Martha Wells


Martha Wells is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has published a number of fantasy novels, young adult novels, media tie-ins, short stories, and nonfiction essays on fantasy and science fiction subjects. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages. Wells has won a Nebula Award, two Locus Awards, and two Hugo Awards.

Life

Martha Wells was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and has a B.A. in Anthropology from Texas A&M University. She lives in College Station, Texas, with her husband. She was involved in SF/F fandom in college and was chairman of AggieCon 17.

Career

As an aspiring writer Wells attended many local writing workshops and conventions, including the Turkey City Writer's Workshop taught by Bruce Sterling. She has also taught writing workshops at ArmadilloCon, WorldCon, ApolloCon, Writespace Houston, and was the Special Workshop Guest at FenCon in 2018.
Wells was toastmaster of the World Fantasy Convention in 2017, where she delivered a speech called "Unbury the Future" about marginalized creators in the history of science fiction and fantasy, movies, and other media and the deliberate suppression of the existence of those creators. The speech was well-received and generated a great deal of discussion.
During 2018, Wells was the leader of the story team and lead writer for the new Dominaria expansion of the card game . In May 2018, her Murderbot Diaries novella All Systems Red was number 8 on The New York Times Bestseller List for Audio. All Systems Red won the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2018 Locus Award for Best Novella, and the American Library Association's Alex Award, and was nominated for the 2017 Philip K. Dick Award. It was followed by the sequel novellas Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy ; a short story, "Compulsory" ; and a full novel sequel, Network Effect

Work

Wells is known for the complex, realistically detailed societies she creates; this is often credited to her academic background in anthropology. Her first published novel, The Element of Fire, was a finalist for that year's Compton Crook Award, and a runner-up for the 1994 William Crawford Award. Her second novel, City of Bones received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and a black diamond review from Kirkus Reviews, and was on the 1995 Locus Recommended Reading List for fantasy. Her third novel, The Death of the Necromancer, was nominated for a Nebula Award. The Element of Fire and The Death of the Necromancer are stand-alone novels which take place in the country of Ile-Rien, which is also the setting for the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy: The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods. Her fourth novel was a stand-alone fantasy, Wheel of the Infinite. In 2006, she released a revised edition of The Element of Fire.
Her fantasy short stories include "The Potter's Daughter" in the anthology Elemental, which was selected to appear in The Year's Best Fantasy #7. This story features one of the main characters from The Element of Fire. Three prequel short stories to the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy were published in Black Gate Magazine in 2007 and 2008.
Wells' longest-running fantasy series is The Books of the Raksura which included five novels and two short fiction collections published by Night Shade Books: The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths, Stories of the Raksura Vol 1: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud, Stories of the Raksura Vol 2: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below, The Edge of Worlds, and The Harbors of the Sun. The series was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2018 and The Edge of Worlds was reviewed in The New York Times.
Wells has written two young adult fantasy novels, Emilie and the Hollow World and Emilie and the Sky World published by Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry in 2013 and 2014.
She has written media tie-ins, including Reliquary and Entanglement set in the Stargate Atlantis universe, "Archaeology 101", a short story based on Stargate SG-1 for issue No. 8 of the official Stargate Magazine, and a Star Wars novel, Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge.

Awards and nominations

YearAwardCategoryWorkResult
1994Compton Crook AwardThe Element of Fire
1994Crawford AwardThe Element of Fire
1998Nebula AwardBest NovelThe Death of the Necromancer
2002Imaginales AwardThe Death of the Necromancer
2004Imaginales AwardThe Element of Fire
2018Alex AwardThe Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red
2018Hugo AwardBest NovellaThe Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red
2018Hugo AwardBest SeriesThe Books of the Raksura
2018Locus AwardBest NovellaThe Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red
2018Nebula AwardBest NovellaThe Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red
2018Philip K. Dick AwardThe Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red
2018Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice AwardBest SF NovelThe Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red
2019BSFA AwardBest Shorter FictionThe Murderbot Diaries: Exit Strategy
2019Hugo AwardBest NovellaThe Murderbot Diaries: Artificial Condition
2019Locus AwardBest NovellaThe Murderbot Diaries: Artificial Condition
2019Nebula AwardBest NovellaThe Murderbot Diaries: Artificial Condition

Stand-alone fantasy novels

Listed in order of the internal chronology, not by year of publication.
;Short stories
Young-adult fantasy.
Science fiction series: