We’ve all done dumb things in the pursuit of love.
But what’s terrible in real life can often be good in fantasy. Or, in the case of author Samantha Mills and her new novel The Wings Upon Her Back (paperback, Kindle), secondary world fantasy / science fantasy.
In the following email interview, Mills discusses the kind of trauma that inspired Back, as well as the things that influenced this story.
To start, what is The Wings Upon Her Back about, and when and where is it set?
The Wings Upon Her Back is set in a small, isolated fantasy city blessed by five gods. These gods bestowed great technologies upon their followers, until one day, without explanation, they retreated into perpetual sleep. Their followers began to fight amongst themselves, forever blaming one another for the gods’ retreat, and built towers to the heavens in their efforts to reach them again.
The book follows a warrior known as Winged Zemolai. As a teenager, she gave up everything to serve a charismatic new leader and earn wings in the warrior god’s service. Twenty-six years later, that leader holds great power over the city, and Zemolai has grown disillusioned by her role as an enforcer in an increasingly fascist state. The book opens when she is cast out of her sect, and then moves back and forth to the war that brought the warriors into power, gradually revealing (without spoilers!) the nature of her city, her leader, and the gods themselves.
Where did you get the idea for The Wings Upon Her Back?
I wanted to write a fantasy novel about a specific type of trauma: falling so deeply in thrall to another person (or idea!) that you do increasingly desperate things for them, only to be abandoned anyway. Zemolai’s leader is a parental figure for her, and also the voice of her god and the head of state — that’s a lot of power to hold over one person. I wanted to explore what it took to break away from such an all-consuming relationship. How does someone find a healthy way forward when they’re caught in a cycle of trauma that began long before they were born?
And is there a significance to there being five gods as opposed to one or three or 37?
The practical answer is that I think odd numbers are more satisfying than even numbers, and that three didn’t give me enough factions to work with, but seven was too many.
The psychological answer is that I spent most of my youth as one of five children (there was a rogue sixth sibling later on, shh), and I think the number has been imprinted on my brain as a natural division of opinions. I wasn’t aiming for that on purpose during the planning stage, but I had a laugh at myself when I noticed in revisions. There aren’t two sides to every conflict — there are five.
You said The Wings Upon Her Back is a fantasy novel, but it sounds like it’s got some sci-fi to it as well.
This is not the first time I’ve set out to write a straightforward secondary world fantasy, only to discover I’ve written science fantasy instead. I’m very interested in the history of technology, and I love fantasy books that move forward from the classic medieval setting. I still think of The Wings Upon Her Back as straight fantasy, but the way the characters and society grapple with changing technology and beliefs can certainly be read as a science fiction plot in a fantasy world.
The Wings Upon Her Back is your first novel, though you’ve written a bunch of short stories. Are there any writers, or stories, that had a big influence on The Wings Upon Her Back but not on anything else you’ve written?
Kameron Hurley’s Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy (the first book being God’s War) was a big influence on this book. It has an older female fighter with a messy past in a fantasy setting that may be a little more science fictional than it first appears. I hadn’t encountered anything quite like it at the time I read it, and it immediately entered my writerly DNA.
What about non-literary influences; was The Wings Upon Her Back influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games?
Okay, okay, okay, so: I spent years running home after school to watch reruns of Xena: Warrior Princess on the Sci-Fi Channel. She’s a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle! She’s on a quest to find new meaning and redeem the sins of her past — her past as a brutal warlord! :O And in between all the flying kicks, the goofy filler episodes, and the lesbian subtext (which, don’t get me wrong, I was in favor of all those things), there was also a genuinely nuanced exploration of atonement. Not everyone forgave Xena. The people she hurt did not magically heal thanks to her regret, and one of the greatest villains of the series was one of her past victims, all grown up and enacting the next round of violence in a cycle of trauma. It’s still great, it will forever be great, and as a result, similar themes recur a lot in my work.
And how about your cats? What influence did they have on The Wings Upon Her Back?
Ha! Their main influence on my writing was reminding me to get up once in a while. They like to congregate around my desk while I’m working and take turns jumping on my chair. When I first drafted the book, I had a giant gray tabby named Stormy (short for Professor Stormfury) and a black cat named Hades. By the time I turned the final copy in, Hades had passed away and we’d adopted two brothers to keep Stormy company: Belo and Cherno (short for Belobog and Chernobog).
Cherno, Belo, Stormy
I mentioned that you’ve written some short stories. Is The Wings Upon Her Back connected to any of your stories?
It is not. I do have an idea kicking around for a short prequel story about the arrival of the gods and the woman who would become the first patron saint of the city, but it hasn’t been written yet.
Speaking of connections, fantasy novels are sometimes stand-alone stories, and sometimes they’re part of larger sagas. What is The Wings Upon Her Back?
It was always meant to be a stand-alone. The world grew according to the needs of the character arc, and, as a result, have a really hard time imagining anyone else there. Other than possibly tinkering around in the backstory as mentioned above, it’s done, the story’s been told, and now I’m off to the next one.
Earlier I asked if The Wings Upon Her Back had been influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games. But to flip things around, do you think The Wings Upon Her Back could work as a movie, or a TV show, or a game?
Oooh fun question. I think the ideal length would be a five-episode limited run TV series. I’m not just throwing the number five out again to be cheeky. The book is divided into five sections (which have five chapters apiece…until the end), with the major turning points marked by interludes (excerpts from a long-lost scholarly essay pertaining to the nature of the city and its gods, naturally). Adapting screenwriters wouldn’t have to shoehorn in extra drama for episode closers because they’re already built evenly into the structure. Netflix, are you listening?
I don’t know if they are or not, but if they are, and they wanted to make a limited series out of The Wings Upon Her Back, who would you want them to cast as Zemolai and the other main characters?
This is one I can’t really answer. I’m terrible at visualizing my characters as actors. I would leave it up to casting and hope to be pleasantly surprised. I will say I wouldn’t want anyone aged down. Give me some terrifying middle-aged warrior women, please.
Sure: Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, Charlize Theron, Viola Davis, Salma Hayek, Lucy Liu…
Anyway, is there anything else people need to know about The Wings Upon Her Back?
I talk a lot about the themes, and about history and psychology and character work, because those are all the nitty-gritty things I’m preoccupied with as the author — but it’s an action novel, too. I wanted it to be a fun ride even if folks aren’t interested in structural metaphors or scholarly interludes, so I put all of my interests in a blender and I poured them into an action mold. There’s an urgency running through the text, one decision spiraling inevitably to the next, and some fun set pieces for the culmination of each storyline.
Finally, if someone enjoys The Wings Upon Her Back, what similar kind of novel by someone else would you suggest they check out next?
The Unbroken by C.L. Clark grapples with a lot of similar themes, but cast through the lens of colonialism. The main character is a soldier who was taken from her home as a child and raised to serve the empire…then sent back to her homeland to help squash a rebellion by her own people. The situation unravels from there, as you can imagine.
The second book, The Faithless, is out now, with a third and final installment forthcoming.
