I wanted to love Daredevil. The casting was exemplary: Charlie Cox, Elden Henson, and Deborah Ann Woll made a perfect Nelson-Murdoch-Page family triangle, and Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpin was a mind-blowing idea. Whoever came up with that one, I hope you’re still blissfully drinking champagne as all your friends and loved ones toast your incredible cleverness. Rosario Dawson was fantastic and it was nice to see Scott Glenn again, even though he did bring with him that first hint of “Uh oh,” because he’s one of those actors who lately seems to specialize in things that, ultimately, turn out to be not that good. (Also in this category: Gabriel Byrne and Donald Sutherland.)
Martha Wells answers the Heroine Question
A (barely) belated Happy Book Birthday to Martha Wells, whose Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two
I asked Martha a few questions about her literary heroines. Here’s what she had to say:
Is there a literary heroine on whom you imprinted as a child? A first love, a person you wanted to become as an adult, a heroic girl or woman you pretended to be on the playground at recess? Who was she?
Okay, this is going to sound weird, but it was Erma Bombeck.
What qualities of hers captured your affections and your imagination so strongly?
My mother had her books, Just Wait Until You Have Children of Your Own, I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression, and The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank. I remember the first one attracted my attention (I was probably around ten, maybe younger) because it had cartoons in it by Bill Keane. I know I liked it at first because it was funny stories about a family, and I was an extremely lonely kid. But it was also probably my first realization that authors of books were a) real people, and b) could be women. Here was this woman who lived a normal life in the suburbs and was a wife and a mother, but she also had a career as a writer. I think this was my first inkling that me becoming a writer was possible, that it wasn’t an impossible thing to want.
How does she compare to the female characters in your work? Is she their literary ancestor? What might your own heroines owe her?
I think her sense of humor made a huge impression on me, and probably helped form how I do characterization and humor in my own books, probably more than I realize. I haven’t re-read those books since I was in college, and I still remember lines and scenes from them. And she was the hero of her own stories, the one who had to deal with everything and who made mistakes but got things done. So Erma Bombeck probably is the literary ancestor of my female heroes.
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About this post: it has been awhile since I did an interview series, and I’ve been wanting to ask some of my colleagues and friends about their artistic influences and their heroines. I’m planning to arrange for you all to see answers to these three questions, and variations on them, popping up throughout the summer from a number of terrific authors. Enjoy! (Or, better yet, comment, tweet, and repost!)
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More about Martha Wells: She is the author of The Wizard Hunters, and the nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as the YA fantasies, short stories, and non-fiction. She has had stories in Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Stargate Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and in the anthologies Elemental, Tales of the Emerald Serpent, and The Other Half of the Sky. She has also written the media-tie-ins, Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary, Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement, and Star Wars: Razor’s Edge. Her web site is www.marthawells.com.
Take the “Waters of Versailles” cure!
Kelly’s Tor.com novella “Waters of Versailles
Kelly was working on this story in the months before we decided to leave Vancouver, and on through the stretch when we were, literally, in transition. It was a intense and freaky time, as we scrambled to figure out how to get ourselves and the cats across the country. Even at the height of the chaos, there were mornings where we would get up, walk the mile or so to Kafka’s, on Main Street, and spend a couple hours there drinking espresso and working at their beautiful communal project tables. We were still getting settled, here in Toronto when she finished the novella. Despite a massively multilayered upheaval on our homefront and in our working lives, Kelly didn’t put a foot wrong with the writing.
Sure, I’m biased… but Ellen Datlow says it makes her cry every time she reads it.*
“Waters of Versailles” is historical fantasy, and Kelly sometimes describes it as a story about “sex, magic, and plumbing.” It is also about deciding who you are going to be–about trimming away the frills and focusing on what matters. It is funny, sexy, heartbreaking, and frightening by turns. The backdrop of the palace and courtier culture is rich, beautifully researched, and–just to make it extra rich and delicious–infused with magic.
In other news, it has a gorgeous cover, by artist Kathleen Jennings.
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*And all you people who want to sell to Ellen, I bet you want to know what makes her cry. My darling, that’s what.
007 Shades of Bondage with my wife
I got up this morning to the news that Child of a Hidden Sea
The full Sunburst 2015 longlist is here.
. She has written on her own blog about why this story makes her obscenely happy. And she should be. It is a furry, sick, snow-covered, ultra-bizarre thrill ride of a coming of age tale for the lovely honey trap Tatiana Romanova.On The Loose in Stirling’s Emberverse
arrived today, and after about four failed attempts to get a decent picture of myself with the book, I caved to the obvious and shot it with the cat instead. Lorenzo appreciates a good alternate history, I imagine, given that he’s named for a Medici.The totem marking the pass to the Fortress of Solitude was an enormous man with skin the color of cream, clad in blue and red and with a big “S” emblazoned on his chest.
If not for his size, Finch might have believed him real. The blue of his eyes blazed with lively intensity as they bored down into hers, and his cape rippled in the wind in a way that made him seem as athrum with life as any cub or grown adult. His jet-black hair was real–horse, perhaps?–braided in long strands, bound with beads and feathers. The illusion was so perfect she thought she saw him tilt a brow . . . but then her pinto danced sideways and she saw the old man on the platform, putting a finishing lick of red paint on one red boot.
This kickin’ anthology also has stories by Walter Jon Williams, Kier Salmon, Jane Lindskold, John Barnes and of course by the antho editor and creator of the Emberverse, the aforementioned S.M. Stirling. It’ll be available for sale this weekend. Go, buy, and enjoy!