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When I decided that I wanted to write a book about a medieval woman who leads a raid on Hell, that was the sort of underworld that immediately came to my mind. A mouth, though, implies a throat, and a stomach, and, well, everything else.
So I had a Hellbeast on my hands, a creature that spends centuries underground, but occasionally makes an appearance on the surface. It’s a little like a platypus, but without the bill. And a lot bigger.
Within the Hellbeast, there are revenants. But there are also humans””some have been altered in various ways, and some are extremely long-lived, but they are humans nonetheless. This led me to an unusual world-building question: What do people eat in the underworld?
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
(fantasy, short story)
General Aife Crofadottir was acknowledged the greatest military mind of her generation—perhaps even her century. No wonder then that the sorcerer Balthus recruited her early in her career, setting her to rally armies of Beasts and magically-equipped soldiers, planning campaign after campaign, until finally he stood the ruler of a vast expanse of the continent’s northeastern corner. Once fertile lands, once countries, now only uncontested, devastated territories. Three years after her death, she still labored in his service.
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