Ask the Author: Jo Walton
Answered Questions (66)
Jo Walton
If I were the kind of person who'd write a sequel to Tooth and Claw I'd never have written it in the first place, I'd have gone on writing historical fantasies like my first three books. Once I've done something, I'm not excited by the idea of doing it again, I want to do something different. And at this point it's more than twenty years since I wrote Tooth and Claw, I'm not likely to go back to it.
Having said that, here's the first chapter of the sequel I didn't write twenty years ago, http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/books/to...
Having said that, here's the first chapter of the sequel I didn't write twenty years ago, http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/books/to...
Jo Walton
If I identify with anyone in OWYW it isn't Sylvia. But you're not wrong, because the discussion of creativity in that book is certainly coming out of ways I think about creativity, I think the answer to why I move from one form of speculative fiction to another is that I like speculative fiction, I am interested in genre as a thing, and I like trying different things. I get bored trying to do the same thing over and over.
Jo Walton
Yes, people have done it! https://www.pinterest.com/tinyampersa... https://www.librarything.com/profile/...
Jo Walton
Yes! When it is done, and we're nearly there, I'll put it up on Amazon and Google Play and you'll be able to buy it like any audiobook.
Jo Walton
Because you have a very active imagination and you've read some of my books? :-)
You're right about the tea and the sitting down though. I am sitting down and drinking a cup of tea right now.
You're right about the tea and the sitting down though. I am sitting down and drinking a cup of tea right now.
Jo Walton
Just Goodreads actually. Well, and I have a list on Amazon of things I want to buy when I've either got fewer unread books, or the price comes down or I have more money. I try to keep my unread books on the Kindle below 160. I'd like to get it below 140, but that's probably not going to happen. I also have a very small pile of physical unread books. But I pretty much only read ebooks now because a) it's so great for travel and b) my hands are so much better for typing if I read on the Kindle and don't strain my wrists with the weight of physical books. I still love them and sometimes buy them in addition, but ebooks are better for my life.
I don't put unread books in any order, I just have them on the Kindle in the order I bought them in. I try not to buy books I can't get into, using the read inside feature to make sure I can. But sometimes... sometimes I just can't anyway, at which point I usually do abandon them with the thought that maybe I will try again when I might be old enough. I've had this belief for a long time, and it sometimes works with a book I can't get into. But if I've read 30% of the book and don't like it, then I mostly won't try again, especially if I've given up because it's too depressing.
So the other thing is, that if you look at my Goodreads you can see that I am always reading a bunch of things. In my normal reading I cycle through those. Sometimes something will be so great I just read all of it, but my normal pattern is to read a chapter of each thing, in order. Of my list, one will be a physical book I'm reading in the bath in the morning, the rest are ebooks. And I'm always reading some poetry, some letters, something translated from Latin or Greek, something translated from a language that isn't Latin or Greek, some short stories, a relevant non-fiction, an irrelevant non-fiction -- and the rest can be anything. But insofar as I do plan my reading, I make sure I always have things in those categories to follow the ones I'm reading now. So if I'm getting near the end of a book of poetry, I'll check that I have more and if not buy more, and so on, and if I am going away I'll check that I have at least a couple of things in those categories in case I finish something when I don't have convenient wifi.
Also, if I discover a new author, or if a bunch of titles from a favourite author come back into print, I'll often buy them all and then read one every month until they're done.
You probably already know I do a post on Tor.com every month of what I read the month before, but if not, you'd enjoy it.
I don't put unread books in any order, I just have them on the Kindle in the order I bought them in. I try not to buy books I can't get into, using the read inside feature to make sure I can. But sometimes... sometimes I just can't anyway, at which point I usually do abandon them with the thought that maybe I will try again when I might be old enough. I've had this belief for a long time, and it sometimes works with a book I can't get into. But if I've read 30% of the book and don't like it, then I mostly won't try again, especially if I've given up because it's too depressing.
So the other thing is, that if you look at my Goodreads you can see that I am always reading a bunch of things. In my normal reading I cycle through those. Sometimes something will be so great I just read all of it, but my normal pattern is to read a chapter of each thing, in order. Of my list, one will be a physical book I'm reading in the bath in the morning, the rest are ebooks. And I'm always reading some poetry, some letters, something translated from Latin or Greek, something translated from a language that isn't Latin or Greek, some short stories, a relevant non-fiction, an irrelevant non-fiction -- and the rest can be anything. But insofar as I do plan my reading, I make sure I always have things in those categories to follow the ones I'm reading now. So if I'm getting near the end of a book of poetry, I'll check that I have more and if not buy more, and so on, and if I am going away I'll check that I have at least a couple of things in those categories in case I finish something when I don't have convenient wifi.
Also, if I discover a new author, or if a bunch of titles from a favourite author come back into print, I'll often buy them all and then read one every month until they're done.
You probably already know I do a post on Tor.com every month of what I read the month before, but if not, you'd enjoy it.
Jo Walton
Oh no, seriously? Aaaaatgh! That's so awful. It may only be three lines but it's a very important three lines! Thanks so much for letting me know. I'll get my agent to contact the audiobook people and see what we can do to fix it.
Jo Walton
Actually, that totally is cheating, and I'm not going to do your homework for you. You're being asked for your own guess as to why I did it, not my real reason, and your guess and your arguments for your guess is more valuable than anything I'd say.
That said, the one thing most often said about AO -- and you can see this for yourself if you read the reviews here on Goodreads -- is a variant of "I loved it, but the reasons I loved it are so idiosyncratic, so personal to me, that I don't know whether I can recommend it to other people." Really. This is THE most common response to the book, So when you say "I liked it but I think it may throw some readers back" well, sure, that could be, but maybe trust your own reactions?
(It still feels wild to me that books of mine could be set for class.)
That said, the one thing most often said about AO -- and you can see this for yourself if you read the reviews here on Goodreads -- is a variant of "I loved it, but the reasons I loved it are so idiosyncratic, so personal to me, that I don't know whether I can recommend it to other people." Really. This is THE most common response to the book, So when you say "I liked it but I think it may throw some readers back" well, sure, that could be, but maybe trust your own reactions?
(It still feels wild to me that books of mine could be set for class.)
Jo Walton
I'm not familiar with that book, I'm afraid, and as serial killers are not a subject that particularly resonates with me so I'm unlikely to read it.
Jo Walton
Her best known book and the one I started with is The Daisy Chain. She's got two kinds of books, historical novels aimed at kids, which I don't much care for, and contemporary (for her!) novels aimed at adults, which I really anjoy her. You've got to be OK with Victorian novels and with the morality she's writing into. The Heir of Redfern made Jo March cry and it made me cry with anger and frustration. Good luck!
Jo Walton
No. I have decided it's not a good time to publish that book. When it is, if it ever is, it'll come out from Tor like all my novels.
My next novel will be Lent, coming on May 28th. I hope you enjoy that one.
And generally, could people stop asking me about this? I haven't forgotten about it, I have good reasons for leaving it under the bed for now, and it's not doing anyone any good to keep poking at me about it.
My next novel will be Lent, coming on May 28th. I hope you enjoy that one.
And generally, could people stop asking me about this? I haven't forgotten about it, I have good reasons for leaving it under the bed for now, and it's not doing anyone any good to keep poking at me about it.
Jo Walton
The short answer is no.
The long answer is that I started writing a sequel and got bored -- everything I wanted to do in that world I'd done. The chunk I wrote is on my website here http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/books/to...
The even longer answer is that if I were the kind of person who would keep on writing sequels to books I would never have written anything as odd as Tooth and Claw in the first place. But if you want to extend the experience, you too can now read Anthony Trollope and just imagine that the characters are dragons, and that the women behave the way they do because of issues around turning pink.
The long answer is that I started writing a sequel and got bored -- everything I wanted to do in that world I'd done. The chunk I wrote is on my website here http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/books/to...
The even longer answer is that if I were the kind of person who would keep on writing sequels to books I would never have written anything as odd as Tooth and Claw in the first place. But if you want to extend the experience, you too can now read Anthony Trollope and just imagine that the characters are dragons, and that the women behave the way they do because of issues around turning pink.
Jo Walton
After I'd written MRC but before it was published, an editor told me people would compare it to LAL. I then read LAL. I thought it was great, beautifully written, great characters, but after I'd finished it I felt unsatisfied and that it was slightly lacking in resolution. I have not yet read the sequel, and I hope it has the resolution I was craving.
MRC was my attempt to meld the genres of women's fiction and SF, and the hardest thing about that was getting the pacing right. (Not sure I did completely.) It's a crossover book. It was therefore very interesting to me to see Atkinson trying to cross over in the other direction. I'm not sure how much SFF she read before deciding to write some. All the genres I've mixed up into my work are ones I read a lot normally -- cosy mysteries, women's fiction. Victorian sentimental novels, historical fiction. Atkinson clearly wasn't interested in blending SF pacing into LAL, and I sometimes got the feeling (as with Doris Lessing's SF) that she was trying to reinvent the wheel. But it was a very absorbing read, full of wonderful imagery. Great book.
And reading it was very influential not on MRC which was completely finished beyond any tweaking by the time I read LAL, but on my next novel Lent. You wait until you read that and then let's talk about this again. :-)
MRC was my attempt to meld the genres of women's fiction and SF, and the hardest thing about that was getting the pacing right. (Not sure I did completely.) It's a crossover book. It was therefore very interesting to me to see Atkinson trying to cross over in the other direction. I'm not sure how much SFF she read before deciding to write some. All the genres I've mixed up into my work are ones I read a lot normally -- cosy mysteries, women's fiction. Victorian sentimental novels, historical fiction. Atkinson clearly wasn't interested in blending SF pacing into LAL, and I sometimes got the feeling (as with Doris Lessing's SF) that she was trying to reinvent the wheel. But it was a very absorbing read, full of wonderful imagery. Great book.
And reading it was very influential not on MRC which was completely finished beyond any tweaking by the time I read LAL, but on my next novel Lent. You wait until you read that and then let's talk about this again. :-)
Jo Walton
It's really hard. I try to consider the book as if it stands alone, to imagine reading it without the earlier work, especially now that we have the series Hugo. But it's difficult to put that knowledge of earlier books aside. I think about this especially when nominating, and try not to nominate when it's a case of "I love X, here is some more X, yay!" but to consider whether the new volume works considered alone.
Traditionally, looking at the Hugos, sequels have done badly when they don't stand alone. If you look at Bujold, the Hugo winning volumes have been ones that really do work independently. Speaker for the Dead works without Ender's Game. Any number of good second and third volumes have not won -- the Book of the New Sun, for instance. The various parts of A Song of Ice and Fire. Ancilliary Justice, but not the sequels. I was therefore very surprised last year when Obelisk Gate won, though given that less surprised this year.
So in conclusion, yes it's a problem, and all you can do really is keep doing what feels best to you. And do nominate even though you haven't read everything in the world -- nobody has. Nominate what you've read and think is worthy.
Traditionally, looking at the Hugos, sequels have done badly when they don't stand alone. If you look at Bujold, the Hugo winning volumes have been ones that really do work independently. Speaker for the Dead works without Ender's Game. Any number of good second and third volumes have not won -- the Book of the New Sun, for instance. The various parts of A Song of Ice and Fire. Ancilliary Justice, but not the sequels. I was therefore very surprised last year when Obelisk Gate won, though given that less surprised this year.
So in conclusion, yes it's a problem, and all you can do really is keep doing what feels best to you. And do nominate even though you haven't read everything in the world -- nobody has. Nominate what you've read and think is worthy.
Jo Walton
I wrote this pre Gentleman Jole, and I no longer have this problem. Before getting another book in Cordelia's point of view, I had found Aral and Cordelia's marriage as seen through the eyes of their children implausible. Now I don't.
OK, without spoilers.
There's a very interesting thing with the question of writing sequels to romance plots. Because a romance plot is "A meets B, there are complications preventing them loving each other, the complications are resolved, A & B commit to each other". And when you write a sequel to that your options are limited. You can write "oops, not really resolved" and invalidate the emotional heft of the first book, or you can do "more different complications" or you can do what series romances do and have them become minor characters in stories focused on their friends getting together within an overall arc of something else happening. (You can see this problem clearly with the Sharing Knife books for instance. Or Kowal's Austen & magic series.) It's hard to go from a romance plot to "life is complex, marriage is long". Bujold does the "new complications" plot with Barrayar after Shards, and then lets them become background, and that works OK for me up to Mirror Dance, where I started having qualms, as expressed above. But then in Gentleman Jole she does something interesting, which is "A meets C while grieving for B" and I found the revelations in that book made me happy with it again.
OK, without spoilers.
There's a very interesting thing with the question of writing sequels to romance plots. Because a romance plot is "A meets B, there are complications preventing them loving each other, the complications are resolved, A & B commit to each other". And when you write a sequel to that your options are limited. You can write "oops, not really resolved" and invalidate the emotional heft of the first book, or you can do "more different complications" or you can do what series romances do and have them become minor characters in stories focused on their friends getting together within an overall arc of something else happening. (You can see this problem clearly with the Sharing Knife books for instance. Or Kowal's Austen & magic series.) It's hard to go from a romance plot to "life is complex, marriage is long". Bujold does the "new complications" plot with Barrayar after Shards, and then lets them become background, and that works OK for me up to Mirror Dance, where I started having qualms, as expressed above. But then in Gentleman Jole she does something interesting, which is "A meets C while grieving for B" and I found the revelations in that book made me happy with it again.
Jo Walton
There may well be a good time in the future, indeed, I expect to be able to publish it in five or ten years.
I don't know what some authors do, but this has nothing to do with pre-orders or anything of that order.
I don't know what some authors do, but this has nothing to do with pre-orders or anything of that order.
Jo Walton
Yes, it's true. I've decided that it isn't a good time to publish that book. My next novel will be Lent, a historical fantasy about Savonarola. Thank you for asking.
Jo Walton
No. Not at all.
I was surprised when I published Tooth and Claw to discover that some in the anthro/furry community saw it as an animal book, because I'd never seen it that way. Dragons are mythological creatures not real animals, and to me animal books were Redwall and Watership Down, not dragon fantasy. The concept of "animal universe" wasn't in my mind at all ever. I have also been surprised sometimes to have people ask if it's for kids because it's all dragons. People are weird sometimes.
I enjoyed writing it, but then I was done with it. I started a sequel (first chapter is on my website) but got bored, I'd said everything I wanted to say in that universe, and wanted to move on. I was done with Victorians and dragons. "The present market" had nothing to do with it -- and it was 2005 anyway, so if things have changed in the last decade I don't know about it. It won the World Fantasy Award. My publishers would have been delighted with a sequel. I wanted to do different things.
Since then I have written robots and aliens as well as humans. I like odd points of view. Tooth & Claw is a standalone because I like change in what I write.
Maybe I wrote it and sold it because I didn't know I wasn't supposed to? I didn't know it was an animal book and I didn't know adults don't want to read them, so I went ahead and did it? It was my fourth book and I already had an editor and an agent, and so I didn't have to run whatever gauntlet might stop a first novel with dragons being picked up? Maybe the Trollope pastiche trumped the animal issue? Or maybe people aren't writing these books because they "know" something about the "present market" that isn't true, and because they aren't writing them they aren't selling them and nobody is reading them? People pass on these things about what editors don't buy, and it often seems like it doesn't fit my experience. Beats me. Glad you like it anyway.
I was surprised when I published Tooth and Claw to discover that some in the anthro/furry community saw it as an animal book, because I'd never seen it that way. Dragons are mythological creatures not real animals, and to me animal books were Redwall and Watership Down, not dragon fantasy. The concept of "animal universe" wasn't in my mind at all ever. I have also been surprised sometimes to have people ask if it's for kids because it's all dragons. People are weird sometimes.
I enjoyed writing it, but then I was done with it. I started a sequel (first chapter is on my website) but got bored, I'd said everything I wanted to say in that universe, and wanted to move on. I was done with Victorians and dragons. "The present market" had nothing to do with it -- and it was 2005 anyway, so if things have changed in the last decade I don't know about it. It won the World Fantasy Award. My publishers would have been delighted with a sequel. I wanted to do different things.
Since then I have written robots and aliens as well as humans. I like odd points of view. Tooth & Claw is a standalone because I like change in what I write.
Maybe I wrote it and sold it because I didn't know I wasn't supposed to? I didn't know it was an animal book and I didn't know adults don't want to read them, so I went ahead and did it? It was my fourth book and I already had an editor and an agent, and so I didn't have to run whatever gauntlet might stop a first novel with dragons being picked up? Maybe the Trollope pastiche trumped the animal issue? Or maybe people aren't writing these books because they "know" something about the "present market" that isn't true, and because they aren't writing them they aren't selling them and nobody is reading them? People pass on these things about what editors don't buy, and it often seems like it doesn't fit my experience. Beats me. Glad you like it anyway.
Jo Walton
That's what it's really like where I grew up. I played among the ruins without really knowing what they were, just as Mor and Mori do. A ruined ironworks and a ruined castle are both just ruins to play in when you're a kid.
People don't usually put magic in post-industrial settings, and when they do it's a very flashy cyberpunky magic. The idea of putting fairies of a kind that are usually connected with Romantic Nature into the landscape of my childhood appealed to me because it was different. Similarly the way they don't use nouns is because I was sick of Names of Power. It seemed like an interesting thing to do. Also, people -- especially Americans -- write about Wales as an untouched pastoral fantasyland, and it isn't like that!
I definitely didn't mean it to be "loss of innocence" and etc as you suggest, and I am generally opposed to this kind of allegory. In the very first chapter I try to defuse this possible reading with the way the magic destroys the Phurnacite -- ooh, good magic gets rid of horrible polluting factory, and then "jobs lost".
But you're not totally wrong. There's a way in which magic haunting recent human ruins does evoke those kinds of things, and the vision of the balance of the world and what evil is at the end is trying to get to that. But I'm not opposed to technology and suggesting people go back to the trees the way that kind of thing often does. That's one of the reasons she reads SF and thinks about belonging to libraries on other planets. It's a hard balance to strike.
People don't usually put magic in post-industrial settings, and when they do it's a very flashy cyberpunky magic. The idea of putting fairies of a kind that are usually connected with Romantic Nature into the landscape of my childhood appealed to me because it was different. Similarly the way they don't use nouns is because I was sick of Names of Power. It seemed like an interesting thing to do. Also, people -- especially Americans -- write about Wales as an untouched pastoral fantasyland, and it isn't like that!
I definitely didn't mean it to be "loss of innocence" and etc as you suggest, and I am generally opposed to this kind of allegory. In the very first chapter I try to defuse this possible reading with the way the magic destroys the Phurnacite -- ooh, good magic gets rid of horrible polluting factory, and then "jobs lost".
But you're not totally wrong. There's a way in which magic haunting recent human ruins does evoke those kinds of things, and the vision of the balance of the world and what evil is at the end is trying to get to that. But I'm not opposed to technology and suggesting people go back to the trees the way that kind of thing often does. That's one of the reasons she reads SF and thinks about belonging to libraries on other planets. It's a hard balance to strike.
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