Speaker A
Welcome, friends, here at Norwestcon and at home. We are the Inktoilm podcast, where we read the book and then see the movie. I'm writer Luke Elliot, and I'm filmmaker James Bailey.
Ursula Vernon (T. Kingfisher) discusses retellings, her novel What Moves the Dead, and influences from classic horror and pulp fiction.
Key Takeaways
- Retellings allow authors to engage deeply with classic stories, adding new perspectives and expanding narratives.
- Effective worldbuilding and info dumps can be done elegantly to maintain reader interest.
- Early literary influences shape an author's approach to genre and storytelling.
- What Moves the Dead is a respectful yet innovative retelling of Poe's work, blending homage with original creativity.
- Audience engagement enriches discussions about literature and adaptation.
What the video covers
- The podcast episode features Ursula Vernon, aka T. Kingfisher, discussing her novel What Moves the Dead and the concept of retellings in fiction.
- Hosts Luke Elliot and James Bailey explore Vernon's favorite retellings, including Robin McKinley's works like Spindle's End.
- Vernon shares her early exposure to classic literature, including Poe, Conan Doyle, and Jack London, and how it influenced her writing.
- The conversation highlights Vernon's approach to retellings, info dumps, and worldbuilding techniques.
- What Moves the Dead is a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, blending original elements with new additions.
- Vernon discusses her previous horror novels inspired by pulp fiction stories such as Arthur Machen's The White People and Algernon Blackwood's The Willows.
- The episode includes audience interaction and questions about Vernon's works and writing process.
- Vernon reflects on the challenges and freedoms of adapting classic stories into new narratives.
- The discussion touches on Vernon's humor and personal anecdotes about reading and literary preferences.
- The episode is part of a two-part series, with a separate episode focused on the novel itself.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Favorite Retellings
- 02:30About Ursula Vernon and T. Kingfisher
- 04:50Discussion of What Moves the Dead and Poe's Influence
- 07:40Vernon's Early Literary Influences
- 10:40Previous Horror Novels and Pulp Fiction Inspirations
- 13:00Writing Process and Info Dumps
- 18:30Audience Questions and Closing Remarks
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
And this week, with the help of a live audience, we sit down. [cheering] We're sitting down with Ursula Vernon, aka Tek King Fischer, to discuss her novel, What Moves the Dead? [laughter] All right. So, uh, around here we
Speaker A
typically talk about books and their film adaptations. We like to spend time on each medium, give it its due, but today we're talking about retellings.
Speaker A
So, our typical icebreaker is, what's your favorite adaptation? We're going to twist that a little bit. What is your favorite retelling in fiction?
Speaker A
Can I do fairy tales? Sure. Absolutely. Okay. Um, I adore Robin McKinley's Spindle's End and Rose Daughter. Those are both great.
Speaker A
Thank you. I have the hat. I am now officially Tek King Fischer. Uh, this is, uh, this is how we tell the
Speaker A
difference. Yeah. Uh, uh, Robin McKinley's retellings are lovely. They are, they, uh, Spindle's End in particular is an absolute master class in how to do a worldbuilding info dump at the beginning of the book and make it look like dancing and make
Speaker A
you want to read it. It is elegant. I love that. Now I want to read that now. [laughter]
Speaker A
Yeah. Like, I mean, how often, you know, you're used to the sort of italicized prologue of, you know, and then the gods
Speaker A
created the universe and blah blah. No, this one is just fantastic, and it's, uh, Spindle's End at least is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty and, uh, it's, it's really nice.
Speaker A
Very cool. Yeah. So, I wanted to make sure to give you your laurels here real quick. So, if you don't already know, Tingfisher is the pen name used by Ursula Vernon, um, for her adult fiction. Uh, but across all
Speaker A
categories, she has written over 50 novels. Um, and she has won numerous awards including the Hugo, Nebulas, Locus, Dragon, and too many to name honestly, but give it up for her.
Speaker A
[applause] [applause] Thank you all. And also, I want to acknowledge all of the Digger T-shirts in the audience. I am, I am delighted to see how many of those are still in use.
Speaker A
That Kickstarter was years ago, and the shirts still exist and have not fallen apart.
Speaker A
So, it sounds like you really like these retellings. Um, I know that you have written several of them. We actually are, um, reading you for the first time for the podcast. We just covered your book.
Speaker A
That episode is not out yet, but will be coming out next week, and then this episode should follow it. So, if everybody wants to pay attention, it'll be a two-parter. Um, one of us discussing the novel and then this interview. And
Speaker A
I'm curious, so you, you love that particular retelling. When you go to do one of your own, do you find that you're inspired by that one and it, and like influences the way that you approach them?
Speaker A
Frequently I will, um, look at, like, the first chapter info dump and go, can I pull that off here? [laughter] Uh, the answer is usually no, but every now and again I, uh, I do take a stab at
Speaker A
it. It, uh, mostly it was, it was very, uh, freeing in many regards because we, we all, we, we fear the info dump as like, oh god, the readers, you know, just have to keep track of names and they've lost
Speaker A
interest in the book, they have set it down. So knowing that it can be done well, even if I'm not doing it the same way, I'm like, I will give this a stab. I, uh, [snorts] it's not really permission to
Speaker A
info dump, but, uh, I was going to do that anyway because I'll get excited about something, and you all are lucky that What Moves the Dead had to come in under novella length or at novella length because otherwise we would have gotten, um, I was
Speaker A
that the one where I went into the deep dive on the history of canned food.
Speaker A
Yeah, it. [laughter] Uh, oh, I did want to say, um, we are going to take audience questions, uh, at the end of this episode, and what we're going to have you do is come up to this mic, but
Speaker A
don't line up now. Um, we'll let you know when it, you know, it's getting close to the end here. Um, say your name, your pronouns if you would like, and then your question. Uh, we'll leave at least 10, 15 minutes at the end for that. Okay.
Speaker A
So, What Moves the Dead in particular is a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher. Um, and my memory of that is it starts off with, uh, Alex Easton approaching on horseback, uh, very similar to the original. Um, and I immediately
Speaker A
felt at home because this is a project we had covered. We had covered The Fall of Usher previously when The Flanigan Show was coming out. We did it in a bunch of different POV stories.
Speaker A
Um, and so it was like fresh enough in my mind where I was recognizing all of these similarities, uh, characters with the same names. Um, but then there was also additional stuff and new stuff. And I've never written a retelling. Um, it
Speaker A
was a very fascinating experience reading one like this. Um, and so I'm very curious about that process because it feels kind of like an adaptation. You know, usually we do film adaptations, but this is like another kind of
Speaker A
written adaptation of another work. And it, it felt like you were very much in conversation with that original Poe story. So I guess going back to the beginning, like, what inspired you to write this retelling in particular and
Speaker A
like what was your goal behind it? Goal, uh, frequently my goal is, oh, this is interesting. Um, it is embarrassing to say this about an author like Poe, obviously, who is the, you know, father of American horror and all,
Speaker A
but, uh, I, okay, I'll go back. When I was a kid and, uh, reading voraciously anything I could get my hands on, uh, one of those well-meaning relatives who doesn't have any idea what you like except that you're a kid who reads got
Speaker A
me one of those, you know, leatherbound, uh, collection things. Uh, and, uh, for, I, I don't know if it was like a mail order thing or if they just bought, uh, whatever came to hand, but I wound up
Speaker A
with the collected Poe, the collected Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the collected Jack London. I was nine.
Speaker A
[laughter] Perfect. And, uh, sure, I'll, oh, wow. There's a lot about being buried alive. All right, cool. [laughter] Okay. Actually, I have to be honest. I read the Jack London first because I liked animals. Um, that was, that, uh, may
Speaker A
have traumatized me a little, but, uh, the, uh, uh, but Poe was, you know, I'm like, oh, wow, those are really cool, and, uh, my mother, who was very, very, you know, you should read the classics, you should, uh,
Speaker A
God lover, she, uh, she tried very hard to get me to read, uh, improving literature, and, uh, I, it's very hard to get a nine-year-old interested in Moby Dick and [laughter] uh, so then she went to a project of reading them aloud to me, and
Speaker A
uh, that fell down when I burst into tears because I was afraid something would happen to the whale. [laughter] So, uh, this probably tells you everything you need to know about me at night.
Speaker A
What's that story about again? Yeah. Uh, [laughter] so anyway, uh, she kind of gave up after that. That and when I swore a blood oath I would never read Jane Eyre as long as I lived, which I have held to. I am 48. Uh,
Speaker A
[laughter] and, uh, I may have missed some classics, but, uh, from what I've read of the plot summary, Jane Eyre gets really weird. So [laughter] anyway, um, so I had read Poe. I was reading all this Poe at a very young age,
Speaker A
and then as an adult, um, I had actually done two other sort of, uh, I guess they were pulp fiction retellings. My first horror novel was, uh, based on Arthur Machen's The White People, and then the next one, The Hollow Places, was based
Speaker A
on, uh, Algernon Blackwood's The Willows. And both of those I had picked because I was reading old pulp, and a lot of it is terrible, but, you know, I mean, which no shame on it, you know, they called it
Speaker A
pulp for a reason. Uh, but like The Willows freaked me out still. I'm like, you know, in my 40s, and I'm like, no, this, this has something. And The White People was a combination of something here is creepy and I want to take an
Speaker A
editorial red pen to this, uh, because it was one of those found manuscript, uh, sort of things where the narrat
Speaker A
of the house of a was like oh wait you know I oh I read but I was a kid let me read it and the two things that struck me is first of all well three things first of all it's very short like and I
Speaker A
I don't know if it was because I was nine or because it's so large in the kind of cultural consciousness, but I thought it was much longer than it really was. And uh secondly, Po really gets it like we were having a moment of
Speaker A
uh of fungus horror and uh uh or spor as they tried to call it. [laughter] I hadn't heard that term.
Speaker A
And uh this book is is one of them. It was about funguses. And I swear all the authors, we did not like collaborate on this. We all just handed in the same book at the same time. [laughter] I think it was because we all read the
Speaker A
same article in Scientific American like three years earlier, but you hardly have to go anywhere for the fungus in that book because the the whole thing is like, you know, Po is just going on about the sickening vegetable humors and
Speaker A
things. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah. I know. This is halfway there already." But the primary thing that struck me is the narrator is unbelievably useless. like and a just a crap friend in in a bad situation. Like I mean, okay, you're
Speaker A
staying with your friend while he slowly loses his mind. That is nice of you. But when his sister, who is buried alive, rises from the grave, you know, Roder Crusher screams and falls down. Maline Usher screams and falls down. The
Speaker A
narrator screams, runs out of the house, which then falls down. [laughter] He at no point does he check anyone for a pulse. He does not try to drag anyone out of the, you know, uh, falling masonry. He's just like, "Oh, God, the
Speaker A
horrors and runs." And I'm like, "This would be a very different book if someone competent was in the room." [laughter] And uh uh yes, this this was incredibly arrogant of me to be like, "I'm going to fix this." But I did not realize that
Speaker A
until basically the book had been published and I was at the first event for it. Someone was like, "Wow, were you like, you know, humbled at at rewriting Po and were you thinking that it was an arrogant project to attempt?" And I'm
Speaker A
like, "Not until you said something." Uh [laughter] so uh yeah, I I basically just kind of set out to be like this is a really interesting idea. I want more and I want someone who doesn't suck to be in it.
Speaker A
And uh so Alex Eastston in one of those rare lovely events, I like wrote three sentences and then Eastston was on the page going, "Okay, come on. I got places to be." And I'm like, "Wow, it's really nice when that happens. I wish it would
Speaker A
happen more often. That's amazing. Uh, another element that that I mean is just iconic to this story is the hairs. And I'm curious, uh, we specifically were talking about some of the dissection sequence, which I don't know if we've actually said this, but we
Speaker A
are going to spoil this book. Yeah, we are. We ask that when you come to the to the Q&A session here, uh, you don't speak about further books because we are going to continue them. So, we don't want any spoilers.
Speaker A
Personally, don't spoil the other books, but this book is fair game. Yeah. So, the dissection sequence, first of all, extremely creepy the way that uh the hairs go against what expectations are, the way that they're kind of crawling around. But during the
Speaker A
dissection, I also read Watership Down at Way too young. Okay. See, that's what I was curious if if there were some of those influences coming in. And uh we're curious about like the way that you were able to give
Speaker A
answers in that dissection sequence, but leave enough mystery for the the kind of horror to still be there. How did you walk that line? And then, yeah, if you can speak more about the hairs, that'd be great. Honestly, uh, a lot of the the
Speaker A
lines I'm walking, I'm not like sitting here thinking I will reveal this and no more. I'm just a lot of it is like hindbrain instinct. [clears throat] Um, or I will reveal as much as I know and then I'm like, okay.
Speaker A
And now I have to uh invent further horror to reveal later. Uh, it's uh I am not I I do not plot things out. I do not go okay and here we reveal this and here we reveal this. I'm just like, let's
Speaker A
figure out what's going on. Half the time I don't know what's going on. I uh I this one I I had a fairly good idea what what the issue was because uh which was fungus up because uh just nollas are
Speaker A
such a tight form that with a novel I can dick around for you know chapters and chapters but uh nolla it's like you get 40,000 words and uh you better make them count. So, I think by the time I
Speaker A
was writing the dissection scene, I knew what was going on, but I uh it's possible I just did not have enough space to like dump all the cool things I wanted to talk about. And there were also there was the problem this one uh
Speaker A
this series writing historical uh speculative fiction is hard because the uh the problem is what can people know given the scientific knowledge at the time essentially. So I was sitting there going through when, you know, when were my celium discovered, when is this
Speaker A
fungus discovered? Uh, and at one point I was trying to find uh online scans of back issues from like the 1890s of the entomology journal of the Royal Society and uh which was uh difficult.
Speaker A
[laughter] Uh so cutting edge stuff, right? Yeah. So, there were lots of things that I knew that the characters could not know.
Speaker A
Yeah. And uh I couldn't just, you know, start going on about uh uh thin algae plates acting as uh conductors or whatnot. It was just what are you allowed to know in the book. So, uh some of the dissection
Speaker A
scene might have been me grappling with that. But the hairs, uh, rabbits are creepy.
Speaker A
And I I say this as, uh, well, any any, it's sort of the same way deer are creepy, okay?
Speaker A
And deer are definitely creepy. Uh, because they're supposed to be like very timid prey animals, then anyone who's ever owned a pet rabbit knows it can kick your ass.
Speaker A
And uh, I most people have not had a pet deer. I don't recommend it. They're terrible pets. Uh but uh uh we've probably many of us seen the video of the hunter who sprayed on too much deer pheromone and a buck is just beating the
Speaker A
crap out of him. [laughter] Uh they're uh uh they're much more dangerous. I think the people give them credit for. Again, I loved Waters Ship Down, but also uh we expect them to be, you know, prey and to act like prey. And
Speaker A
when they start acting sort of predatory, it gets really alarming really quick. Like the hind brain goes, "This is not okay. This is not how the world works. The food chain has been upended. Oh Jesus." So yeah.
Speaker A
Okay. So with all that context, we want your advice. If hair started showing up at the convention center right now, what's your first move? What should we do?
Speaker A
And they're and they're behaving as they do in the book. Correct. Yeah. If they weren't behaving like that, I would be like, "Check around to see whose emotional support hair got." [laughter] But uh if they start acting creepy like
Speaker A
that, I would uh immediately slather yourself with hand sanitizer from head to toe and then leave the building and uh perhaps declare uh uh get someone in hazmat suits. [laughter] Uh yes, you don't have anybody on speed dial for
Speaker A
Sicilian sulfur. [laughter] Uh not uh not off the top of my head. Uh but if we can get a hold of Shannon Magcguire, I'm pretty sure she does.
Speaker A
[laughter] Good to know. So, it seemed to me that identity was at like the core of this story in this retelling. Uh, Alex Eastston is from a uh fictional nation of Galatia. Um, and uses Kakan pronouns which is associated with being
Speaker A
You can use they though cuz I always use they cuz I can't remember my own damn fictional pronouns.
Speaker A
Okay. Okay. In fact, there was a point where the copy editor came back and was all, "You have used your own pronouns wrong. I have made you [laughter] a chart." I'm like, "Thank you.
Speaker A
I keep the chart. Yeah. Okay. So, they are in the uh the service for this country and and use these pronouns. Uh Kakhan and um I was like, "Oh, this is such a fascinating uh twist on what you would expect for Alex
Speaker A
Eastston, right?" Um and then I started thinking about identity as we as we progressed through the story. And it felt like uh Maline Usher has had her identity sort of stolen by this substance. And then it wants to take
Speaker A
further identities. wants to absorb Alex as well. And so it felt like, you know, the identity was under assault in a way of maybe perhaps conformity um trying to force itself in some way. And then uh yeah, this instead of the house falling
Speaker A
down and sort of a a tragic um ending for the original story, you know, we're burning the thing down. Uh we're fighting back. We're getting, you know, we're getting we're taking care of the lake. Um, and yeah, it felt kind of
Speaker A
triumphant and like an assertion of uh being different than that conformity was trying to force. Am I even close with all of that? Does that sound right at all?
Speaker A
I mean, interpretations are very rarely wrong. Uh, like, uh, no, that's that's fascinating. Every now and again, someone will tell me the themes of my book, and I'll be like, "Wow, you're right. I have to sit with that for a
Speaker A
little bit." Uh, no, that is that is definitely one way to read it. and uh it uh it works. The uh uh other uh the sort of like flip side of that that I've also heard is that it's a first contact story
Speaker A
and the military it up. Uh and because and I can see that like someone said that to me. I'm like, "Oh yeah, if this book was set like 300 years later, we would be rooting for Maline Usher and the uh and the fungus."
Speaker A
uh and uh the people yelling burn it down, you know, uh the horrible alien species is uh uh would be the enemy. But so it's funny and part of that is just at that point it's the technology level
Speaker A
because uh there is no safe way for the the fungal creature to exist in Alex's world because even if it is completely innocent and I think uh I we we probably had to cut for length a a discussion
Speaker A
about uh uh original sin and fungus. But uh even if it is it is completely innocent monster essentially there is no quarantine protocol in 1890 uh whatever like uh it's deliberately a little vague what 1890. [clears throat] So uh the there is no way that the
Speaker A
fungus creature can exist with humanity safely because uh soon you know it it if even if it doesn't mean like harm. it is too powerful and it can absorb you know people and it's like in 300 years maybe
Speaker A
you could have it around and develop protocols where it could exist but uh yeah in the current technology the only like logical thing to do to save the world is to burn the house down. So, uh, this was a problem I kept having when I
Speaker A
was writing children's books. It turns out that, uh, my editor and I kept having the talk of we do not solve our problems with arson. [laughter] So, yeah, that's I'm I'm curious more about this entity. Did you did you see
Speaker A
it as a force of nature, more malicious? It sounds like maybe leaning into some of that.
Speaker A
I thought it was innocent, and innocent is terrifying. This is sort of the if you have no knowledge of good and evil, you can pretty much destroy the world completely innocently. Uh it it's sort of like the uh uh you know the send
Speaker A
things away to the cornfield. Is the kid evil? He's a kid. But if you can't be told no or or have any uh uh understanding of consequences and if you are effectively immortal and if someone's like I don't want to be
Speaker A
absorbed and you're like but you're right here everything you are is still here and you're like yes but also that's a corpse that you're puppeting around with fungus you know. Well yeah but it's all there. Yeah, it's I think Alex's
Speaker A
fear at least is that it even if it's not malicious, it's it's not yet malicious. Sooner or later, it will uh encounter, you know, things in in humans that make it think uh oh no, this is this is a problem. Things will try to to
Speaker A
hurt it and uh it will retaliate and that's the end of humanity more or less.
Speaker A
Particularly when it can like pretend to be anything sort of basically this is the prequel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers kind of thing. So yeah, I'm I'm sure you've probably heard the comparison to annihilation. I was getting a little bit of that like in the
Speaker A
sense that I felt like it was a little bit unknowable and perhaps it wasn't meaning to destroy people, but that it was just kind of a a side effect of how it how it lives that it happens to eat
Speaker A
you and and transform you into something completely unrecognizable. Uh no one's compared it to Annihilation before. Thank you very much.
Speaker A
Completely. Yeah, I was definitely thinking of Annihilation. Oh yeah, I love that book. uh the uh u a steamroller doesn't want to kill you, but you are still flat afterwards.
Speaker A
[laughter] So there is a a large extent to which I was sympathetic for the monster, but the monster still had to die because there was no uh uh no way to to deal with it. And uh uh God knows
Speaker A
there's a long tradition in science fiction of the the monster child that you know kind of thing, you know, the cornfield. I think there was Charlie X and old Star Trek. God, I'm showing my age. Uh things like that. So yeah, it's
Speaker A
it's a uh there are beings too powerful for humans to be able to ethically handle essentially. And at that point, you're just like, I feel terrible about this, but uh we still have to burn the place down.
Speaker A
So it is a little sad. in that sense if you have sympathy for the monster which I found I did a little bit at least.
Speaker A
Um but I didn't also notice that you kept the fates of Meline and Roderick Usher to be the same as the original that they do die. Um so I was curious like at what point you decided you were
Speaker A
going to maintain that. Did that feel essential to keeping it as a retelling? And do you have like opinions about when you if you start to get too far away from the original, it's no longer a retelling. Now you're doing something
Speaker A
different. I think the uh the thing with retellings is and I could not tell you how I decide what bits are essential, but Fall of the House of Usher would feel very weird as a happy ending. Yay, everyone lives.
Speaker A
Um it would be like uh uh I would find it very difficult to rewrite say to pick another one from my youth uh Call of the Wild and yay everybody lives. Uh the I might be able to pull it off as the dude becomes a
Speaker A
hermit who lives in the woods with his dog and is never seen by humans again.
Speaker A
But there is a a uh some fates feel like they're essential to the story. Like if I just wrote a yay, everyone is happy and to follow the house of Usher I that would be like that would feel sort of uh
Speaker A
like I was in an argument with Po. And uh and there are stories written in argument to things like uh see every response to the cold equations where uh uh yeah argue with that story. I will be right there with you. Pilot didn't need
Speaker A
all his limbs. But um the uh uh House of Usher I was not really arguing with Po. I except over his narrator. I was uh like I want to know more and I want more explanation and I want to get deeper into these
Speaker A
bits. Uh, so I was looking at it more like a a uh uh expansion in some regards. Like I was I was still playing in post playground. I didn't want to burn it the playground down. Uh there are some playgrounds you do want to burn
Speaker A
down, but uh not that one. I'm curious about uh the element of introducing a fictional culture like Galatia. Um how does that come about?
Speaker A
like is that is that in service of the um wanting to show the sort of range of pronouns that this culture has or did did the idea of this culture come about first?
Speaker A
It was um uh well I mean to as I'm sure you're aware as you know Bob uh the the fictional small European country goes back to like uh I was it the prisoner of Zenda? I don't even remember the
Speaker A
Ruritanian idol is the the classic. Uh and in fact uh although I only mentioned it like once uh the uh what moves the dead takes place in a other fictional country called Rorabia which was just my nod to that. Uh but uh the idea of Alex
Speaker A
Eastston and the the complicated pronouns from Galatia had been kicking around in my brain for years. Um it was a a combination of a lot of things. Uh the one that probably comes out the most strongly in the book is a uh group in
Speaker A
Albania who uh developed this amazing workaround um that uh women in their society could not hold property. But uh God was was very clear that was that was not okay. But they also had a very high uh male mortality rate. And so
Speaker A
if you were a woman and you were widowed, you then had to move in with your in-laws. You could not have your own household. Very few widows, it turns out, really wanted that. So their workaround was, okay, my daughter is now
Speaker A
a son and my son is allowed to hold the household. And so basically uh uh being uh uh trans in our society today is very much an expression of of personal identity. But in this society it was economic. It was completely you know
Speaker A
there were uh it was largely you know mothers asking their daughters being like look nobody wants to move in with your dad's mother so let's just do this.
Speaker A
And uh they and so you had lots of uh uh sworn women was basically the translation. And I was like, "Oh, this is great. This is this is, you know, the the I I adore the weird cultural workarounds people find." Like, yes, it
Speaker A
would be much easier to just say women can hold property. But if we can't do that, we will find a way around even if we, you know, go through things that uh that other cultures might consider much more immutable uh like gender. So, I'd
Speaker A
had this idea in the back of my head for I don't know how long. And it was and the pronouns were kicking around and were um I took Japanese in high school, four years, retained nothing but a couple of nouns and the swear words. And
Speaker A
but one thing that I remembered was that there were different uh uh words for counting different uh types of object like uh flat things and like an orange and a sheet of paper and a person would use different uh uh counting words and
Speaker A
that blew my mind. we think, you know, like one, two, three is like an immutable kind of, you know, of course you would only have one set for that.
Speaker A
And that was sitting in the back of my brain along and then I think I read Ancillary Justice by Unlucky. Fabulous, fabulous book. And uh where the the default pronouns for everyone are everyone is just called she and it it
Speaker A
blew a lot of people's minds that uh needed to have their minds blown open.
Speaker A
But a friend of mine who is Finnish is like, "Uh, this doesn't actually do anything in Finnish because our pronoun our our our pronoun for like unknown gender is it's neutral. Like if you translate this into Finn, nothing
Speaker A
happens." And uh I was like, "Oh, that's fascinating." And uh I had I had written some fantasy novels where uh there was a a society of uh of strange little badger people who I love uh called nullles. And yeah, [laughter]
Speaker A
and their pronouns were based on what your job was. Uh so if you were if you were like one of the the rag and bone scavenger nulls, you were she. If you were, you know, a a job null, you were
Speaker A
he. if you know and and it went on um I shot myself a foot in the foot a little because I made a throwaway comment that the very highest ranked like priests and doctors and whatnot were uh like are
Speaker A
like oh you are a possessive because they belonged to the whole tribe and that was great up until I had to actually write a scene with one and oh my god what was I thinking oh that was brutal. Uh but uh uh the so the idea of
Speaker A
you know pronouns as different things was sort of in the back of my head. But then Alex Eastston you know uh was a a soldier and uh had and assigned female at birth but how you know and I'm like
Speaker A
okay how how does this work? And and at the same time, Alex is very much in the mold of the like late 1800s kind of adventurer, uh, you know, stiff upper lip, let's go explore the King Solomon's minds type. Uh, which it's it's really
Speaker A
fun to be Alex when I'm writing. They uh they have this this delightful sort of uh uh confidence mixed with self-deprecating humor that is lovely.
Speaker A
Um I uh I am sure they are a terrible colonialist and we would have uh not agree on topics like uh the treatment of India at the time but they were just uh they're so much fun to be uh so yeah it
Speaker A
all came together like in the back of my head and I was not really like planning anything out and then like I said I write the first couple sentences and Alex is right there and I'm like oh huh
Speaker A
and uh then the a society where you know you everything has a different set of pronouns. You give soldiers a particular set of pronouns and then because uh armies are like that, no one ever wrote down that you had to start out as a dude
Speaker A
to become a soldier and you could just join up and then they hand you a new set of pronouns and a gun. And uh I uh uh it's funny the the both you know um the character I suppose and uh also a a fair
Speaker A
number of people uh have come up to you at points and said so this was the gender it turns out that I think I was supposed to be and I'm like great that's wonderful I have no other information for you
Speaker A
please explore it on your own I I made this up sitting in my kitchen. So, yeah. Uh, [laughter] that's [snorts] amazing. So, we are coming up on time where we're going to need to take questions. So, I did want
Speaker A
to ask you though because we normally cover film adaptations uh for the books that we we talk about. Um, have there been any uh options uh secured for any of your works? And is there anything you can reveal about anything that might be
Speaker A
getting any momentum or anything like that? I I can tell you there have been options secured uh for a number of my books over the years, none of which went anywhere. Uh Ridley Scott's production company keeps extending the option on
Speaker A
the Twisted Ones. The odds of them actually making a movie out of it are, you know, one in 999. Uh if they hadn't bought the option, it would be one in a thousand. But the money spends very nicely. That's the great thing about
Speaker A
options. Uh and uh and honestly of my horror novels that would be the one that would make I think the best movie adaptation because it was the one that you could probably adapt most cleanly to uh the screen.
Speaker A
There are some uh books that I have written that everyone would you love to see this movie? Yes, that would be great. But how long do you have? You know, uh can we do a 10p part prestige miniseries? Because that's what it's
Speaker A
going to take. But Fall of the House of or the not What Moves the Dead? Uh you could probably do in a maybe three or four episodes, but which is funny shorter book, you know, longer time to get through
Speaker A
everything. Who knows? I have one more thing selfishly that I'd like to ask. In the fall of the house of Asher, there is a sequence where they read a fantasy story about dragons and it's kind of medieval. What did what did
Speaker A
you take from that and what did you did you consider ever putting any of that into this story?
Speaker A
Uh I I did that was one of those things where I was like uh I can't do this all in 40,000 words. And the original manuscript came in at uh like 40,15 and I was going back and like making
Speaker A
contractions and pulling out single words to get it down. So, okay. So, that actually reminds me of one other. So, uh Roderick Usher by my read of the original story was potentially quite guilty in what happens to his sister. Um, and I felt like the
Speaker A
Roderick Usher in this story was redeemed a little bit and seemed like a little bit more like on top of it, like there is something actually going on. We do need to fight against it. Um, so you talked about wanting to uh, you know,
Speaker A
engage with Alex Eastston, but it seemed like you also had a take on Usher that you wanted to explore.
Speaker A
Yeah. Uh, I was part of the the ambiguity of the original is, uh, uh, is she even dead?
Speaker A
Is she dead? How culpable is Rodri? Uh, is he a murderer? Did he actually think she was dead? And you're not entirely sure. Uh, the Rodri Usher in the post story like is he feeling guilt, but or uh and for a long time in when you first
Speaker A
read, you're like, "Okay, no, he's feeling very guilty because his sister's dead, but she's not dead. Oh, God." And then uh it was interesting, but I uh uh that's honestly kind of hard to sustain.
Speaker A
And so I basically went to uh yes, Rodrik Usher has killed Meline sort of, but maybe not entirely. And he feels guilty as hell about it, you know, because he know he he's trying to cover up the fact
Speaker A
it's a terrible thing. But I don't mind changing up motivations in stories. Uh, and frequently when I do a retelling of any sort, I have a a uh, okay, what sequence of events will make this person's actions logical? Uh,
Speaker A
particularly in fairy tale retellings, because people in fairy tales just do completely nonsensical And I'm like [snorts] okay, what could happen that would make this the actual logical thing for you to be doing? And I think that's something I
Speaker A
carry over to uh a lot of retellings. I started in fairy tales and uh and pulp is a lot like fairy tales in that uh it's a weird setting and uh people do strange and nonsensical things and sometimes there's a moral but a lot of
Speaker A
times there it's just this thing happened. It felt very much to me like that was like like Usher's Roderick Usher's guilt and his potential madness over the guilt is such an essential Po story like he tells the story over and over again. Um,
Speaker A
and so I think changing that felt like a real way to separate this story and why this story exists and making it separate from the original fall.
Speaker A
It's also possible that I thought the original Rodrik was kind of a dick and I wanted to spend time with one who wasn't. [laughter] Yeah, he was a better friend to Alex than the original was for sure. All
Speaker A
right, so we have some time for audience questions. So if you'd like to come line up at the uh at the mic, uh, again, say your name and your pronouns if you like and then your question. Um, Matthew he him. So, I was wondering uh
Speaker A
if you would consider The Tale of Black Mother from Digger to be a retelling.
Speaker A
Oh, interesting. Yeah, it could be. Uh it's uh uh if you have not read Digger and um it's an 800page web comic epic so why would you have uh there is a a sort of story that uh goes through it about
Speaker A
that's a uh sort of strange version of the um of Jesus only much weirder and uh uh his mother ends up killing him and uh but it's a basically a retelling of a very peculiar found mythology among street kids in Florida that an
Speaker A
anthropologist did a write up on that is incredibly fascinating. You can find it online and uh it's like it's very very weird. It's the sort of thing that you get in uh when you uh uh mash Catholicism with well Catholicism
Speaker A
will mash itself with anything. Let's be honest. Um, that's basically Catholicism in a nutshell. Like, I'll take that.
Speaker A
Okay, you got a god there. All right, now I got a saint. So, uh, yeah, but yes, it I think that absolutely counts as a retelling. I just I never thought of it as one, but you are spot on there.
Speaker A
Hi, my name is Kenneth. They them pronouns. Um, you've done a couple different retellings of fairy tales. Did you feel there was any difference in retelling fairy tales versus other stories or was there any different approach you took? uh not that much in
Speaker A
in my head. Uh the frequently with fairy tales I will find one version or I actually I'll read like 50 million versions of them and I will grab a few details and uh I frequently will sort of leave those details in the story as um
Speaker A
or references to them. So, if you happen to have read the original Beauty and the Beast uh from the French Salon version and then you read my Brian and Roses, there will be a couple of things you're like, "Oh, that's a reference to the the
Speaker A
I don't know the fact that uh Beauty had monkey butlers in the original." She does. It's very weird. I have never put monkey butlers in my books. Neither have any other retellings. I have said we are all cowards. That's the reason. But uh
Speaker A
and with pulp uh similarly if you know the original I I will absolutely sort of scatter Easter eggs that are not necessarily essential but uh like in uh uh the hollow places which is based on Blackwood's uh the willows there are um
Speaker A
absolutely references to uh the story and uh at one point it appears that her uncle is in a correspondence with uh someone named Woody who is uh sending strange objects to him. And yeah, so that's about the only difference I think
Speaker A
that and sometimes I have to look up copyright dates. Yeah, thank you. Someday Little House on the Prairie will go out of copyright [laughter] and I am ready.
Speaker A
So, my name is Lauren. She got a couple quick questions. Uh, are we ever going to visit Gear World again? And if you do a Sleeping Beauty rewrite, are you going to have Malaysia plant mint instead of thorns?
Speaker A
Oh, [laughter] uh I second verse I actually did a Sleeping Beauty uh rewrite a Thornhedge uh which is from the point of view of the ferry and uh I went to uh basically it was what is the logical progression
Speaker A
that would lead you to try to lock someone behind a uh a wall of thorns?
Speaker A
Why do you want to keep them in that badly? And um it uh it's a lot of fun. I will not spoiler it, but there's a very good reason. Gearald is um for those who don't know and did not for example read
Speaker A
my live journal 30 years ago, uh which I hope is most of you because otherwise you know terrible terrible things about me. the uh uh it was this sort of weird world full of like uh like a stone
Speaker A
labyrinth full of these strange gears that sometimes moved and sometimes could not possibly move and it would change.
Speaker A
And I sort of pictured it like if every world had or universe had like there was like a door somewhere and you opened it and it was like the access tunnels under Disneyland. It was this sort of like
Speaker A
bizarre uh re world that just ran underneath things. And uh I uh uh it was really cool and one of the few things I've done where I frequently felt like I was not so much inventing it as discovering it.
Speaker A
Um, and back when Twitter did not suck, I did a couple of uh little like uh uh decide by poll RPG almost things where people explored it. That was fabulous and a lot of fun. I wish Blue Sky had
Speaker A
polls. I would do that again. But uh it uh so maybe it it's still definitely there. I uh it's I am reluctant to commercialize it. I kind of feel like that would be a good day way to get
Speaker A
smoked or something. I don't know. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Chelsea. She they pronouns. I just wanted to ask if you're planning to do more uh in the sworn soldier series.
Speaker A
Uh I while we don't have one immediately on the publication schedule, there is a pulp story called uh the people of the pit by a merit which is frankly it's not good. Uh, and Ammerit's pulp stories uh virtually always end with it's a
Speaker A
telepathic slug from another dimension. [laughter] And uh this one is full of telepathic slugs from another dimension. But I there's like one or two details that are genuinely freaky and it has stuck in my head where tons of stories have not. So,
Speaker A
I keep thinking that I need to find a way to get Alex uh to the Yukon, which I really don't want to do to them, but maybe maybe, you know, somewhere in Canada would be fine, and uh uh go there
Speaker A
because it's just cool. Hello, Will. He him. And I'm wondering given childhood history and your mother's efforts if you would ever take a swing at Moby Dick.
Speaker A
Oh god, no. Uh, if I wrote Moby Dick, uh, the like it would be from the point of view of a society of whales discussing what the hell to do about whaling and uh, they would eventually offer Ahab as a
Speaker A
sacrifice to the the, you know, great under god of the sea or something. And uh, I'm in. I was going to say that sounds awesome. Can we do that?
Speaker A
Mhm. Yeah, but the problem is I would have to read Moby Dick and I would just have a red pen going, "This is not actually accurate about whales. This is not true.
Speaker A
This does not happen." Because it turns out Melville was wrong about a lot about the whales and it would just drive me mad. Uh, so possibly.
Speaker A
[laughter] Thank you. Hi, I'm uh Diana Shehur. Um, and I was going to ask way back I have this recollection that way back when you sold Nel and Bone to to you actually had sold them another book that was a Tatterhood
Speaker A
retelling and they were like, "Oh, we don't want to publish this one first because then you'll get like Pigeon Hold as YA." Is that ever going to see the light of day?
Speaker A
It is coming out next year from their YA from their middle-grade imprint actually. Uh, and it is called A Spoon Full of Trouble. And yes, we we uh just uh uh just wrapped it basically. And it's um uh if you've not read Tatter
Speaker A
Hood, it is a weird and delightful fairy tale um that uh the heroine uh hits people with a spoon and rides a goat. And I'm like, well, we got to keep the goat.
Speaker A
[laughter] How do I get the spoon in there? And I I think I did reasonably well, but um it was one of the the few cases where the fairy tale was so bizarre I had to tone it down a little. Uh I'm like, "All
Speaker A
right, uh the evil hag cannot actually take her sister's head off and put a calf's head on her head instead. That's a little weird." Uh let me let me let me do some finagling around here. Uh but yes, it is uh it will be coming out and
Speaker A
no shade to to on this. Um it was the first story I sold sold them and they were like this is great but you're uh let's face it you're a female author. You write a YA thing first. You
Speaker A
the critics say you write YA for the rest of your life. It's uh and having come out of children's books. They are absolutely right. I hate that it's true even as it is. I have seen many of my
Speaker A
books called YA and I'm going the heroine is 30 you know uh there are there I think are are reviewers who believe that if the story is about finding yourself it is ya uh and that people are not allowed to
Speaker A
find themselves after the age of 18 [laughter] and I'm like come on some of us find ourselves in our 40s let's let's let them have a story anyway rant for another time [laughter] is that an infil exclusive have you said
Speaker A
that before that that that's coming out this next year. Uh yes, I have. I'm sorry, but I have I have not said it. I think uh uh being recorded, so I guess you can We'll take that.
Speaker A
Kilda, she her and uh I have read your latest Wolfworm and uh it gave me nightmares, so thank you.
Speaker A
Um yay. And I'm sorry. [laughter] Uh I think that's the first one of yours I've read that is not necessarily based on a retelling. If it is a retelling of something, what is it a retelling of?
Speaker A
No, it's just uh uh it's wolfformm is about bot flies and um and and as I tell everyone on this and this is awkward to say when I'm in a book bookstore to do the launch, you can sit this one out. [laughter] If
Speaker A
if you can't do horror or bugs, like it's great. You want to support me, buy a copy for a friend or a relative you don't like. It's all good. Uh, I wanted to write a book that was like, well, I
Speaker A
wanted to write about botflies because I used to live on um a a greenway in North Carolina. And I swear every bird on Earth landed there. And it was great. My neighbor had a bird feeder. Squirrels would come to the bird feeder. I noticed
Speaker A
the squirrels had lumps on them that were like the size of grapes. And I'm like, I went through the the stages of ADHD, hyperfixation. Oh god, what is that? To the internet.
Speaker A
I have now read everything there is to find on the topic of the squirrel botfly, I will now tell all of my friends everything there is to know on the topic of the squirrel botfly. And uh since my friends have all heard it now
Speaker A
and don't want to know anymore, I had to write a book so I could tell other people.
Speaker A
Julian Heay. Um, speaking of rabbit holes and interesting things, um, I was wondering if you had any sort of favorite resources that you would recommend for people who are looking for writing or looking for interesting things to learn about or places you go
Speaker A
to. Uh, I I I mean, what are your favorites? Thank god for the internet. Uh, I wind up on Project Gutenberg a lot. Uh, particularly on the pulp things. I will just like uh uh start somewhere and start reading and uh frequent when they
Speaker A
when they have the you know collections uh I'll be like okay that's how I figured out that a merit was just telepathic slugs all day long.
Speaker A
Uh and uh I did that uh done that with fairy tales. Um if you're specifically interested in fairy tales, there is a fabulous resource uh called the uh DL Ashlamman uh library. It's at uh pit.edu. edu. Uh anyway, University of
Speaker A
Pittsburgh it's it's an amazing resource that is like web not even 1.0 web.5 and it is just gray page black text hyperlinks and it is a collection of every single version of every single uh fairy tale or folktale uh categorized on
Speaker A
the Aron Thompson index. So, if you want to read Cinderella retellings, here are like 40 of them or stories that are not retellings, just you know, versions collected and where they were collected from. And uh I I have spent like hours and hours
Speaker A
there, probably more hours than I spent playing Civilization, which is pretty impressive. [laughter] All right, so uh do you have anything else coming out that you would like to talk about that people can look for?
Speaker A
Oh, good lord. Um, the uh uh Daggerbound is coming out in August. That's the sequel to Sword Hart, which is uh the Dervish's book. Uh and I'm working on the third one now, which is Shieldorn, which hopefully be next
Speaker A
year then. And I'm also working on the the fifth Paladin book. Yeah. Uh which is Marcus's book. His wife finally gets a chance to beat him about the Head and Shoulders. Before anyone asks, Judith's book will be seventh. She wraps the
Speaker A
whole storyline. Uh, and uh, I am almost certain I have a book coming out this fall and I have no idea what it is.
Speaker A
Uh, I'll get writing. Yeah. Well, no, no, it I already wrote that one. I just uh I can't remember what which one it might be. Uh, uh, a devil of a crime, which is a weird ass little cozy mystery I wrote that is a
Speaker A
retired angel and a retired devil solving a murder in a small town. And, uh, that one is a lot of fun. I channeled my inner Patchet as much as possible. So, [laughter] very cool. All right. Thank you everybody. Let's get let's have a hand
Speaker A
for uh to Keith. Thank you. Thank you guys for having me and uh go listen to their podcast.
Speaker A
Uh if any of you are curious, Inc. to film podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. We're also on YouTube. There's one last thing that we like to do around here that we always say at the end of all [music] of our episodes. So, we'll
Speaker A
go ahead and do that here. Until next time, keep adapting. Thank you. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]
Topics:T. KingfisherUrsula VernonWhat Moves the DeadretellingsadaptationsEdgar Allan PoeThe Fall of the House of Usherhorror fictionpulp fictionworldbuilding
