Ask the Author: Marie Brennan
Answered Questions (53)
Marie Brennan
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Marie Brennan
I don't actually have an answer to that first one! (Honestly, I don't know enough about oceanography to come up with a good answer.) He and Isabella probably worked together at some point, though -- maybe further research on sea-serpents and their migratory life cycle, or something like that.
Marie Brennan
I'm glad you enjoyed the series, "authorial fanfic" and all! I don't know if they get together in the end -- I sort of want to believe it can happen, since they're undeniably attracted to each other. But it's hard for me to visualize a route to it that doesn't feel like it's cheesing out on exactly what made me enjoy writing that relationship in the first place, which is the fact that it's possible to be attracted to somebody *and it doesn't work out*. Fiction is so very full of romantic happily-ever-afters, with most breakups being plot points on the way to a HEA with somebody else, rather than it being a good ending in its own right. I really enjoyed exploring a narrative about a relationship *failing*, you know? "The Long Fall" was me finding a good path to them to reconciling; in some ways I feel like that's the important part, not whether they ever hook up or settle down together.
Marie Brennan
No, I'm afraid I canceled my Facebook account a very long time ago. Sorry! You can find my other social media accounts here, though:
https://linktr.ee/swan_tower
https://linktr.ee/swan_tower
Marie Brennan
My short story "The City of the Tree" (https://uncannymagazine.com/article/t... ) takes place in that setting, and I have ideas for other short stories. I'd very much like to write a novel about Ree, but at the moment that's not on deck.
Marie Brennan
Oh, thank you! I watched their Frankenstein a few days ago, but I wasn't aware of A&C coming up.
Marie Brennan
Hi Ana,
The inspiration came from two things: a Dragonology calendar (like a field guide to different dragons) and the D&D sourcebook Draconomicon (which had information on the life cycles of dragons, beautiful anatomical drawings from Todd Lockwood, etc). Together those gave me the idea for a field biologist studying dragons. I'm glad you enjoyed the books so much!
--Marie
The inspiration came from two things: a Dragonology calendar (like a field guide to different dragons) and the D&D sourcebook Draconomicon (which had information on the life cycles of dragons, beautiful anatomical drawings from Todd Lockwood, etc). Together those gave me the idea for a field biologist studying dragons. I'm glad you enjoyed the books so much!
--Marie
Marie Brennan
I planned from the start that there was going to be an ancient culture that had left ruins all over the place, because those are a major trope for pulp adventure, and I wanted to have fun with that. The specifics came in a bit later -- I wrote up to the characters' arrival in Vystrana in the first rush of playing around with the concept of the series, then went away for a couple of years (while I worked on other things), then came back and did more thorough development of the idea.
Good luck with your own work!
Good luck with your own work!
Marie Brennan
No -- but I also didn't plan on returning to that world after WITHIN THE SANCTUARY OF WINGS, and then I did. :-) So I won't rule it out entirely. But at the moment, there are no actual plans to do so.
Marie Brennan
No, I can't. I have no more stories.
Marie Brennan
Oh, oof -- that's difficult! Honestly, lots of fictional book worlds would not be very pleasant to travel to; they're full of problems (because if they weren't, there wouldn't be much story). But I will, somewhat at random, name Time City in Diana Wynne Jones' A TALE OF TIME CITY. They're used to getting tourists (though not from an Unstable Era, which includes our century), and the confection she calls a "butter-pie" sounds absolutely amazing. So I would go to Time City, eat a butter-pie, lose myself for several days in their libraries and museums, and then (probably) get home safely.
Marie Brennan
Drop me a line via the contact form on my site -- https://www.swantower.com/contact/. We'll work something out!
Marie Brennan
That's where it comes in the timeline, yes! But it's an entirely optional side story; nothing in the novels hinges on you having read it. And similarly, it can be read at any point in the series without significant spoilers -- I've used it as a convention reading numerous times for that reason (and also because it's *ridiculously* fun to read out loud).
Marie Brennan
Yes! It's going up for pre-order right now -- you can get it at Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and Amazon, and I'm waiting on iTunes. And of course Book View Cafe will have it on the release date. But it will be out April 2nd, and you can pre-order from the above vendors right here: https://www.swantower.com/writing/new...
Marie Brennan
The Memoirs of Lady Trent are complete at five books, but there's an associated short story ("From the Editorial Page of the Falchester Weekly Review") in my collection MAPS TO NOWHERE, and next spring I'll be publishing a stand-alone sequel about Lady Trent's granddaughter, called TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT!
Marie Brennan
I am not, but I'm a big fan of her music!
Marie Brennan
Not at present, no. Romanian, French, German, Polish, and Russian are the only languages it's been translated into.
Marie Brennan
Yes! I have the title and cover art for the third (and final) book; the hurdle has been finding a gap in my schedule where I can commit to getting it written. I intend to run a Kickstarter for it as soon as I have that, but I don't want to make promises and then be late on delivery because other projects intervened.
Marie Brennan
I've got a whole *bunch* of things in the works . . . but I can't talk about most of them yet! The three things I'm able to say are that I've been freelancing for the game LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS, that I'm working on a collaborative Serial Box project whose details haven't been announced, and that I'm in the middle of writing a novel about Lady Trent's granddaughter, black market antiquities smugglers, and the translation of a lost Draconean epic . . .
Marie Brennan
A follow-up book to the Memoirs of Lady Trent! It takes place a bit after the time when she wrote her memoirs, and focuses on her granddaughter, black market antiquities smugglers, and the translation of a lost Draconean epic.
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