{"id":14183,"date":"2025-10-21T17:15:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T17:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/14183\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T17:15:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T17:15:13","slug":"murderbot-diaries-author-martha-wells-appearing-at-san-antonios-nowhere-bookshop-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/14183\/","title":{"rendered":"Murderbot Diaries author Martha Wells appearing at San Antonio\u2019s Nowhere Bookshop this week\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"InIn addition to the Murderbot series, Martha Wells has written multiple works of fantasy fiction. Credit: Lisa Blaschke<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The seven-novella sf series \u2014\u00a0which involves a cyborg who hacks its operating system to gain free will \u2014\u00a0has won four Hugo and two Nebula awards and put the College Station resident on the New York Times Bestsellers list.<\/p>\n

This summer, AppleTV released a 10-part TV adaptation of Murderbot starring award-winning actor Alexander Skarsgard in the main role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wells will appear at San Antonio\u2019s 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<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Queen Demon and Witch King mark Wells\u2019 return to fantasy fiction after the runaway success of Murderbot \u2014\u00a0a series that began in 2018 and she\u2019s still continuing.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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, \u201cOK, yes, they\u2019re getting this right?\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014\u00a0all these things.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t get made.<\/p>\n

When you first started writing, did you ever think something you published might become a TV or movie property?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s so unrealistic.<\/p>\n

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\u2019d done, that series would be the one to blow up?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think it was weird. It was just \u2026 Well, the whole thing was kind of strange. I didn\u2019t really think anything was ever going to blow up like that. As a writer, I don\u2019t see that much difference between science fiction and fantasy. The kind of space opera fantasy that Murderbot is \u2014\u00a0very 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.<\/p>\n

\"QueenQueen Demon is Martha Wells\u2019 latest novel. Credit: Courtesy Photo \/ Tor Books<\/p>\n

What do you chalk that up to? Is it that people like shorter reads these days?<\/p>\n

Well, I think there\u2019s always been a reader\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t a huge audience, but it was out there, and so, I think it was right publisher, right story, right time. It was just luck.<\/p>\n

With your latest epic fantasy, Queen Demon, the main character\u2019s a sympathetic demon, and Murderbot isn\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

There you go. I think you articulated it better than I could. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

Yeah, I like writing a slightly outsider point of view, and just that, I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s not really that bad guys are more interesting, because I don\u2019t think my characters are actually bad guys, but it\u2019s the perception of their actions, and just the different viewpoints of playing with that, I guess.<\/p>\n

The new novel\u2019s 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?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not really, because I\u2019ve 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\u2019t seem to have a problem with that at all.<\/p>\n

Your publicist from Tor hinted that I should ask you about how you\u2019re inspired by your hometown of College Station. I wasn\u2019t aware College Station had crept into your works, but I\u2019m eager to hear what the connection is.<\/p>\n

Well, I have a lot of friends there, and I\u2019ve lived there a long time. I think, mainly, it\u2019s not necessarily College Station, it\u2019s living in Texas and seeing places like Galveston, where so much of the past is still there.<\/p>\n

I mean, there are so many towns \u2014\u00a0and Galveston is just a really good example of it \u2014\u00a0where you walk down the street, and you can see Victorian buildings along with buildings from the \u201960s and the \u201950s, and the \u201970s and the 2000s. It\u2019s sort of all still there.<\/p>\n

Our past is so terrible at times, but it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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\u2019s going on in that scene, or sentence, or whatever.<\/p>\n

I think if I did a lot of development before I started writing, a lot of it would be wasted. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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

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