The Valdemar Companion Read online

  The Mayor had known, but none of the other town officials, and there was, very shortly, a new Mayor. The old Mayor and the cheat were placed in the town gaol to await the pleasure of the Town Council—it was, as Jon and Tafri both pointed out, a matter for the townsfolk themselves to decide, what was to be done with them. Then it was business as usual, with all of the grievances that the cheater had decided being heard all over again. And not surprisingly, most of his decisions were overturned.

  They spent all day and most of the evening undoing what he’d done and setting right what he’d set wrong. They declined—as was proper—the hospitality of everyone, going on to the Waystation just outside of town to sleep, returning the next day and the next until all disputes were satisfied and all of the new laws expounded. For once, no one wrangled over those.

  Curiously, Jonaton sat back during most of the disputes and only offered a word now and then on those he did have a hand in. And for the first time, Tafri found people looking entirely to him and not to Jon.

  If he hadn’t been working so hard, it would have been a heady experience. But he was so involved in disentangling every argument and getting to the heart of it that he didn’t have the leisure to feel anything other than the weight of the responsibility. He knew exactly what Jon was about; unmasking the cheat had been exactly the thing needed to show that he wasn’t playing second to Jonaton anymore. He had immediately dealt with the problem and solved it, without any intervention on the part of his Senior.

  When they rode on again, after the last disputant declared himself satisfied, Tafri was too brain-tired to feel more than a weary sort of satisfaction.

  “Well, lad,” Jonaton said, when they were well down the road. “Disappointed?”

  That was the last thing Tafri expected him to say. He turned in his saddle to stare at his Senior in surprise. “Disappointed? No, why?”

  “You didn’t get any thanks to speak of for unmasking the fraud,” Jon pointed out. “All you got was work—”

  “But—but—” Tafri gazed at him with his mouth open. “But that’s what I’m supposed to do! If I wait around to get praised for every little thing I set right, I’d be a pretty sorry soul!”

  “Sorry how?” Jon prodded.

  “Because—well, when you’re responsible for something, you just do it,” Tafri spluttered. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, and it surely doesn’t matter if they make a fuss over it! As long as I’m doing a good job at it, as well as I can, that’s what’s important!”

  He was about to go on, but Jonaton forestalled him with a kindly laugh and an upraised hand. “You’ll do, youngster,” was kill he said. “You’ll do.”

  And it was at that moment that Tafri realized it, what Jonaton had known for—probably—the last three days.

  He was, well and truly, a Herald at last.

  DL: Fans are always curious about where their favorite writers came from and how they became writers. Before we begin talking about Valdemar, can you tell us about yourself?

  ML: (Laughing) I’m older than dirt. Older than you can imagine. Old enough not only to remember when Paul McCartney was in a group, not only to remember when he was in a group before Wings, not only to remember when he was in a group called “The Beatles,” but to actually have seen that group in concert!

  Yeah. That old, You can stop sniggering now.

  (By the way, I was about a million feet away in the old Stockyards Arena in Chicago. I had to stand on the back of my chair to get little teeny glimpses of little teeny people on stage and you couldn’t hear anything over the screaming, so we never knew just what they were singing. They could have been lip syncing for all we knew. At least these days with the mega amps you can actually hear the group you’ve come to see.)

  Okay, maybe I’m not older than dirt; I’m fifty-one, born June 24, 1950, one day before the Korean War was declared, thereby saving my Dad from getting called back up. I’m not sure how pleased he was at my incipient arrival before then, but boy was he grateful the next day!

  I started out as an infant and immediately set about rectifying the situation; it was no fun lying around in a crib all day, I wanted to read, dammit! There was a brief setback when it was discovered that I was nearsighted, but from then on it was a straight shot to books.

  And the inside of a book was where I “lived” for most of my childhood and adolescence. I think I was about ten or eleven when I discovered my first science fiction book—my Dad read science fiction, and he’d left some lying around the house. Now, remember, this was back in the Dark Ages, when kids were often prevented from doing things that were good for them on the grounds that they “weren’t old enough yet.” I’d had to get special parental permission—actually bringing my Mom into the library in person (a note wouldn’t do) to get a library card that allowed me to read in the “adult” sections rather than the “children’s” library. (Johnny Tremaine, which is these days often assigned to kids in sixth or seventh grade, was considered to be “adult” material, if that gives you any idea of what it was like. And all science fiction was in the adult section, including Andre Norton’s books). Even then I was only allowed five books at a time, and this was not enough to get me through the week during summer vacation. So I asked if I could read one of Dad’s books and got permission.

  The book was Agent of Vega by James H. Schmitz, and I was hooked. Psychic powers! Interstellar spies! Exotic worlds! The next time I got to the library I skipped right over all the biographies and historical novels and went straight for the science fiction section. I started with Andre Norton because her books had animals and psychic powers in them, so Beast Master and Lord of Thunder were my next two books, at which point I devoured all of Norton then went back to the beginning of the section with A for Anderson.

  I wrote SF for myself, too, and illustrated it. I still have some of the drawings, though not the stories. I continued to write—mostly just for myself, although a couple of my things got published in the school “literary” magazine—right up through college (B.Sci., Purdue, 1972). Then real life kind of got in the way; I graduated from college right in the middle of the Nixon recession, got married, and trying to keep the bills paid was a teeny bit more important than amusing myself. I still read SF and fantasy though, like crazy (thank goodness for used book stores, which had only just gotten started about then). I also joined the SCA, or Society for Creative Anachronism, which I often refer to (much to the wrath of the Authenticity Nazis) as the bunch of people that get dressed up like King Arthur and hit each other with sticks on weekends.” This was back in the equally Dark Ages before there were Renaissance Faires all over the country, so people weren’t nearly as used to seeing folks in medieval garb in their parks of a Saturday. At the same time, roughly, since the two interests are very closely allied, I started going to science fiction conventions in the Midwest. Meanwhile I’d actually become Gainfully Employed as a computer programmer. Trust me, this is relevant.

  Then came the next moment that changed everything—I got a job programming for American Airlines in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, I didn’t know anything about Tulsa. It took me a while to find the SCA down here, and the SCA events and SF Conventions were a lot farther apart and fewer than they were up North. So I had time on my hands and began to write again.

  By this time I had discovered fanzines, and I had already started publishing costuming articles in them. So I decided to start submitting stories to some of the ones that were for fan fiction. Then I started writing original stuff and submitting it, and that started to see print.

  Then (next pivotal moment) I discovered filk. Filk is science fiction folk music. There are entire websites devoted to filk, so I won’t get into it here—but the point is that I started writing lyrics and hooked up with Ten Lee of the (then) Off Centaur Publications and started getting my song lyrics published. And it occurred to me that I might just be ready to try getting my stories professionally published. I had a book in the works—one that later turned into
the Arrows trilogy—but I knew that it was in no way ready to be seen. My first submission, which was to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthology, was rejected, but I got great advice from her, rewrote half the story and sold it to Fantasy Book Magazine. But not before I sold her my second submission, for her Friends of Darkover anthology, which was my first sale (although it was not my first published story, since the magazine came out before the book did).

  About this time, C.J. Cherryh discovered filk, which is how I met her. She became my mentor and helped me whip that book—“commit trilogy,” she said—into shape. And the rest, as they say, is history. And at that point, I stopped having a life for a while. I would get up, go to work, come home, and write until midnight or later, then go to bed and start all over again. There are entire sections of popular culture from that period that I know nothing about. Didn’t go to movies, stopped doing SCA stuff, didn’t watch TV. The only time I went to science fiction conventions was to promote my own work. And the hard work started to pay off.

  Along the way, Tony Lackey and I parted company, but it was an amicable divorce as such things go.

  Meanwhile, I worked my butt off until I finally got to the point where I was able to make a living at writing. This is unusual; most writers—about ninety percent of them—have to keep their “day job” and write in their spare time, unless they are lucky enough to have a partner working full-time to support them. Writing is a precarious business, and there is no magic way to figure out what is going to be popular and what isn’t. Sacrificing all your free time to getting the words on the page, though, will help.

  About this time I met and eventually married Larry Dixon, who has been my writing partner, not only on the books where he is the credited co-author, but on many others besides.

  Now we live outside of Tulsa, and I have a life outside of writing again. We have a collection of very vocal parrots, we rehabilitate injured birds of prey, I do cross-stitch, beadwork, sewing, and costume dolls, often sending my work to charity auctions, especially ones to benefit the Alex Foundation, Dr. Irene Pepperberg’s nonprofit foundation to help support her research into parrot intelligence and learning, which has significant application in helping learning-disabled children. I must admit that it is very nice to be able to go see a movie or watch a TV show again! I still don’t have a horse, odd as that might seem, but the birds do keep me busy, and it’s seldom quiet around here.

  I love what I’m doing; it’s an extraordinary thing, to be able to do what you love for a living. I have absolutely no plans to stop, ever. I just hope that people continue wanting to read what I have to write for as long as I’m able to write it!

  DL: Did you plan to become a writer when you were a child? And when and how did you make the transition from amateur to professional?

  ML: I suppose when it comes down to it, I was a writer all along. Once I discovered science fiction I devoured everything I could find, but I quickly ran out of books to read—and, as I said before, this was in the days before the big chain bookstores, and most of my reading material came from the library or used book stores. So when I ran out of things to read, I wrote my own, mostly spin-offs of Andre Norton’s books. Later I took some creative writing lessons one-on-one from one of my professors at Purdue (otherwise known as “English Literature Independent Studies,” which I rated because I was an honors student) who was also a science fiction fan. I kept scribbling at odd moments, but the real impetus to write came when I discovered that there was such a thing as fan fiction—that there was a possible audience for what I was writing. Mind, I generally wrote “original” fan fiction—stuff not based on anything already published by a professional, rather than, say, Darkover fan fiction.

  The next impetus for my writing, as I said, came when I began writing song lyrics—mostly about books. Through the songs I met C.J. Cherryh, who became my mentor and got me over the hump by putting me through seventeen rewrites of my first trilogy (which started out as a single book). Between C.J. Cherryh’s coaching and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s encouragement (not to mention her purchase of some of my first short stories for her anthologies) I finally got to the point where I sold my first three books to Elizabeth Wollheim at DAW.

  DL: Was Valdemar something that existed in your mind before you became a writer, so that you became a writer to tell those tales? Or were you a writer first?

  ML: I was definitely a writer first—I think I started writing when I was eleven or so. Valdemar just happened to be a big enough concept to become the basis for a lot of books—like Anne McCaffrey’s Pern, or Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover.

  DL: Is Valdemar a creation that grows as you write it? Does it take turns that surprise you? If so, what were they?

  ML: Oh, it definitely grows as I go along, but I made sure I wasn’t writing myself into any corners when I first started the series. I’ve always viewed it as being an entire world, with its own history, that I’ve just come into at some point in the middle. I can’t say that it’s actually surprised me, because I’ve always worked from the “what if” philosophy of plotting—if you ask that question enough times, you get a good plot. As I’ve written the books, it’s as if the world has unfolded before me, sometimes in ways that I hadn’t anticipated, but that were logical when they started to unfold… if that makes any sense.

  DL: The Valdemar books span a fairly wide range of cultures and civilizations. Many of them have echoes in our own history. What kind of research do you do when you are shaping the various civilizations (or lack thereof) in Valdemar?

  ML: I don’t actually do research as such; when I’m coming up with a new culture or civilization I use things I’ve already read (and continuously ask that so-useful question “what if”). I’m a voracious reader, as you’ve probably already figured out, and there’s no telling what is going to go into the mix.

  DL: What sorts of things have you plucked from this world to place in Valdemar?

  ML: Well, the Shin’a’in are a combination of Plains Indian and Mongols, the Haighlei are a combination of the great African empires and the Japanese, the Karsites are part medieval German and part Moslem, with a Babylonian religion.

  DL: Where do you get the ideas for some of the more original and unusual aspects of your worlds?

  ML: (Grinning) I belong to the idea-of-the-month club. Every month you get a packet offering the Idea, two Alternates, and a selection of previous ideas. But you have to remember to send hat little card back with your preferences, or you could end up with the wrong genre, like all the ideas that romance writers have been using.

  Seriously, it’s that big question “what if” that drives everything. I just keep asking it until I come up with an interesting answer.

  DL: Do you have favorite time periods and characters that you like to concentrate on, or are your characters—like children—all beautiful in the eyes of their creator?

  ML: Oh, I never write about anything I don’t enjoy! The reason why I move around in the history and geography of this creation is so that I don’t get stale, more than anything else.

  DL: Valdemar has had both great heroes and heroines, and some remarkable villains. Which are more fun to write—the good guys or the bad guys? How do you balance these characters so that neither the forces of good nor evil overpower the world you’ve created?

  ML: Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Good and evil have to be kept in balance. Heroes are to a certain extent defined by their enemies. That’s why a book is planned and plotted very carefully before the writing ever begins.

  That said, although I do like my good guys, I find the villains very cathartic. They enable me to vicariously do a lot of socially unacceptable things—at least on paper!

  DL: One thing that stands out in the series is the fact that almost every character has a recognizable voice and a strong and understandable motivation for his actions, even the villains. It’s one of your great strengths as a writer. How do you go about creating characters to achieve this?


  ML: Well, I sometimes start with the basic situation that the character is going to have to face; then I try and figure out what kind of a person would be most interesting in the situation. This, of course, often involves developing someone who gets mountains dumped on him on a regular basis. Sometimes I start with the character, and try to figure out what sort of situations would bring out the best and worst in that character. This also results in mountains being dumped on said character.

  DL: The series has evolved over time, with the focal points of the books changing. How do you decide, when you start a new thread for the series, who to use as a focal character?

  ML: Well, after all the books so far, part of the answer is “what kind of person haven’t I written about yet?” I don’t want to get repetitious, after all!

  DL: In a related question, the timeline for Valdemar as we know it from information in the books runs for roughly 1400 years, with a thousand year timeline of the world of Velgarth before that, since the Mage Wars decimated the planet. We’ve heard intriguing bits of myth and history from throughout Valdemar and Velgarth‘s past. With all that vast canvas to choose from, how do you pick where and when to start a book or a series, and how do you decide when to drop a particular thread for the time being and concentrate on something else?

  ML: Long question, short answer. When I think I’m getting stale, It’s time to do something else!

  DL: Are we going to see stories from areas of the timeline that you haven‘t yet explored, like Valdemar’s founding, or is there so much to tell in the times and places you‘re already involved in that it’s hard to range through new ground?