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Coming up on the ten-year anniversary of the first Indestructibles book and I keep thinking about perspectives that have evolved and how it'd be different if I wrote it now, especially because a few recent readers have said it feels like it was written today.
A few of the characters weren't intentionally written to be ND, but definitely are - Emily for sure, Kate very likely, maybe Bedlam. Arguments could be made for others. In the years since the first edition came out, I've occasionally wondered if Jane is ace/demi. The book was marketed as YA but didn't fit with a lot of the prerequisite tropes, and there wasn't much romance involved. Not by design, just how the characters reacted to the world. Emily's pop culture obsession was intentionally evergreen so it wouldn't age out. She likes old nerdy stuff. Would change: she makes jokes a few times about a series I don't want to be associated with anymore, of course. But it feels weird to retroactively edit those out. (Speaking of, as the resident Whovian Em would have adored Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, but her favorite remains the 9th. She would have imprinted on Eccleston's feral energy.) I absolutely would have avoided the ship having an "AI" persona given what's happening now, but it's such a sci-fi trope I'm not too mad about it. I started working with AI researchers a few years after the book came out; I know so much more now. More to follow... gotta step away for a bit but it's interesting doing a look back at one's own work as a writer.
13 Comments
Michael Kelley
10/31/2023 10:10:41 am
As a person who is perpetually out of touch all I can say is a slightly perplexed "wha?" What does North Dakota have to do with anything? I can make some vague guesses because of your reference to "ace" which I think, but am not sure, means asexual? And I am now curious as to which one of Emily's pop culture references are now not the best choice.
Matthew Phillion
10/31/2023 10:20:29 am
Yeah, being so wired in to everything I almost wish I wasn't, but seeing how books published today instead of ten years ago acknowledge themes like this I can't help thinking what a publisher would use for keywords for the books today. (The nice thing is the way they're written if you're not tied into online discourse, you can just read and enjoy them without needing any context at all!)
Michael Kelley
10/31/2023 12:02:23 pm
Got it. I should have know ND. I have two friends whose sons are ND. And I didn't even think about Harry Potter. I read those along with my nephews when they first came out, but stopped after the original series and have only heard about some of Ms. Rowlings' nonsense peripherally.
Matthew Phillion
10/31/2023 12:18:02 pm
Yeah, I need to be more inclusive because most of the folks in my life outside of my immediate family are part of groups who need more characters in stories like them. In a way I'm kind of happy about accidental inclusion in the Indestructibles - I didn't know we'd be having so much discussion about neurodivergence when I wrote it but a lot of folks have said they see themselves in Kate or Emily and I didn't do that on purpose - I was just writing characters like the people in my life. Leave a Reply. |
About the authorMatthew Phillion is the author of the Indestructibles YA novel series, its spinoff Echo and the Sea, and the Dungeon Crawlers series of RPG-style novellas. Archives
August 2025
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