Murderbot Diaries author Martha Wells appearing at San Antonio’s Nowhere Bookshop this week

In addition to the Murderbot series, Martha Wells has written multiple works of fantasy fiction. Credit: Lisa Blaschke

Texas author Martha Wells has written fantasy and science fiction for three decades, but it was her series The Murderbot Diaries that launched her into the stratosphere.

The seven-novella sf series — which involves a cyborg who hacks its operating system to gain free will — has won four Hugo and two Nebula awards and put the College Station resident on the New York Times Bestsellers list.

This summer, AppleTV released a 10-part TV adaptation of Murderbot starring award-winning actor Alexander Skarsgard in the main role.

Wells will appear at San Antonio’s Nowhere Bookshop at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, to celebrate the release of Queen Demon, the anticipated sequel to her fantasy novel Witch King. Tickets for the event are available online.

Queen Demon and Witch King mark Wells’ return to fantasy fiction after the runaway success of Murderbot — a series that began in 2018 and she’s still continuing.

The Current caught up with Wells by phone before her San Antonio appearance to discuss any apprehensions she had about turning over Murderbot to AppleTV, her love for complex protagonists and the writing inspiration she finds in Texas.

Going into the creation of the Murderbot series, what was your biggest apprehension about seeing it brought to the screen? It can go wrong in so many ways. Was there a moment where you finally were able to relax and say, “OK, yes, they’re getting this right?”

Well, the first time I talked to them, I knew they kind of got the material, and then once the contract was signed and everything, and we talked on the phone again, I still felt that way.

We also were in communication a lot, talking about stuff, and they sent me production paintings, and the drawings of what they wanted the sets to look like, and the costumes — all these things.

So, yeah, I never really had that much apprehension. I think the only one I had was that something would go wrong at some point and it wouldn’t get made.

When you first started writing, did you ever think something you published might become a TV or movie property?

Well, I think everybody hopes that at some point, and I know a lot of writers who had stuff optioned and it never got made.

So, you kind of hope it could happen to something of yours. But the idea that it would not only get options, but go all the way through and be on TV, be actually be produced and everything, you want to hope for that, but you just think it’s so unrealistic.

Murderbot was an interesting career trajectory considering you were more known for writing fantasy than science fiction up to that point. Did it ever feel weird that of all the things you’d done, that series would be the one to blow up?

I don’t think it was weird. It was just … Well, the whole thing was kind of strange. I didn’t really think anything was ever going to blow up like that. As a writer, I don’t see that much difference between science fiction and fantasy. The kind of space opera fantasy that Murderbot is — very far future, made up technology and things like that. But it surprises me that it was a novella [rather than a novel] that really went there.

Queen Demon is Martha Wells' latest novel. Queen Demon is Martha Wells’ latest novel. Credit: Courtesy Photo / Tor Books

What do you chalk that up to? Is it that people like shorter reads these days?

Well, I think there’s always been a reader’s appetite for works of that length. Because, I mean, science fiction was mostly short novels in the pulp days, and early on, and it only started getting into longer works later. So, I think that probably helped that it was novella length.

But also, I just think Tor.com had really been building up their mailing list and doing really good marketing, and I think I already had an audience from the fantasy books. It wasn’t a huge audience, but it was out there, and so, I think it was right publisher, right story, right time. It was just luck.

With your latest epic fantasy, Queen Demon, the main character’s a sympathetic demon, and Murderbot isn’t exactly a typical protagonist either. You seem to have a fair amount of work where the main character is sympathetic but has a dark backstory.

Yeah, I think I do like to do that. I like to try to write characters that in a different story would be the bad guy.

There you go. I think you articulated it better than I could. (Laughs.)

Yeah, I like writing a slightly outsider point of view, and just that, I don’t know, it’s not really that bad guys are more interesting, because I don’t think my characters are actually bad guys, but it’s the perception of their actions, and just the different viewpoints of playing with that, I guess.

The new novel’s gotten a lot of praise, as did its predecessor. Did the publisher have any concern about you jumping from such a hot science fiction property back into fantasy?

Not really, because I’ve been writing. I was still working. I still did Murderbot. I mean, I have another completed Murderbot novella coming out next May. So, they didn’t seem to have a problem with that at all.

Your publicist from Tor hinted that I should ask you about how you’re inspired by your hometown of College Station. I wasn’t aware College Station had crept into your works, but I’m eager to hear what the connection is.

Well, I have a lot of friends there, and I’ve lived there a long time. I think, mainly, it’s not necessarily College Station, it’s living in Texas and seeing places like Galveston, where so much of the past is still there.

I mean, there are so many towns — and Galveston is just a really good example of it — where you walk down the street, and you can see Victorian buildings along with buildings from the ’60s and the ’50s, and the ’70s and the 2000s. It’s sort of all still there.

Our past is so terrible at times, but it’s layered in with all the good things. It just makes the feeling of history, I think, a lot more alive to me. So that is definitely an inspiration.

When you set about to create a world, like the world you created for Witch King and Queen Demon, how much time do you spend developing that milieu before you sit down and start writing the first scene?

Not much, really. I kind of like to develop it as I start writing. Because one of the things I use to try to make it more accessible is really only telling the reader what they need to know to understand what’s going on in that scene, or sentence, or whatever.

I think if I did a lot of development before I started writing, a lot of it would be wasted. It’s actually more fun for me to come up with it as I go along, and then just stop it if I need to look something up, and do that real quick and just put it together, so the world building feels very integrated with the story.

$35.16 (includes price of book), 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, Nowhere Bookshop, 5154 Broadway, (210) 640-7260, nowherebookshop.com.

Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.

Murderbot Diaries author Martha Wells appearing at San Antonio’s Nowhere Bookshop this week

Tags: