Martha Wells (born September 1, 1964) 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 four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards and three Locus Awards for her science fiction series The Murderbot Diaries. She is also known for her fantasy series Ile-Rien and The Books of the Raksura. Wells is praised for the complex, realistically detailed societies she creates; this is often credited to her academic background in anthropology.

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. In May 2023, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

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, and Writespace Houston, and was the Special Workshop Guest at FenCon in 2018. Her first published novel, The Element of Fire (1993), was a finalist for that year's Compton Crook Award, and a runner-up for the 1994 Crawford Award. Her second novel, City of Bones (1995), 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 (1998), 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 (2003), The Ships of Air (2004), and The Gate of Gods (2005). Her fourth novel was a stand-alone fantasy, Wheel of the Infinite. In 2006, she released a revised edition of The Element of Fire. She has written media tie-ins, including: Her fantasy short stories include "The Potter's Daughter" in the anthology Elemental (2006), which was selected to appear in The Year's Best Fantasy #7 (2007). 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 (2011), The Serpent Sea (2012), The Siren Depths (2012), Stories of the Raksura Vol 1: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud (2014), Stories of the Raksura Vol 2: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below (2015), The Edge of Worlds (2016), and The Harbors of the Sun (2017). 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. 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 Magic: The Gathering. In May 2018, her Murderbot Diaries novella All Systems Red was number 8 on The New York Times Bestseller List for Audio. The book 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 (2018), Rogue Protocol (2018), and Exit Strategy (2018); a short story, "Compulsory" (2018); and a full novel sequel, Network Effect (2020), which made The New York Times Bestseller List for Novel. On April 26, 2021, Tor.com publishing announced that they had signed a deal with Wells for six books, including three more in The Murderbot Diaries. In September 2022, Tor Books shared the cover of Witch King, the latest novel by Wells that was released on May 30, 2023. Tor describes the book as a story "of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose."

Awards and nominations

Foreign translation

Published works

Stand-alone fantasy novels

The Rising World

Ile-Rien

Books of the Raksura

Emilie

Young-adult fantasy

Star Wars

Stargate universe

The Murderbot Diaries

Science fiction series:

Other short stories

Non-fiction