Murderbot's origins

An excellent profile of Martha Wells shows that success isn't always an overnight thing

Image: Andrew Liptak

Martha Wells has been vaulted into widespread acclaim and appreciation in recent years thanks to her Murderbot series. All Systems Red exploded upon impact, and has led not only to plenty of other excellent sequels, but to an audio drama and a TV adaptation from Apple.

But that success has been a long time coming. A new profile of Wells by Meghan Herbst in Wired chronicles the real struggle that she faced throughout her career. A long-time science fiction fan, she worked in a toxic IT job, churning out a number of books before deciding to make the leap into writing fulltime, only to languish during the 2008 financial crisis. She was getting placed on uninteresting panels at conventions, and had trouble placing stories.

What I appreciate about this profile is that is really showcases just how important luck can be to a writer's career. Wells was working on her Books of the Raksura series (The Cloud Wars, The Serpent Sea, The Harbors of the Sun, and The Edge of Worlds), which attracted the attention of N.K. Jemisin, which helped bring her work to wider attention. As she was finishing up that series, she had an inkling of an idea that eventually became Murderbot.

In a lot of ways, I think this is a story that's worth remembering for authors in the field who've struggled with sales or trying to get attention for their work: it's a marathon, not a sprint, even as this hot author or the other gets a huge publishing deal or something. Building up a body of work – a body of excellent work – can pay off in the long run, even if things seem like they're bleak in the moment.