Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell

PREFACE

When George R. R. Martin approached me to ask if I’d be willing to contribute a story to Dangerous Women, I was ecstatic. George is known best for his Westeros books, but he is also an excellent editor, having put together many anthologies. His recent themed anthologies with Gardner Dozois have become something of a “Who’s Who” in the fantasy and science fiction world. It was a real honor to be invited.

After he told me the theme was “dangerous women,” I at first thought of Perfect State, another novella of mine. I had a very rough draft of that done, but hadn’t yet submitted it anywhere for publication. I sent that to George and Gardner, and they felt it wasn’t on theme enough, and asked if I had anything else.

I didn’t, not yet, but something had happened recently that had planted a seed in my mind. I had been involved in some genealogy work, and had run across the name of a Puritan woman named Silence.

That intrigued me. Who would name their daughter Silence, and for what reason? Charity I can get. Faith totally makes sense. But Silence? Perhaps she was late in the birth order, and her parents were really hoping to sleep through the nights this time.

Either way, the name stuck with me.

I’d had the idea for Threnody, the Cosmere world where a group of pilgrimesque people fled the Old World because it was overrun by a terrible evil long ago. It was actually a very early Cosmere world, developed somewhere around 1999 or 2000. (Though the name didn’t get assigned to it until Isaac gave a suggestion upon reading this novella.) Having an intriguing Puritan name and a world that took inspiration from early American history seemed a ready-made match, but then I had to ask myself, how was Silence going to be dangerous?

I was worried that the anthology was going to be stuffed full of women either in the “femme fatal” vein or the “I wear black leather and kick demon butt” vein. I’ve often felt that we, in fantasy, sometimes do a poor job of representing people (both male and female) who are powerful and capable in ways other than their ability to stand in a fight. Yes, giving a woman a sword is one way to make her dangerous, but I resist making every powerful woman into one who has become so by forcing her way into a traditionally male-dominated realm of face-to-face combat.

The world was mostly formed in my head, though over the years I’d added the idea of the shades for various reasons. One was to show off a few hints regarding the Cosmere afterlife, and another came during my initial research for the Stormlight Archive, where I read a lot about classical Hebrew life and philosophy. The original idea for Threnody was to make a system of magical rules with their roots in the Law of Moses and Jewish tradition. (Not mixing meat with milk, not kindling flames after nightfall on the Sabbath, etc.) Many of those rules transformed over the years, leaving their roots behind in the same way that the Stormlight magic system left behind its roots in the fundamental forces of physics. But you can see those hints still having an influence on the tone and setting of this story.

The intersection of these ideas developed into this story, one that soon became one of my favorite Cosmere tales. I hope you enjoy it! (And no, for those searching, Hoid does not make an appearance. Unfortunately, he needed to be somewhere else in the timeline at this point.)

Brandon Sanderson