![]() ![]() As she told us, "They knew there were no monsters." She asked what it must be like for this king who had this very specific duty and had never done it. ![]() This was an official duty of his job, and he possessed weapons designed specifically for monster-killing. Kelly was also excited to learn that there was a king named Shulgi whose job was killing monsters. Kings, priests, and priestesses kept a handle on how much grain was grown and distributed. One of the things she learned there was that in 2000 BCE, Mesopotamia had a complex, centrally planned economy. She explained that she and Alyx Dellamonica had just moved to Toronto when there was an exhibit about Mesopotamia at the Royal Ontario Museum, and they went to it four or five times. ![]() I asked Kelly about where she found the entry point for this story. In this story, the historical portion is set in Mesopotamia! She's passionate about economics! (And so she should be worldbuilding without economics is flimsy.) She calls it "the physics of worldbuilding." She told us that when she was first writing historical fiction, she began with medieval settings because it seemed more straightforward to manage, but that since then, she's branched out into greater challenges. Kelly started out by telling us about how critical economics was to this story. ![]() This hangout looks twice as exciting now that Kelly has gone on to win a Nebula in the meantime (for her novellette, A Human Stain)! It was a pleasure to have her on the show to talk about her recent novella, Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach. ![]()
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