The Sword and Laser discussion

For anyone interested, I found the short story that served as the origins for this book. There were changes, and I found it interesting to see what got kept, what got changed, etc., as Kingfisher took her short story and expanded it.
https://storyspeaker.wordpress.com/20...

ooh neat. Thanks for sharing if some of the other elements had been kept the book might have been even more interesting.

For anyone interested the poem Mara is quoting in the opening pages is taken from The Bonny Swans by Loreena McKennitt

https://open.spotify.com/track/0VRDuk...

I love that The Bonny Swans is derived from an even older ballad, The Twa Sisters. Which is a "Murder Ballad." That that term even exists.

Oaken wrote: "I love that The Bonny Swans is derived from an even older ballad, The Twa Sisters. Which is a "Murder Ballad." That that term even exists."

If you’re interested in pulling further on this thread, the historical fantasy Sistersong by Lucy Holland is inspired by the Twa Sisters ballad.

And on a related note, there's also inspiration that sort of goes the other way (from fantasy to folk song). Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather is a sort of paranormal short story based around a fictional old ballad and written as comments in a forum. It's really cool:

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic...

Another example, I guess would be the space shanties that people write to echo sea shanties but in a future age. The developers for the sci-fi game Stellaris commissioned one, as an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBL9d...