Babel Clash

Did you know there’s a legend that the Titanic sank because there was a cursed mummy on board?  In reality: No mummy.  But still, you’d think someone would write that, wouldn’t you?  But mummies wait, forlorn, wrapped and forgotten, for their turn in the sun.   I take your point that mummies are not the easiest paranormal creature to situate in whatever location you choose — they tend not to show up much beyond their native lands or large museums — but even Titanic films and books have left them out.  Just sad.  (And I plead guilty too: I’ve got an as-yet-untitled Titanic-themed YA novel coming out from HarperTeen in late 2011, and there, also, mummies will be cruelly ignored.)

That was indeed the challenge: Asking how certain events would change history — and concentrating on smaller changes, like the sinking of the Titanic, which for all its fame was in the end just a very large cruise ship, and not even the sinking with the greatest number of fatalities.  There are already many books asking how bigger changes might have affected history, if, say, the Nazis won WWII (Fatherland), or if the South had won the U.S. Civil War, with help from time-traveling South African white supremacists, no less (Guns of the South).

Though of course, your books take that to a whole new level, don’t they?  How do you even begin reimagining something as vast as the Napoleonic Wars, with a change as huge — and off the beaten path — as the addition of dragons?  If I remember correctly, you began with the more general idea of the Age of Sail, but the Temeraire series ultimately deals with, and affects, that history far more intricate and political way.   When did you realize how wide-ranging the changes would be for your history — and how far back have you imagined the intersection of dragons and mankind in your universe?

– and discover that it used to be an S&M club in lower Manhattan — wait, no, that was Naomi Novik and I last Saturday night.  Naomi has kindly invited me to visit the blog and ramble back and forth with her over the next couple of days, but first I ought to introduce myself.   I’m Claudia Gray, the author of the EVERNIGHT series from HarperTeen, which so far includes the books EVERNIGHT, STARGAZER and (coming March 9) HOURGLASS.

My personal vote for most-overlooked-genre creature right now: Mummies.  If you ask me, mummies are at least as good as the currently hot zombies: They’re both undead, they both tend to shuffle a lot, they’re both extremely set on killing you.  But mummies are a lot sexier, right?  They have tombs in exotic places, filled with gemstones and statuary.  They have death masks of gold, scimitars, jewelry and other priceless, cursed bling.  They’re better preserved than your average zombie (at least, after the first couple of days), and also often have the power of illusion to make themselves young and hot again, whereas it’s hard to get turned on by a drooling, gray-fleshed zombie, where any clinch would probably result in some body part being snapped off.

Granted, you can write about swarms of zombies, and mummy media suggest that those guys are mostly loners.  Maybe one undead shuffling thing seems naturally less scary than hordes of undead shuffling things.  However, mummies can usually summon all sorts of things to do their bidding, from scarabs to jackals to mysterious bluish winds that suck the life out of people.  Mummies bring it all.   But where is “The Mummy Diaries” on the CW?  Naomi, how long can this prejudice against mummies last?