{"id":39599,"date":"2026-10-16T08:37:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T12:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/?p=39599"},"modified":"2026-10-16T08:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T12:37:47","slug":"martha-wells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2026\/10\/16\/martha-wells\/","title":{"rendered":"Savor Shao Mai with Martha Wells in Episode 295 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eating the Fantastic’s Worldcon began Thursday as many were still arriving in Anaheim for our found family’s annual gathering when I headed off to lunch with Martha Wells<\/a>, who due to the astounding success of her stories set in the Murderbot universe has become well-known even outside the science fiction and fantasy community.<\/p>\n

But Martha is so much more than that. She\u2019s written multiple fantasy series, including\u00a0Ile-Rien<\/em>,\u00a0Books of the Raksura<\/em>, the Rising World<\/em> series, and the Young Adult\u00a0Emilie<\/em>, in addition to standalone fantasy novels, as well as books in the Star Wars<\/em> and Stargate<\/em> universes. She\u2019s won four Hugo Awards for her writing, plus shared in a fifth this year when “All Systems Red,” an episode of Murderbot which aired on Apple TV, won Dramatic Presentation: Short Form. Plus she was on the this year\u2019s Hugo Awards ballot for her novelette “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy.”<\/p>\n

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She\u2019s also won two Nebula Awards and a Dragon Award, and has been a finalist\u00a0for the Philip K. Dick\u00a0Award, the Ignyte\u00a0Award, the World Fantasy Award, and others. And it should never be forgotten she was first a fan \u2014 she was even chair of\u00a0AggieCon\u00a017 during her college days \u2014 which you\u2019ll hear us talk about this episode.<\/p>\n

We discussed how Imposter Syndrome never truly goes away, the way Starlog<\/em> introduced her to fandom, which novel allowed her to discover her own voice, why it took “hundred of drafts” to figure out where she was heading with the first book in her Rising World<\/em> series, the surprising benefits of pantsing novels, her ease in bouncing back and forth between series, which Murderbot plot demanded the existence of a character who wasn’t originally intended to be in the story, Bruce Sterling’s workshop advice which helped her with descriptions, whether there’s any difference between the audience reading her fantasy all along and those brought in by the recent success of her science fiction, the period her writing career stalled and she thought of becoming a personal trainer, how she decides which should be the next Murderbot tale to tell, why she was moved to write a story for the Tanith Lee tribute anthology, how COVID-19 affected her writing output, the advice she’d give her younger self (as well as those just starting out), plus much more.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how you can join us at Din Tai Fung <\/a> — <\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> — or wherever<\/a> you choose to consume your podcasts — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 294 previous episodes.<\/p>\n

2) Listen via the RSS feed of http:\/\/eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com\/rss<\/a> on the device of your choice.<\/p>\n

3) Or simply use the embed below.<\/p>\n