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Seth Hi there everybody, and welcome back to Hugos There 2.0, and we are doing another Author Deep Dive, a Zoomed Out episode, this time about Patricia McKillip, and my guest for this episode is Audrey Taylor hi there Audrey Audrey Taylor Hi Seth thanks for having me! Seth Yeah thanks for reaching out I understand your friends with so a previous guest on this podcast. Audrey Taylor I am I'm friends with Paul Williams and he had mentioned your podcast and it sounded interesting. Seth Yeah, and thank you so much for reaching out on this topic because I was looking you know I had a number of authors who I'm like well I definitely want to do Bradbury and Asimov and Clark and things like that and yours came in and I went "I've never heard that name before" and so... Audrey Taylor Ah, that's fantastic Seth and then I sent it out to my patrons on Patreon and said hey which one of these you know because I have guests sort of tentatively booked for several of those authors and Patricia Mccalllip ended up winning. So here we are Audrey Taylor So here we are awesome. Seth So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself what should people know about you. Audrey Taylor So okay, so like my official long name is Dr Audrey Isabel Taylor and I am an assistant professor of English at Colorado State University Pueblo where I get to teach writing and literature and sneak in fantasy and science fiction and stuff. They're very ah, welcoming of that though. So that's nice. So that's like my official thing. I did write a book on Patricia Mckillip called the art of fantasy world building sorry Patricia A McKillip and the art of fantasy world building and I also did my a PhD on her. Seth Yeah, and it's an interesting book I actually picked up a copy from my library. Um, and I you know it's It's kind of an academic book right? Audrey It's very much that Seth Because you go through kind of World Building in general what it means and then what it looks like in science fiction and hard science fiction and fantasy and all these other genres and which was really fascinating I didn't I didn't get to read the entire thing was ah maybe a little over my head but it was quite accessible actually Audrey Taylor Well thank you for picking it up. Yeah yeah, it was intended to be fairly like it is an academic book and it was for an academic press and you know peer reviewed and all that but it is intended to be as accessible as possible within that. Yeah, I'm glad you picked it up I think um I've had some reviews that said from like librarians and things who were who found it interesting and so that's always fun. Yeah. Seth Yeah, and you know I have said for for a while um you know the last few years or or kind of since I started getting back into science fiction that one of the things that I don't really love in fantasy is world Building, and I think what I don't like is world building that you can really see right that that you're like we are building a world in Capital letters right? Um, and when it's done through character viewpoints and I don't when it's done. Artfully I don't notice it. It doesn't bother me. Audrey Taylor Building the world. Yeah. Right? I mean I think what you don't like is probably bad world building. And I think Patricia Mckilllip is a great example of where it's done often very subtly and Mm, yeah, it's one of the things that I'm kind of academically as well as personally interested in how authors do it? Well ah you know and and how do you not see it. Um, in ways that it's kind of not banging you over the head. Seth Yeah, yeah I mean and you know it's not like Science fiction is Immune to that kind of thing you know, um and it's sometimes not so much worldbuilding as just hey let me show you that I did the homework and I'm going to show you my hard science fiction. Everything is right! It checks out. You know, test me on this and see that I'm correct. Audrey Taylor So yeah, right? which is one of the things that actually I was kind of averse to Science fiction for a long time because I felt like I needed a degree in science and my degree is definitely not in science. Um, and then I realized but actually if you just take what the author's saying is a given and move forward then you can just enjoy the rest of the story without worrying about it. Seth Yeah, yes, sometimes they won't let you just turn the page and move on right? It's all you got? Okay I Just it's the rest of this chapter all right? Seth This kind of topic but did you want to talk about anything from from your book. You know on the Art of Fantasy World Building, like the differences between Science fiction and fantasy worldbuilding? Audrey Taylor So yeah, one of the the key differences in the book between kind of how world building is talked about in the world and then how I was particularly using is that world building, as my colleague Stephan Ekman from Carlstedt University in Sweden and I had realized, is that everybody uses worldbuilding in a different way, which means it's not very useful to talk about in an academic sense because when you have something that has so many different definitions and so many different people's ideas of what it means then you can't really pin things down with it. Seth Sure. Audrey Taylor And so one of the things that we kind of discovered or or have been thinking through is that world building is actually like there's lots of different types of world building depending on who's doing it. So you have the Readerly World Building which is probably what you were doing and what I do when I'm just reading something for fun. Seth Um, right. Audrey Taylor And then there's Critical World Building which is what I do when I'm like being my Academic self with a capital A and reading text looking for particular details and using my you know my schooling to kind of really read closely and all that kind of thing and then there's also Authorial World Building which is like how authors themselves are thinking about and setting up their world and that's what most people talk about when they talk about world building and then we've also kind of discovered through our after this book after my book. We kind of discovered that we think there's at least another fourth if not more than that. Which is what we called Encyclopedic World Building where it's like the kind of Tolkien fan where they have every detail of every single book memorized and every single letter and every subletter and every postscript on every subletter and they can bring to mind chapter 32 of the Silmarillion you know quotes this one. Period that was also used in book 7 of the and you know edited manuscripts or something and so that kind of ah we we decided that that was also a different kind of putting the world together than than most of us. Do even when we're fans so that's kind of the basis of the book and it was almost created for McKillip because I was doing her and working on her for my PhD and so and was so immersed in in her worlds and her books and it was just one of the things that caught my attention about her work. Seth Nice, nice. Well on that note, why don't we move into sort of some some Author Intro of Patricia McKillip any any biographical details you want to go through anything like why she's interesting? Audrey Taylor So Patricia McKillip who has now unfortunately passed away just passed away last year actually was a really really interesting, largely fantasy author she did in fact, write a couple of science fiction books but they completely bombed. Seth Oh. Audrey Taylor And she never went back to writing science fiction. It was pretty clear that that wasn't really her her area. Um, she did write a lot of short stories which is not my primary area. So mostly I did her novels. Um, she was the first winner of the first World Fantasy Award, with The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and then she also won it later in the 90s with Ombria In Shadow so she was a two-time World Fantasy Award winner. She also won a lot of other awards several times the Mythopoeic Award and lots of other kind of fantasy related awards like those. Audrey Taylor So she was she was really award-winning. Um, she was very well known by other authors when she passed away authors like Delia Sherman um were very public about ah how saddened they were at her passing because they would no longer get these wonderful books that only she could really create and so she was really in some ways an author's author because a lot of the other fantasy or even science fiction authors like Stephen R Donaldson think that she's just amazing that her writing was just amazing, but she's also an author that you know if you haven't encountered her. You have not encountered her so I tend to run into kind of 2 camps of people people who have never heard of her or people who have read every book. Seth Um, okay I'm definitely in the former. Audrey Taylor Right, there's very few people who once they've read 1 or you know 1 or 2 of them that they don't keep reading more because they find you know she's just quite unique and and I think her writing is just really beautiful along with having kind of interesting takes on stories and all that. Um, so although she's not as kind of popularly recognized as other authors like maybe Le Guin or things like that she does have her own fan base. She does have people that are super interested in her and um and and ah, again people who have read every book that she's ever written and who are sad that there won't be any more now. Seth It was funny, because when I mentioned to my friend Colin (who I see almost every day), he's a much bigger fantasy fan and he does a science fiction podcast with me which is funny. Um, and I mentioned hey I discovered a new author through doing this podcast: Patricia McKillip! And he went oh I've read a ton of McKillip and and you know there there were things that that he read as a kid in his public library and um and so that was that was fun just somebody I didn't know but fantasy fans in the know are aware. Audrey Taylor Yeah, and and again when they even when they aren't I have a number of kind of colleagues or people that I've met and I would recommend a book for them. Because they were working on something to do with some aspect of her work and you know they go on reading 20 of them and they're like why did you introduce me to her but I have only so much money to spend on books and I want to buy all of them. Seth I was going to mention this because when I did my episode kind of wrapping up the previous version of the podcast working through the Hugo winners I said that you know I need some time back to do leisure reading and so I'm going to do some of these Zoomed Out episodes where I don't have to do so much reading and then I read 4 books for this podcast, heh heh. But the fact was it was pleasure reading and and it it's not always that way if it's assigned right? Um, and in in this case, there was nothing assigned I didn't have to read anything. Um, but I read the first one and enjoyed it enough that I thought okay I'm going to pick up a few more so that was fun. Audrey Taylor Well I'm I'm glad you enjoyed them. They should be enjoyed I think. Seth Yeah. Is it fair to categorize her as YA? I've seen her writing categorized as YA but I feel like nobody categorized things as YA until like 1995 or or later. Like I had never heard of a young adult novel until I was reading to my son. Audrey Taylor Yeah, it's definitely a new category or you know newish the last 20 to 25 years and there are some of her books that I would categorize as YA um where she has like adolescent protagonists in particular. Seth Okay. Audrey Taylor So maybe The Book of Atrix Wolfe or um, Alphabet of Thorn those have like you know, adolescent protagonists who are going through growing up changing kind of issues along with this whole fantasy world and like the world is ending and all this dramatic stuff happening. So those. Seth Um, sure. Yeah yeah. Audrey Taylor So would classify as YA she also has one that's almost explicitly kind of right on the border of children's and YA I think it's more YA than a children's book. But it's often shelved as a children's book and that's the Changeling Sea, but everything else I think is fairly firmly like ah I mean adolescents can read it. Of course I was reading her as a teenager regardless of what it was put on the shelves at but I think most of her the rest of her stuff would be probably categorized as adult fantasy but not you know Capital A Adult. Seth Um, okay, and yeah, yeah, you're right exactly? Certainly you're not going to get the same experience reading this as you know the Song of Ice and Fire series. Audrey Taylor Definitely not. This is this is definitely far more PC I think she has a very yeah I think she has a very beautiful way of talking about relationships but they are not explicit. Seth Family Friendly. And I do think that you know asking that question invites categorizing things and in a way that can be negative. Right? Because as soon as you drop the YA category onto a book, there is a subset of people who think well adults shouldn't read those books. Um and I don't know Fantasy and Science Science Fiction Fandom certainly are not immune to gatekeeping and telling people what you should or should not read. Audrey Taylor Yeah, definitely and I was actually just giving a talk to to some students about that. Ah, the YA and the debates about whether adults should read them because they're skewing the market or you know if it's infantilizing. It's bad for your brain which of course I think is nonsense. Seth Yeah, yeah, the only ah kind of bad reading is not reading that's that's my thought. So I wanted to talk to you about your personal history. This isn't Patricia McKillip is not somebody that you've read since you were really young or had you read some and then got more into as you got older. Audrey Taylor So I read the Forgotten Beasts of Eld when I was I don't know like very young teenager probably around 13 or 14 and I just stumbled on the cover and I liked to cover and I read it and it was just it was so beautiful and so unusual. That book it just stuck in my brain and so that's the only one by her I read which is weird I don't know why I didn't go and pick up more by her because I thought it was so beautiful but I had other books that I was you know, obsessed with and following and whatever and then I was thinking about. Audrey Taylor I wanted to do a PhD and I was trying to figure out what am I going to do this PhD on what do I like enough that I can sit there for 6 years studying it and I knew I wanted to do fantasy because until my master's degree I didn't know you were allowed to study fantasy. Seth Um, right. Audrey Taylor And so I really wanted to do a fantasy for my PhD because I was like this is the thing that I've been reading since I was 2 like this is the thing that I'm really invested in yeah I could do a PhD on on kind of mimetic literature like the literature of the real but I wouldn't be as invested in it. So I was kind of looking around for an idea. Audrey Taylor And I started looking at the list of like World Fantasy Award winners to see if anything sparks something and I stumble on her name and the fact that it was the first one and I thought oh well. But there must be a ton of stuff written about her. So so I went to look and actually there wasn't um so although I'd only read The Forgotten Beasts of Eld then when I started just when I decided I was going to do the PhD on her then I went and read everything um and and then and over the course of that of course I read everything many many times and then by the time I got the book out I had read you know that particular subset of text many many many many many times and the fact that I can still read them if I want to is amazing because most of the time that much reading of something is just going to kill it dead but I still enjoy them. So it's great. Seth Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so let's go ahead and move into kind of McKillip 101. If somebody was coming to McKillip like me for instance and you want to say maybe start here. Where but where would you have from start. Audrey Taylor I you know that's so tricky and I like to have people ask for like personalized recommendations of McKillip because she has so many different wonderful ones that I feel like I feel like a responsibility to recommend the right one so that they like her because she has She is so wonderful. Um. Seth Right? That is the right way to think about it though right? because nobody ever reads the same book and and you're bringing your your view of of you know what? you like to everything. So. Audrey Taylor Right? right? So so I say The Forgotten Beasts of Eld if you like classic fantasy you're just or if you just like really ornate beautiful language The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is just I mean it's just beautifully written. Seth Yeah. Audrey Taylor And and in a style that's pretty unusual and the fact that she's able to carry that style throughout the whole book is very very unusual. Um, so I really like The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and I can recommend that and it's not that long. You know it's not going to take up your life reading it. It's It's pretty short. Um. If you like fairy tales or kind of in our world retellings of things then Winter Rose is one that I can recommend um, one of the people who had worked on Patricia McKillip ah Christine Mains. That's her favorite book is Winter Rose um, it is not my favorite but that's one of the great things about McKillip is there are this. You know there are these range of of books and types and things happening. Um, if you really like Tolkien fantasy her Tolkiesque series the Riddlemaster Trilogy ah is fun. She wrote it particularly because she was annoyed that Tolkien didn't have any women doing anything particularly important or active and so she wanted to write something with women as important characters and and particularly the middle and the last book and that trilogy are focused on Raederle. Seth I was going to say in the first book. There's yeah in the first book there's not that much right? because the P O V character is a man. Audrey Taylor No, right? and and she kind of did that on purpose because you're kind of put into this kind of traditional fantasy story and then things start going wrong and then you have kind of the end surprise which is very much McKillip. Seth Um, yes. Audrey Taylor Um, because she really liked to use and then discard fantasy tropes and and often surprise her readers from those. Ah so those are kind of 3 that you could start with Ombria in Shadow is also if you like more detailed kind of plotting a little bit more intricate Ombria in Shadow is great. But I mean so many of them are just excellent that whatever you find in your library is likely to be you know good? um. Seth Mm, yeah. Audrey Taylor She does have those science fiction ones which pop up in libraries occasionally like ah Moon Flash is one of them and if they're fun, but they're not it was just clearly not her thing. Um. Seth Well I can I can definitely give a hearty recommendation to The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and when you recommended it to me originally, you know I mentioned I'm not a huge fantasy fan. You know worldbuilding is kind of what we were talking about before right? Um, and. And you said well maybe not The Forgotten Beasts of Eld if you you know descriptions of trees and Landscapes is going to bother you I didn't find that there was really I mean not that there wasn't any of that. It just never distracted me from from the novel. Seth So just a quick little capsule of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld What is this book about. Audrey Taylor So ah, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld starts with a wizard or rather a family of wizards whose last wizardling is Sybel who is a woman which surprises them a little bit but they get over it. And so she comes from this long line of these kind of very cold wizard characters who live up in a mountain and kind of collect these ancient beasts. Um and she inherits many beasts but she also kind of collects some on her own and is kind of self-contained on this mountain until one day this young man knocks on her door and shoves the baby into her arms and says this is your kin and they're trying to kill him you you raise him and she's kind of like what? What do you mean? I don't I don't have kin I don't know what you're talking about um and so instead of dropping him off a mountain she does. In fact, ah raise the young man. Seth Mm, yeah. Audrey Taylor Um, but that causes kind of complications because suddenly she's being drawn into the world of men where there's fighting and you know familial ties mean something and there's you know, ah wizardry afoot and she eventually is kind of drawn into this against her will. There's a bit of a love story with her and Coren who's the young man who dropped off the baby um and eventually it kind of follows their relationship as well as her kind of continuing to hold onto and collect these mythical beasts. Seth Yeah, she raises Tam and is essentially asked at some point you need to pick a side between the Kingdom of Serle and the kingdom of Eld and she says well I'm on Tam's side I won't do anything to harm him. Um, even though she's told these very terrible stories about um about what this king of Eld has done and. So couldn't we move him out of the way and have Tam be the king and then everything would be great and and she's pretty reluctant to use her power to to help with that until yeah, yes. Audrey Taylor Yes, and until... Yeah um I mean I think that's one of the interesting things about the text is of kind of moral complexities of it and the fact that ah Sybel does try and stay clear of. Seth Mm, yeah. Audrey Taylor The different sides and then she finds that actually she can't and that that's troublesome to her. Ah, it's harder to be neutral. Seth Yeah, yeah, well and she's a complicated character too because she's not she's not evil but she doesn't do everything right? And at some point she starts to realize that my doing what I'm doing is wrong. Um, when when she kind of draws up her plans because she's angry for a good reason. Audrey Taylor She is definitely angry for a good reason. Yeah. Seth Um, and yeah, but but in order to kind of execute on those plans she has to deceive Coren, right? Audrey Taylor Yeah, yeah, and she kind of has to think about which thing is more important to me him or you know my own personal revenge or my own personal vendetta or. Seth Yeah, because she had essentially Coren had given up his revenge on this other King, and she maybe could have just said I've decided we don't need to be. We don't We don't need to go back on your your original vow to go kill this guy. Audrey Taylor Yeah, yeah, she could have just kind of released him onto it. But that's not really presented as as an option within her worldview and you do get her perspective on things of course so that does change it. Seth Yes, and and she's pretty hard on herself too after after all of that and and and I really enjoy the relationship between her and and Coren and the the complexities of loving someone and forgiving them and and still being angry. Audrey Taylor Yeah, absolutely and you know how family it gets involved with things and then what that actually means if you don't have family or you didn't think you had any family and then you know finding connections and using them and and. She has been able to live in a way that was kind of aesthetic like it was separated from any need to think about right or wrong. She was just doing her academic thing up on the mountain being a sorceres and then or sorry wizard as McKillip calls her and then you know she she has to complicate that and then she starts finding out more about herself and how she deals with anything the world. Seth But the beasts are wonderful as well. When when when you look at The Forgotten Beasts of Eld right? You have you have these this amazing is it a Raven um I can't remember what the bird is. There's more than one bird. There's a swan as well. Ok, um. Audrey Taylor There is a swan. There is also a raven. Yep. Seth And that's that's the it begins with a T and I can't remember the name. Audrey Taylor Now Now that's just gotten straight out of my head and I can't remember either. Well I wanted to to comment on you know one thing you said you were kind of struggling with a word about how she is dealing with the animals that she has because they are under her control but it's not like an an evil way and of course that's one of the central themes because Drede has his own way of controlling things right? and there's like other characters who control things and then she herself has to decide how. How much control is not bad and all of that. Um, which makes it you know an interesting text. Oh and the falcon is tear Ter. Seth Right? Yeah, well yeah, because once the yeah and and once the other wizard attempts to call her right and exert that control on her and crush her will um that she starts to realize that the control that she has over these beasts may not be, you know a good thing. Um, that's right, that's right? Yes, yeah, the the names are wonderful actually um I'd like Tamlon is is such a such a fun name for her character and and the way she calls him My Tam and you know she she's described by Corin as being icy, right? Is having a heart of ice. Um and yet and yet she she comes to really love tam and the way she calls him My Tam was just very sweet. Audrey Taylor It is. It's ah it's a beautifully written book talking about you know relationships and how how we become attached to things and then what that does to us and all the rest of those kinds of things. Seth Mm, yeah, and there's there's a little bit of snark from from the beasts because they can communicate with her and and you know at some point the dragon says there's a cave in the mountains where no one will ever find this guy. Audrey Taylor Yeah, the the animals you know they're intelligent. They are many of them have have lived for centuries and have these really interesting backs stories like she doesn't really go into but they are there. You know you can kind of sense that background um and like Cyrin The boar is ah kind of he'll give her these kind of sarcastic or like back chat riddles. Seth Um, he's the sassiest. Audrey Taylor Yeah, um, you know riddles to think she doesn't want the answer to and that sort of thing and so yeah, the the creatures themselves are very interesting and part of what's so fun about the the text I think. Seth Yeah, yeah, and the ah the Blammor was a really interesting thing and I don't I don't want to spoil too much about that. But but very cool. Audrey Taylor Yeah, and you know it's interesting because um, the critic Gary Wolfe kind of ah poo-poohed on Blammor saying that it was just too obvious of a metaphor etc and and I thought but it's it's just part of the text It's just a really. Nice I don't know that it's supposed to be a really deep insightful thing. It's just it's just something that happens in the text and it's it's part of all the other interesting things that happen in the text you know that that are kind of a surprise that you're not really looking for. Seth Okay, I think we can probably move on. Um, let's see so there were some other titles that you mentioned you mentioned Ombria in Shadow. And maybe we should just give a quick but what is this book about you know to to entice people if they want to read, because that's another World Fantasy Award Winner. So totally counts as my list. Audrey Taylor It is yeah it is um, it's really quite an interesting book and in part it's really interesting because it's about like technically it's about this little boy whose father has just died his father was the king. And so now he is the prince but he's like 7 years old and there's all of these intrigues. Ah his great great great great great great aunt is the real power and wants the throne and he's kind of in danger because he's not he doesn't really have any you know he he doesn't any have anybody to protect him and he's a very little boy and but what's interesting is you're not actually following the little boys like the center of the story. What you're following is ah the bastard Ducon Greve and then the ex-mistress Lydea and you follow them through the story as they try to protect the little boy. Um and they try to make sure that Umbria is still around for him to rule and that he is not himself you know, assassinated um or or just you know drug to the point of mindlessness etc. Seth Um, right. Audrey Taylor And so there are complicated pasts and their own complicated connections with the throne and the fact that there are very much people that you don't usually see as the center of fantasies stories. Not traditionally anyway, um that makes it a very kind of complex and interesting story and then it's also very interesting from a magic perspective because the sort of magic happening in the text is quite unusual. The main sorceress lives underground. Ah, might or might not be there. People don't really know that she's underneath the city. Um, she's immensely powerful but also very lazy so she doesn't really do anything most of the time. Seth Um, right she does work for hire as well. Audrey Taylor She does work for hire and she will you know, assassinate people if she feels like it and she will. She's not a good sorceror precisely. She's kind of amoral because she doesn't really care like she's not human how she's not human is not explained but she isn't quite human. Um, but that's one of the things that makes Ombria In Shadow so interesting is that the magical the way that magic is used and talked about in the book is not your usual splashy or rule-bound ah kind of explicit magic that you see in most fantasy stories. It's kind of low level until it isn't and then it really isn't. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's there's some stuff like potions right? like like they they make a enchanted piece of charcoal because Ducon sketches wherever he goes. It's kind of his therapy because. Because that's one of the the fascinating things in here is that I can't remember the regent's name. They all call her the black pearl. Audrey Taylor Domina Pearl is her name. Seth Okay, the black pearl will suffice. Ok ok and she essentially has Ducon under threat. You know don't work against me or you know the the Prince dies. Yeah, and and she's I won't call her complicated character. She's not as Bloodthirsty as she might be right. She could have just killed the prince and said I'm the Queen now. Um, but but that didn't suit her purposes. Audrey Taylor Right? Um, that's one of the things I talk about in my book is that McKillip a lot of the times her characters are not as straightforward good or evil as we're used to seeing um and even Domina Pearl who really in the ouvre of her work is one of the more on the side of evil character is is actually not as evil as she could be um because she could just straight up murder a lot of people and she doesn't she just like she you know one of the first things in the novel is that she's just kicking the mistress out the castle door and saying you know, go away or I will kill you she is but she hasn't actively done it herself. She's just kind of sent her off to die ah because she knows that you know. Seth Um, expecting fully fully expecting her to be killed in the streets. Yeah. Audrey Taylor She's not a very liked character obviously because of her position. She's also wearing a lot of jewelry you know and it is going out into this really you know, poor part of the city et Cetera Um, so Deminah Pearl is pretty. She's pretty bad but she's not certainly not the most evil character even in the general direction of the most evil character in fantasy literature. Seth Yeah, yeah, um, this is one I think I would like to reread just because some of the the shadow Kingdom The underground kind of stuff. Ah I think went a little over my head and it could have been just a function of of doing this one on Audio and I don't take it in quite the same Way. Um. But it reminded me a little bit I don't know if you've read The City & the City. Um, where yeah where there were like two halves of of the city and and it's like do they acknowledge that the other everybody kind of knows that the shadow area exists. But Mm, yeah. Audrey Taylor Yes I have um yeah. I Think McKillip's is ah in some ways, it's a little bit subtler because it has kind of a different message than The City & the City I think is a little bit more political about like who do you see and who do you choose to ignore whereas in Ombria there are people who genuinely don't seem to know about the shadow city and then also some people who think it's there, but it's not interacting with them and then there's other people who can see it but they don't know that they're saying it. So there's like yeah, there's these like multiple levels. Seth Mm, yeah, it's the deep state. Audrey Taylor Um, and the shadow city I think it's intended to be really ambiguous which is probably why you didn't pick it up on the first or as much on the first reading I think that's pretty normal with Ambre and shadow because it's quite. That's one of the reasons I call it complex because it's got this other thing happening but it's it's subtler than The City & the City I think. Seth Yeah, because there were there were various times where I'm like is the shadow city is it. The underworld is it like Hades or or is it just a part of the city that isn't well lit. You know that doesn't have good infrastructure. Yeah. Audrey Taylor Or is it. You know, ah like a magic shadow of the actual city that it's like kind of there but it's not and you know can you get to it through a mirror. Maybe maybe not you know? Yeah, how does this? How does this work and I think that's part of the you know. Seth Um, right is it the upside down from stranger things. Yeah. Audrey Taylor What makes it an interesting novel is the confusion. Seth Yeah, and this was another one I really enjoyed um and and like I said you know if I want to reread a book. That's usually a good sign. Seth I think we can move on from from that one but but I think I think that's an excellent one to to recommend as a. As a kind of starter novel I can't remember what else you you mentioned I think you did mention the Riddle-Master series as if you like a more Tolkien kind of thing. Audrey Taylor Yeah yeah, her that's her most overtly tolkinessque text and like I said that was on purpose you know she was kind of annoyed with the lord of the rings. She loved them. But she also was annoyed with them and and you know you have to remember that she was writing from the you know late sixties, so even though she was writing up until 2015 um that's that's a long time ago and the fantasy landscape was very different then it was a lot of like Tolkien and Lewis and CS Williams and you know you weren't seeing there was like Le Guin and maybe Andre Norton Um, or you know other women under pseudonyms et etc. So ah, she she wanted to kind of emphasize that and so that it's tolkienesque and it's the most tolkienesque of her books. It is a trilogy you know it's quite long. Audrey Taylor It's quite complex in terms of you know it's moving across this whole world. There's the battle between like good forces and evil forces which she didn't do as much later on it tended to be more ambiguous than that. So in some ways. It's less subtle than many of her later books. But it's a fun read. Um, and particularly if you like that kind of really epic fantasy where it's moving across big portions of land and there's lots of things happening and there's these like different cultures that you're running into and all that sort of stuff then it's ah it's Fun. It's a fun you know trilogy I would see so. Seth Mm, yeah I will say so I only picked up. Um, Audible had a a huge sale where where I almost everything that Mccrylip wrote was like $3 or less. Um, and so I picked up several of them and I I did pick up the first of the Riddle Master series and it's funny that um that you say the most Tolkienesque and I've been critical of Tolkien on my podcast in the past where where, I am reading the hobbit right now for another podcast. Not for my podcast just to follow along with somebody else's and and just trying to enjoy at a chapter at a time kind of thing but I worry about what's going to happen when I get to the Lord of the Rings because I struggle with that and um. I struggled a little with the Riddle Master. It was. It was definitely more fun than than it was more on the level of like the Hobbit um a little a little more accessible than the Lord of the Rings. But I could see how it could get more kind of complex and spiral off into epic things that I don't care as much about. Audrey Taylor Yeah, it does So. That's you know why I say if you're interested in the kind of tolkkiness thing. It's not necessarily her her Best Book Capital B It's not the best written etc but it still has lots to recommend it particularly if you're interested in that kind of Epic Fantasy. The texts are quite different like the first one. Ah you start with the young man and you're kind of following him through his journey and finding out what's going on and that one also feels quite a bit like Le Guin's Earthsea books to me although I like it better I'll admit um, and then you have the middle text where Raederle his love is kind of the main character and you're following her and she's trying to find him and wondering what the heck's going on and then the third book is they're kind of joining to fight off this kind of great evil in the world and find out about it etc. Um, but there's a few more surprises I think it's a little bit. Audrey Taylor The the third book in particular, you are probably not guessing what happens to a degree um or at least to a part of it. It gets more far more complicated in the way that McKillip likes to complicate her books where good versus evil isn't as clear as it is and you have these kind of tropes that she's subverting and she's using the fact that you're used to reading fantasy against you because you're expecting something to happen and then something else happens. Seth Yeah, So some of that doesn't work on me just because I'm not as well versed in Fantasy. You know like I grew up reading the the Prydain Chronicles those were ones I loved when I was kid I Still love them. But since then haven't read a ton of fantasy and so. Like I I saw somebody I had read um A Game of Thrones and just kind of went I mean it was fine but and somebody's like oh no, it's a brilliant dissection of of Epic fantasy and I'm like well I haven't read enough of that for that to work on me. So Maybe maybe I'll come back to it and and find out that it's that. Audrey Taylor Yeah, yeah I like I said it's It's one of her earlier texts and it's not as well written as later ones and not to say that it's badly written or anything. It's just she was still kicking into gear I think. And then you know after that she's really kind of got moving. Seth Okay, cool cool I mean we've kind of covered some of the basics. So do you want to move into stuff that's less well-known you mentioned the science fiction books. But if there's other titles that you think okay, if you've read a little bit of McKillip had you read the Riddle Master you've read Forgotten Beasts of Eld um, maybe some other titles that folks might. Like to know about and actually I did want to ask this as well. Sorry I asked I set you up to start talking and then I I'd been wanting to ask are there any other not series but do do the worlds ever come together are there are there other books that are set in the same universe as The Forgotten Beasts of Eld or or anything like that. Audrey Taylor No, and that was one of the really interesting things and 1 of the reasons I chose her for my book on world building is that she tends to build these beautiful little jewels and then she just moves off. Um. Seth Okay. Audrey Taylor So she has you know the the Riddle Masters a trilogy. She has a duology of the Cygnet books and that's about it. Everything else is fairly clearly independent. Um, and now that she's passed away I can say for sure that none of them ever connect. Audrey Taylor Um, so there is ah Solstice Wood which is kind of a follow-up to Winter Rose. It's like kind of ish in the same-ish world. Um, but other than that they're basically just independent texts which is really fairly unusual. Um, you know she had some of these were very successful Ombria in Shadowis award-winning Forgotten Beasts award-winning. You would think that she would return to that world and continue. But she doesn't she moves on. She has something different something unique. Seth Mm, yeah, you'd think a literary agent would be like we need another book in this series and then you could get into the series death spiral that happens. Yeah. Audrey Taylor Exactly but but apparently not and you know her individual books are they're self-contained and to me that's kind of fun actually because you you really feel like okay I'm finished with this text with this world and then you can move on to a new one. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, well and too that means there's not homework if if you just want to pick up a title. You're properly safe. Yeah. Audrey Taylor Um, yes, yeah, definitely unless you and even if you started like in the middle of the Riddle Master trilogy or on the second one of the Cygnet duology Even then you're you're okay, you're not going to be completely floundering. Seth Okay, okay. So advanced titles any anything any other places you'd have people go if they've kind of gotten their dip their toes in; for instance me. Audrey Taylor Yeah there I mean you know there are so many ah like I can't not recommend any of her books even right back to one of the very first ones that she wrote which was in some ways the most simplistic The Throme of the Erril of Sherrill is really fun. It's super short. Seth Okay. Audrey Taylor Um, really really short and really kind of typical in some ways. Typical fantasy and yet it just bops along and then it has and it has this really interesting world that's like constructed in you know 3 pages and um. And then it has the kind of surprise ending like everything else. She does. So. It's like everything she like she did in miniature. Um, and it's kind of this. You know you've got these silly names and they're all related to like their their jobs like the damson is the damsel in distress and things like that. Um, so it's kind of like obvious but it's also fun then you have texts like ah the Song for the Basilisk which I love um, if people have read McKillip they probably will have read it. But it's not necessarily the first one that they would head to um. But it's just it's an interesting book with an interesting main character who's kind of going on this quest for knowledge first and then revenge once he realizes who he is and what's happened in his you know life. Seth Yeah I read that one over this last week and really enjoyed it. Um, it had a great hook to it starting with the child in the ashes like what is going on here and um. And then you know off to train with the bards and that kind of stuff and Mm, yeah, and that one as the title might suggest features a lot of discussions of music and opera and there was a hilarious description of Lady Damiet's voice ah, was described as “energetic, untuned, and oblivious of art,” and I'm somebody who was ah I studied engineering in college but I was in the concert choir and the chamber singers and things like that and I was around music people all the time and there are people who want to major in music and or and maybe are a brilliant you know pianist or something and they have to also do vocal recitals and sometimes you know god bless them, but but nope that's that's not your gifting and I know you're enthusiastic about it. But let's stick with the piano. Audrey Taylor And that's one of the things I really like about McKillip is they're full of moments of humor like that and but you know they're not funny books. They're not like Connie Willis or something that's really going for the for the laugh but there are moments of humor and there's also these kind of gentle relationships in them that are not. Seth Right. Audrey Taylor You know it's not explicit. It's not a big deal but they're just kind of there throughout the text and I think that's also quite unusual in our day and age to to see things kind of handled in that way and so those those are both things that I enjoy and song for the basil is could does both of those really, you know, beautifully? Seth Yeah, yeah I thought it was great. Audrey Taylor Yeah, so that one's fun I mean honestly I could recommend literally anything that you find of hers even those kind of weird Science Fiction Moon Flash is one of them. Ah, they're they're not as good as their fantasy but they're not bad. You know they're not like terrible. Seth What category of Science fiction would would she fall into is she doing hard Science Fiction Space Opera I mean I don't I don't mind like genre straddling where you're like is this fantasy or is this science fiction? Audrey Taylor They're kind of confused themselves. But I would say Space Opera. I think it's more because she's such a fantasy writer that she couldn't let that like that aspect of herself was she couldn't separate it out from what she was writing um not to say that it's bad. And I personally prefer her text where it's like all in a secondary world. So the Cygnet duology that I was talking about those are really also really interesting New Worlds in each one. Um, you follow a different main character in each one. But. Audrey Taylor It's kind of in the same sections of the world and you meet some of the same characters. Um, and there's a lot of kind of mythic stuff and also fantasy tropes that she either follows or steps on for something like. Seth Hey for somebody like me who's not as familiar with with fantasy that term secondary world I remember coming across that in your book. Um, and can you describe what that is and what's the distinction between you know the types of fantasy that are secondary world and primary world. Audrey Taylor Yes, so not to go to academic. Um, because those are those yeah those are very fraught ah definitions and lines but basically primary world is like our world. Seth Okay, she adjusts her glasses. Audrey Taylor You know our recognizable world we're here. So um, you know CS Lewis the first part of his books are definitely in the primary world Percy Jackson yeah um and then secondary world means you are on a different world than ours. So it's clearly not us and most of her texts are clearly not in our world. They're on some other world entirely and there's a lot of shades in between that and people who argue about what it means but that's like the basics for it. Um, and she does have books that are like Winter Rose and Solstice Wood are 2 that are kind of an in our world. It seems New Englandesque worlds and then she had Kingfisher which is her very last book which was also kind of in parts of maybe the Northern United States or Canada and so there's magical things happening but they're like. kind of in our world. Um, and a lot of people really like those um and they are explicitly linked to kind of fairy tales Kingfisher obviously the myth of the Kingfisher and then Winter Rose is ah is a retelling of Tam Lin, which is a kind of lesser known fairy tale or folk tale rather so those you know if you like that kind of thing and then then you like those and a lot of people do they're just not my favorites just because I think to me the world building and how she creates these fantasy worlds that are completely separate from us and yet feel very real to me. That's one of her strengths So I prefer her books that are like completely set on different worlds. Seth Mm, yeah, um, let's see not sure what if I mean you said you could pretty much recommend anything. Audrey Taylor Yeah, you know and then I'm like I'm sitting here thinking and I'm like wait I have to mention The Tower at Stony Woods too because that one's awesome as well and it is. It's a really interesting look at um, again, it's playing with those expectations. And with fairy tale and how they're meant to go I don't think you have to be super familiar with fantasy though to follow along and to enjoy the text It's just that there's a lot of things that you are set up for that. You then get smacked on the head because they're not the way that they're You're expecting them to be um, one small instance is that there's like ah part of it is the lady Shallot story where you know the ladies in the tower and she just kind of sits there silently and people try and rescue her etc and that's kind of subverted although I won't say how. Seth Okay, fun. Audrey Taylor And then actually and then Alphabet of Thorn is also one of the ones that tends to not get read as much but I like assigning it to students actually because um, it's it's one of the YA ones and it's about this character Kama coming to realize her own heritage etc and then. Kind of dealing with what that means she thinks she's an orphan she thinks that she's been brought up by these librarians and she's going to be a librarian and everything's fine and then she finds out that actually she's like the child of a very powerful um world conquering sorceress and king and. She has to kind of make decisions about what that's going to mean for her life and for the life of like literally everybody around her so that one's also it's less settled than other of her texts but it's fun. Seth Nice, perfect and I guess are are there have you seen that there's other authors that are influenced clearly influenced by McKillip? Are there other authors that you think write similarly. Um, I know that you've focused a lot on on McKillip and so if you don't know then that's fine. Audrey Taylor Yeah I have and you know part of the problem with with being an academic who studies this stuff is that actually you start getting really far behind. So um I you know I am just not as up to date as I would like to be with all of the recent stuff I don't know. Audrey Taylor Offhand I know a lot of authors who have said that she influenced them but I don't necessarily see her writing in their works if that makes sense so she did influence a lot of writers. Um, and I and I have seen you know a lot of blurbs and things from writers. But I haven't necessarily seen her in other writers. Um, which I think is a testament to how how well she does what she did and how kind of unique it was to take these individual worlds and have this whole story happen and then to move on to another one and another one and another one. Audrey Taylor And so basically I mean there's probably people who are going to listen to this podcast that' be like oh how do you not know x who's clearly influenced why Patricia McKillip but like why don't you know that x person has definitely said that they are you know? Um, but I personally. Have not run into and I've read obviously a lot of fantasy. Um, a lot of fantasy and I haven't found anything that that strikes me as exactly like hers. Seth Okay I mean uniqueness is nice and ah you know, especially in in today's media landscape where you know you look over the top twenty films in any given year and 18 of them are from existing series. Ah, existing I p and you know you get 2 original things that happened to work. Um, and yeah, you'd like to see more standalone products. Nothing in adaptation though for McKillip at this point is that right? Audrey Taylor No no I don't know if it's simply because she's just not that well known outside of really kind of fantasy circles or if it's because they think that doing her books would be difficult which they probably would be, they would involve a lot of I don't know to be honest I think they're too subtle I think it would be. You know they would be 1 of those movies that is hard to film because so much is happening in the character's brains. Seth Mm, yeah. Audrey Taylor Um, and that would be hard to it's possible to convey that in movies and I've seen it done successfully, but it's rare. You know So I think maybe a combination of those I feel like. Seth Mm, yeah I feel I feel like it. You know The Forgotten Beasts of Eld with with the snarky Pig Cyril would be would be a good person to bounce thoughts off of right? and um because he actually speaks. Where the other beasts just speak mind to mind with with Sybel. Yeah, absolutely yeah. Audrey Taylor And you could make them so like the dragon you could make him speak you know? Um, but even then you know the Blammor and all of that kind of like how he does his thing. Um and it's possible. It's possible. Seth Mm, yeah. Audrey Taylor I mean it's possible I could see a movie of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld but I don't think we'll get 1 which is you know, unfortunate. Seth Mm, yeah, yeah, and you know you you could very easily get a rated R movie of that because because it's quite grim in places but ah, not not in your face right? Not explicitly. So. Audrey Taylor Yeah, it's grim but not explicit and I like that about McKillip because not that I dislike books that are explicit I don't have a problem with them. But it's interesting the way that she covers these really quite dark topics or these really quite dark themes. Seth Mm, yeah, yeah. Audrey Taylor Without actually showing you much. Um, she's talking about kind of the emotional side of things more than like physically what is happening. Seth Yeah, because I feel like you know you could Forgotten Beasts as a read aloud for you know a grade school kid and in your mind it might be grimmer than in theirs and you could lighten it up a little bit um, have some interesting discussions about consent for instance in a couple spots in that book. Audrey Taylor Yeah, and of course you know consent which is such a popular or clear topic nowadays I mean she wrote this in 1970 and she's talking about consent in this in this world and not just you know one kind of consent but lots of different kinds of consent and so I think she was really ahead of her time in many ways. Seth Mm, yeah, yeah, yeah, excellent. I Think that's about the end of my notes I don't know if you have anything else that you wanted to talk about? Audrey Taylor Nothing's coming to mind. Seth Ok um, well then do you do you have any online presence that you want to talk about. Audrey Taylor I have my website but it's a super basic website. But if people are interested in um, in the academic work that I've done on her then there's links to like the pay. You know the papers that are freely a version freely available online and that sort of thing. Um. Audrey Taylor I am on Twitter but or you know x sorry but I've ah yeah, but I've basically you know disassociated from that etc. So I am around my website has a contact form and I'm happy to add some questions or make a personalized recommendation or anythings. Seth I was going to say I got a nice email with personalized recommendations for books to read I don't want to promise that you can do that for everyone. Audrey Taylor Yeah, yeah, I yeah know but I'm happy and I love talking about her and you know I talk to groups all the time about you know I do non-academic talks as well as academic talks and so I'm always happy to do that kind of thing too. Seth Nice. Audrey Taylor Um, so yeah I Just like I I like talking about her I feel a little bit like a McKillip evangelist. Um, which is funny. You know academics are not supposed to show that they're like super into the books that they're reading, but she's just I mean she's just wonderful and her books deserve to be read by so many more people than they are you know I think that that would just be lovely to have that as a legacy. Seth Are. Yeah, and you know for the authors that I'm more familiar with right, I Hope that the episodes that we do on those authors have the effect that this one did for me just introducing me to to a delightful author and wonderful books and um I Really hope that that works for my listeners and I know that you know some of my patrons were like I've never heard of this author I'd I'd like to have this episode and so that's why we're here. Audrey Taylor Yeah, like I certainly hope that it works and um, people shouldn't be too scared of the book. Um the book because I did write it or my publishers in particular were very interested in having it spread to the kind of creative writing side of. Things for people to be which is why it got the title that it did because of course you don't get to choose? Yeah um so you know give it a give it a knock if you're at all interested in that sort of thing and definitely try McKillip because I think she's she's just wonderful. Seth Yeah, well I want to thank you very much for reaching out and introducing me to this wonderful author. Audrey Taylor Well thank you so much for having me and I'm I'm really glad of the chance to kind of spread the word on McKillip and I do hope that more people like you will find ah that something to love. Seth Mm, yeah. Seth I hope so too. Well Audrey this is ah this has been wonderful. This has been a really great conversation and Mm, yeah, really appreciate it all right? all right bye bye. Audrey Taylor Um, well thank you so much for having me really enjoyed it bye. Seth Well folks, I hope you enjoyed that discussion with Audrey, I thought it was fantastic. And I highly recommend you check out works by Patricia McKillip. I will have a whole list of works discussed in this podcast. And if you’re a fan of fantasy and fantasy world building, I highly recommend you check out Audrey’s book. I hope that this kind of episode has the same kind of effect that this one had on me, introducing me to a new author. Let me know, is that the effect this kind of thing has on you. This is actually the first time I’m recording since the Hugo Awards were announced, because I’m running a backlog, and so I want to send a hearty congratulations to Hugo, Girl, to Amy, Lori, Haley, and Kevin. Well deserved. We also recently got the breakdown of voting in the Hugos, and this podcast placed second, and that’s very exciting. Thank you so much to everyone who nominated and voted, and I hope to have your support next year.