Critters, creatures, and things that crawl -- part of the fun of building a new world is getting to populate it with not just sapient characters, but all the flora and fauna. And sometimes, that means the things you find in the smallest corners and crevices. Guest Premee Mohamed joins us to talk about the role of bugs and other biology in worldbuilding!
Bugs are a critical part of our world, performing so many essential functions that we never think about and that writers often neglect -- so, why is that? Where does our tendency towards squeamishness about bugs overlap with fears of body horror -- and how have SFF stories magnified those fears to create memorable antagonists like Xenomorphs and monsters like Shelob? How can a worldbuilder think about the health of their whole ecosystem, from those itsy-bitsy bugs all the way up to the apex predators -- and if the health of the ecosystem reflects the health of the world, how can that provide some good plot hooks for characters? All this and many, many scientific factoids are packed into this episode!
[Transcript TK]
Our Guest: Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Ignyte, Locus, British Fantasy, and Crawford awards. Currently, she is the Edmonton Public Library writer-in-residence and an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod. She is the author of the 'Beneath the Rising' series of novels as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.
Episode 108: The Myth, The Legend, The Cultural Impacts, ft. EHIGBOR OKOSUN
Episode 107: Livin’ on a Prayer: Religion, Worldview, and the Individual
Episode 106: Lighten Up: Making your World a Little Grin-Dark, ft. M.J. KUHN
Episode 105: We’re Going on an Adventure!
Episode 104: Riffing on the Real World, ft. KAT HOWARD
Episode 103: Worldbuilding - It Builds Character, ft. KRITIKA H. RAO
Episode 102: Side Dishes and Second Helpings: Serving Up Some Food Culture, ft CHANA PORTER
Episode 101: All About the Zhuzh
Episode 100: The Game is Afoot! ft. CATE OSBORN, ANDREW NOME, and SHARANG BISWAS
Episode 99: Connect the Dots
Episode 98: Mysterious Worlds, ft. ANDREA STEWART
Episode 97: Perfect Pairing - Intersectionality and Worldbuilding, ft SUYI DAVIES OKUNGBOWA
Episode 96: The Big Blue World: Oceanic Worldbuilding, ft DARCIE LITTLE BADGER
Episode 95: Building and Bending Gender, ft. G.R. MACALLISTER
Episode 94: Natural and Supernatural Disasters
Episode 93: Queries and Quandaries
Episode 92: Ringing in the New Year
Episode 91: Making the Incredible Credible, ft. CHARLAINE HARRIS
Episode 90: The Editor’s Take ft. BRIT HVIDE
Episode 89: Stealing the Best Parts of History, ft. LAURA ANNE GILMAN
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