanna especially give a shout out to Mar. The video, we can't play it here because. A, it has spoilers and B it has popular music that would get our Twitch channel shut down. But it is really fun. And I think that one of the things that really resonates is that you also very deliberately do not gender, the robot, the Murderbot, which in some ways makes it possible for any of us to consider being a Murderbot, cause you know, you don't know what was put in there before. And in some ways, when I was writing this, I was saying that Murderbot reminds me of the Vulcans in Star Trek, if Vulcans were Vulcaner. Like, Murderbot is the Vulcanest Vulcan. Because, you know, instead of being... instead of just pretending to not have emotions, Murderbot is just annoyed by them.
It's like, you know, yes, I have emotions, it's really, really annoying. The best quote I found from on [00:30:00] good reads was "Emotions, ugh!" Which, I've definitely have felt lot. Actually, could you, read that, excerpt from the thing?
Martha Wells: You want me to read the front cover...
Gray: Yeah, the front cover from the new one.
Martha Wells: Yeah. It's not really an excerpt. It's the, um, description.
Gray: Right.
Martha Wells: It says: No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall. When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people who knew?) Yes. The unthinkables about the happen Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans! Again!
And that's yeah, that's Fugitive Telemetry, the one that's coming out.
And there's actually a Dr. Mensah short story that's now on tor.com, that's free on tor.com. It's just a little short story from Dr. Mensah's perspective. And it's set after the [00:31:00] end of Exit Strategy and before the beginning of Fugitive Telemetry and then Network Effect. Fugitive Telemetry is set before Network Effect, if people didn't realize.
Gray: Yeah, we actually have a link to that coming up in our notes. It's Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory.
Martha Wells: Yeah.
Gray: Actually that falls right into a question that was asked in the chat... which was, let me find it here. Karimshot said, I've always wondered if Murderbot's exploration of depression or anxiety grew out of it being in the first person, and was it ever not in first person? And this particular story is from Dr. Mensah's perspective. And I got to say, when I read it, I was like, oh, now we're getting to see something that Murderbot doesn't really have, which is sort of post-traumatic stress, issues. And so, can you talk about, like, I don't remember, if in other, if the previous books, if there was ever not a first person in there, I mean, did you, when did you decide to change the perspectives?
Martha Wells: Well, one thing [00:32:00] murder bot lives in PTSD, so it's why Murderbot wouldn't understand what not having PTSD was like. But, yeah, no, it was first person from the beginning and there's no other perspectives in the rest of the series until Network Effect where you do see, basically 3's perspective and then Murderbot 2.0's perspective.
Until you've read the book, that's not going to make a lot of sense, but, when I, and I don't, I haven't written a lot in first person before All Systems Red. I think maybe there was one story I had published before, a long time ago, in first person before this. This character, it just, I don't know when I first got the idea.
For some reason I think I tried, when I'm, when I'm first trying to write something, trying to start something, the [00:33:00] voice is the most important. And, so I was trying to get this voice and then suddenly it became really obvious to me that it just had to be first person. And I don't like plan a lot of stuff out.
I don't like look at themes and what I'm doing. I just like I want this character, I want to write this character. I'm going to start talking in this character's voice. What does that sound like on the page? And, that's how Murderbot developed and just thinking about what this kind of person, what their life would be like and what, the society that would put them in this position would be like. That's what everything kind of grew out of. and, First person just kind of fell naturally because again, like I was talking earlier, the contrast between what Murderbot looks like on the inside And what's inside its head that's first person's the best way to get that across. Um, what was the question? Did I? I have a bad... [00:34:00] I'll start talking and then forget what the question was.
Gray: It was just about the perspective changes. Like you brought in Dr. Mensah's perspective, in the new one.
Martha Wells: When I was writing the short story, I actually started trying to write a little, I forget why we wanted to do the short story. I think it was maybe I think originally it was going to be on tor.com in, maybe even in 2019, and then they decided to make it a preorder, bonus. And then now we're finally getting it on tor.com. I started trying to write something from Murderbot's perspective and it just wasn't working. And, I can't remember why I decided to do it from Dr. Mensah's perspective, but as soon as I started doing it, from that perspective, it just worked.
And, it just came together very quickly, like within a few days. And I'm actually, I'm not a very fast writer, so that's kind of unusual for me.
Gray: I will tell everyone you should go read the short story because there's a subplot of, subtexts that, literally subtexts that come in throughout the thing that just made me [00:35:00] absolutely giggle, in terms of the messages that Murderbot is sending Dr. Mensah. So that was a lot of fun. I was looking, there's so many great quotes from this. And, the one that came out, I was looking for one that would kind of express Murderbot's opinion of human behavior and intelligence. And, uh, there's a lot to pick from. But the one that I picked was from Exit Strategy, which is, 'but they were humans who knows why they did anything'.
And kind of like Zay was asking about view of the world, considering the way that you've seen humanity handled the pandemic and the election, do you think that would be even beyond what Murderbot would expect was it surprising to you or does that kind of just fit in what you expected?
Martha Wells: It was... I don't know, I feel like it was shocking, but not surprising. And I think that Murderbot would probably, I think when I was writing murder bot, I thought it was exaggerating about, you know, people running and doing stupid things, cause it does exaggerate a lot. [00:36:00] Um, and now I'm not sure any more, maybe people wouldn't just run into the Monster's mouth, I don't know.
Gray: I mean, that seems to be, yeah, pretty much the same thing. Someone in chat brought up, speaking of short stories, that after the last time we interviewed you, someone brought up the one you wrote for Wired, uh, The Future of Work: Compulsory. And, I was just kind of like Zay it was saying the future of work
I mean, there seems to be a little more humanity people acknowledging humanity, because if they're working from home, they have to acknowledge that there's pets and there's kids and there's, you know, houses and things like that. Is that changing the way you imagine future or given new ideas from that?
Martha Wells: I think it's, um, I mean, I know people said that they think that a lot of companies will continue to let people work from home. And, I hope they do that because it does solve a lot of problems for people, you know? in some cases it's very stressful, I know, especially, for childcare, but then some [00:37:00] people it's really working for.
My husband's been working from home. He's had to go back into the office recently, but he'd been working from home most of last year. And, you know, it was just, it, it worked out really well for us. the thing I would really like is that, if society was kinder to people who are in essential jobs, that we actually need to survive, like anybody in any kind of food service and the whole food chain between the people who pick the crops and getting that into the store and the people who are our medical people or have to work in pharmacies and all the people that just kind of make everything work, and yet often are treated so badly. the way food delivery, people are treated often. Like they have that... I didn't even think this was... I came up with terrible things in my books all the time. And I didn't know, this is [00:38:00] about the people that would put a big tip on their grocery delivery order.
Or their food delivery order so it would get there quickly and then take the tip away. And it's like...
Gray: That's a thing?!
Martha Wells: That's the thing.
Zay: That's horrible. I'd never even heard of that.
Yeah, I saw that on Twitter
Martha Wells: and some other places and it's just like why would you...
Gray: There's a special hell for them. Wow.
Martha Wells: Special hell yeah, exactly. So I wish that we could evolve into a society that would recognize people whose jobs are, dangerous and essential and, particularly in this pandemic, and make their lives easier. Your reward for doing something like that should be not to worry about, you know, your money or your education or your medical care.
I really wish that could happen. That story in Wired, it's part of a whole series they did on basically the future of work. And there was a review of [00:39:00] mine somewhere of compulsory and someone saying, 'well, haven't these people ever heard of unions?', it's like, haven't we in America ever heard of unions because sometimes it doesn't seem that way.
Gray: It's kind of ironic after the last Amazon thing.
Martha Wells: Yeah. It's quite ironic. Yeah, the fact that, that, I don't know, somebody would say that with a straight face. It just seems really... yeah, so
Gray: That's a fair answer.
Zay: So, you know, here, we kind of talk about geeks doing good a lot, and maybe making changes that we can to the gloomy perspective of things, which I agree with and are true. But I feel like you've been a supporter of Worldbuilders for quite a while so I'm just curious, like, what is geeks doing good look like to you? Or what, what do you think it should look like?
Martha Wells: The big thing it seems like it's possible to do is, is raising money for different [00:40:00] causes. The big ones, the sort of world organizations and the little small ones. I see a lot of that on Twitter where somebody has a GoFundMe and if you can really get that GoFundMe in the eyes of enough people, You can at least fix that problem. And I know they'll understand the whole thing of people shouldn't have to do these for their basic problems.
You shouldn't be forced into a situation where you need to beg strangers online for money in order to feed your kids or pay the doctor or save your pet or, you know, save your home, that kind of stuff. But the fact that this is the situation we're in and wishing it would go away isn't going to help anybody right now.
And the fact that, fandoms able to organize into these large groups where even if there's nobody who can pay this off immediately for this person, people contributing, you know, a few dollars, and passing it on is able to help people. I think that's [00:41:00] the thing I seem most active in fandom.
that's one of the best things about fandom. Fandom has a lot of problems, we all know, but, this is one of the things we can really do for good. And so I guess it's just that ability to organize. All these different interests groups, you know, fandoms based around books and movies and TV shows that are all, and, you know, people are always in more than one.
You always have more than one interest and you'll know people in different groups. And so it's not so much individual groups, but this big interconnected web of people. And so, harnessing that power for good is a really neat thing, and it's great that we can do that.
Gray: We are heading towards the end of our time available.
we normally, at the end of our show, when we're interviewing someone, we have what we call lightning round. But we've already done a lightning round with you because you've been here before. So, I thought it might be kind of interesting if you can put yourself into the headspace of the [00:42:00] Murderbot, the sec unit, we do the Murderbot lightening round. So we have some questions tailored to that. Zay, you can go ahead with the first one.
Zay: We did warn Martha of this before we did the show.
Martha Wells: My brian's gonna work. Sometimes it doesn't want to work. Hopefully, hopefully it'll happen.
Zay: Okay, but feel free to skip whichever ones that aren't working for you, but what would your energy source of choice be
Martha Wells: Probably ART' s onboard drivetrain.
Gray: I guessed that one, I got that one, right! When I was imagining, like what would it be?, I bet you something on ART. Yeah.
Zay: Pay attention guys, this is going to be a trivia question.
Gray: what would, be your favorite armor or weapon of choice?
Martha Wells: A drone, actually a lot of drones, like several, several hundred drones.
Gray: I'm two for [00:43:00] two. I know I came up with this question. I'm like, imagining how you answered them.
Zay: What early 21st century serial drama of choice?
Martha Wells: That's a hard one. Um...
Zay: Are there any that like come to mind right off the bat?
Martha Wells: The one Sanctuary Moon is based on is, How to Get Away with Murder and it's basically How to Get Away with Murder in space, on a space colony far future space colony. So you'd have all this soap opera drama, you know, basically you'd have a lot of, Action with being attacked by Raiders , and things going wrong and having to be repaired in these desperate situations and natural disasters being interrupted by these really extreme soap opera drama.
Gray: Gotcha. Well that follows up to the next question, which is what is your favorite moment or character in Sanctuary Moon?
Martha Wells: Probably the colony solicitor, one who had the clone [00:44:00] baby. That's, Murderbot's definitely Murderbot's favorite character.
Zay: what's a non-functional item that you carry around with you for no discernible reason? Aside from humans.
Martha Wells: A bag.
Gray: Just a bag
Martha Wells: A bag. Sometimes it does put things in its bag, but most of the time it's just, it's just there to look like... it needs to have a bag.
Gray: Oh that's right. Yeah. Because that way it can blend in. Yes, that's right.
Zay: I forgot about that.
Gray: Okay. Here's the last one, which is the magic wand question. I have a magic wand and if had a magic wand, Murderbot can make anyone throughout history, real or imagined alive or dead, shut the fuck up. Who would it be?
Martha Wells: Oh God, I know who I'd pick. Um... um...
Zay: I'd like to hear both answers, please.
Gray: Yeah.
Martha Wells: There's so many answers, but the one that sort of comes to the top is Ted Cruz.
[00:45:00] Gray: Ah, there you go.
Martha Wells: Murderbot would probably, I haven't developed these characters yet, but there's probably people in the corporation rim that put forward the idea of indentured servitude that, Murderbot would want to shut up.
I'll say mine, and actually, I don't really tie the murder bot world to our world very much, but if I did, Elon Musk would probably be, be another choice that Murderbot probably would like to shut up.
Gray: Perfect. That was a more fun thing than I thought. Well, thanks, Martha. We really appreciate that. And , we may have to do more like character.
Lightning rounds with people. That's kind of fun.
Martha Wells: It's fun! It's a lot of fun.
Gray: Real quick, before we go into our close, I want to acknowledge, because I saw her in the chat. We got this in the mail recently. It's a beautiful little envelope. And inside [00:46:00] there is a, apparently B's is going to be the theme for today.
And then to make it a really magical...
Martha Wells: Oh neat!
Gray: There is actually a bee that popped up. Emberant E'lir thank you so much for your card and the thing here that we got. It is things like this that really make, make our day, especially... I came back to the office now you may see now. And, honestly, I thought it would be fun and happy to come back here, but, since there's just me and one person off in the warehouse, it's like, well, I feel like I'm even more isolated. So, um...
Martha Wells: Now you're isolated away from your home.
Gray: Yeah, exactly. Now I must leave from home and, in my office with the door closed because we can't be breathing the same air yet. So yeah, it's a little rough, but thank you, Emberant E'lir, that was awesome. Uh, saucefire, you can come play in the warehouse anytime you want.
He just said in the chat saucefire is definitely welcome. Our door's always open. Cool. I guess it's time to do the tuning next week thing. Zay you want to talk about what's coming up?
[00:47:00] Zay: Yeah. In a week we have some Worldbuilders, fantasy writers coming on The next week after that.
So in two weeks, Heather Slootsky, from the virtual JoCo Cruise will be coming on. Might also have another special guest with them. So join in for that. Gray, you want to take it away?
Gray: Sure. We do have, we're lining up people right and left, to come in and talk about various things.
We have a lot of cost players that are going to be coming in as we build up to the Geeks Doing Good fundraiser, and several others. But if you have someone that you'd like to suggest, please do let us know. We're always looking for gamers, developers, authors, of course, artists, or just people who are geeky.
We just enjoy having people who are very enthusiastic about their subjects and love to share their enthusiasm, and just let us know by commenting or tagging us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or as Zay says, email questions@worldbuilders.org.
Zay: Yeah. And, just one more time, thank you so much, Martha, for coming on, [00:48:00] you guys can join us here every week at noon on Tuesdays. And this week's sign off is Veeva bot.
Martha Wells: Thank you.
Gray: All right. Thanks Martha. See you later.
Patrick Rothfuss: Thanks for tuning in to Worldbuilders Weekly, everyone. Take care of yourselves and take care of the people you love.