#Lois Mcmaster Bujold

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

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[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

"The real unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, without anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present - they are real."

Aral Vorkosigan, The Vorkosigan Saga, Lois Mcmaster Bujold

[i-cast-zone-of-truth]

So I just picked up another Vorkosigan book (having inhaled the first 8 or 9 books several months ago), and I dont know if it's that I've been away or that this series just keeps gaining momentum, but I am here to tell you the PLOTTING on these bad boys is THE TIGHTEST SHIT. Listen. Every time I pick up one of these books I underestimate it. somehow!!!! I say to myself "ah yes, this will be merely good." AND THEN IT KNOCKS MY SOCKS OFF. it's not just the plotting. It's the fact that this woman UNDERSTANDS PEOPLE SO GODDAMN GOOD. And she's like. Genuinely progressive about it. do NOT be fooled by the archaic language. she's got THE SPIRIT in a MAJOR way. And in my (huge metropolitan) library's app, where you borrow nothing without waiting 4-50 weeks, her stuff is TRAGICALLY always available. Please help me create hold times for these books! You'll thank me!!!

[summersofsalt]

cordelia, shards of honor era

[umbershift]

I made Vorkosigan Saga memes

[perfectfeelings]

It's never too late while you're breathing.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior’s Apprentice

[agardenandlibrary]

"I'd have mistrusted my memory chip before I mistrusted you."

"God save me from another such victory."

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold

[tinsnip]

Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.

—Lois McMaster Bujold

[vorbarrsultana]

i finished rereading the first four vorkosigan books (+ "the flowers of vashnoi" because ekaterin!!!), and you really have to feel for piotr vorkosigan because what a nightmare life, truly.

imagine you are born just in time for your world to be unified by dorca vorbarra and rediscovered by people from wider galaxy. things are finally looking good, for the first time in 600 years of isolation there is no more feudal infighting, and the promise of galactic medicine and technologies being available lightens everyone's perspectives. sure, your grandpa is called count pierre "le sanguinaire", but who doesn't have terrible relatives?

then you are 15, and suddenly your planet is attacked by the aggressive eugenecist space empire hell-bent on subjugating your people and turning them into disposable material for unethical genetic experiments. you flee into the mountains, away from your family, and create guerrilla forces from locals sworn to your dad, and it's really terrible for a very long time. you have no high-tech weapons and no food, you sleep in a cave in the dead of winter, and the cetagandans try everything (from carpet bombing to chemical weapons) to murder you.

but hey, at least you now have your bff ezar vorbarra, and (from the bff's words on his deathbed) it sounds like you two had so much fun between unimaginable horrors and despair, and it's not surprising, since no one really believes in death after life at 20. then the emperor makes you a general at the tender age of 22. fortunately for him, you & bff make a frighteningly competent dream-team, and the joke's on cetagandans.

then, several years later, you ask the emperor for weapons, because you still sleep on the bare cave floor, there are little resources, and every ghem on the planet is trying to murder you. he offers you the hand of his granddaughter instead, like it's some sort of twisted fairytale, but you grow to love your olivia more than anything, and the tide of war is finally turning, and you allow yourself to entertain the idea of peaceful life, and then...

the space eugenecist empire nukes your hometown, killing your mom, dad, surviving brothers, and two hundred thousand of your people. plus your bff (ezar) gets a radiation doze large enough for it to cause severe cancer thirty years later. great.

but you win! your district is in shambles, your capital is an irradiated crater, your castle is in ruins, but you win! the old dorca dies, and yuri ascends the throne, but politicking is secondary to the fact that you are alive.

yes, you are probably not entirely sane, and you've long forgotten what the peaceful times look like, but you are alive, just under 35, and your entire life is ahead of you. olivia is alive too, and ezar, and you now have three wonderful children, and the extended vorpatril-vorbarra family that hosts regular get-togethers. sure, your mom-in-law is a betan with all sorts of crazy ideas in her head, but she is not pierre vorrutyer. small mercies.

but then the new emperor goes mad, and decides to murder your entire family overnight. your brothers-in-law are gone, one of your sisters-in-law too, and all your nephews and nieces except little padma. but all of this pales in comparison to the facts that olivia is murdered, and that your heir and daughter lay dead beside her.

all you have left of her, of your house, of the family you've lost in vashnoi not a ten years ago, is aral, whom you keep by your side throughout the bloody civil war to put your bff on the throne.

but you win again. you are 43, and ezar vorbarra is now the emperor. you are responsible for the imperium's entire ground forces. you are also responsible for a severely traumatized boy of 13, and the only children you've interacted with without olivia's genle guidance were little messengers of guerilla companies.

what a mess.

[iliiuan]

Mothers in fiction are usually treated as objects. How refreshing, then, for Lois McMaster Bujold to write mothers as subjects.

[beartrice-inn-unnir]

10. What is your favorite genre book to recommend to someone who doesn’t usually like that genre?

Usually when people ask me for a rec for a genre they don’t usually like, they are asking for sci-fi, and I start by trying to figure out different access points based on what they already like. I’m not much of a hard sci-fi person, tending more to the space opera and political thrillers, so here’s a few “if you like x, maybe try y”:

If you like romance, give Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit a try. It’s definitely sci-fi in setting and plot, but it also hits nicely in the formulaic patterns of a arranged-marriage, strangers-to-lovers story that will help you through it even if the sci-fi elements are throwing you off. The author has another similar book that increases the sci-fi elements and is enemies-to-lovers as well, so if you like Winter’s Orbit, Ocean’s Echo is a good next step.

If you like non-fiction, The Martian by Andy Weir is a great pick. I have multiple friends who got into reading again as adults via The Martian. It’s well-written, well-grounded, funny, and very sci-fi. If you’ve already read it, then maybe give To Be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers a try. It can be described with all the same adjectives, plus it’s a short novella, so if you’re hesitant, it’s less intimidating.

If you like mysteries or political thrillers, boy is there a lot of great sci-fi out there for you. The crux of a lot of sci-fi is space or high-tech settings with a plot that asks questions about personhood, and that mixes really well with detectives and spies wandering around trying to solve problems and find truths. Try Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (it’s partway through a series of great books and novellas, but that one’s the most traditional mystery plot) or A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (ambassador solving her predecessor’s mysterious death while trying to do his job)(I’d also recommend this one if you read a lot of classics) EDIT: just realized I mistyped - book 1 by Arkady Martine is A Memory Called Empire.

If YA/ Bildungsromanen/ New Adult figuring the world out through trial and error is often your jam, try Provenance by Ann Leckie (for the kid who really wants to do things right) or The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (for another kid who wants to do things right, but is also a high-energy chaos gremlin).

If you like fantasy, you probably already have read some sci-fi; it’s all under the speculative fiction umbrella and genres are vague anyway. All the same, I know this is the Locked Tomb Website, but give Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir a shot (it’s got magic and mayhem and an epic locked-room whodunnit mystery). The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord is also good - it has a team of people traveling together and thinking about morals and discovering new abilities, plus some romance.

I’m sure there’s lots of genres I’m forgetting right now, but feel free to send me another ask for any specific one!

[elena1701a]

Turns out Lord Midnight may have been perfectly capable of being the next Count Vortala 😀🐴

[everina-maxwell-updates]

In a rare instance of getting myself organized enough to do an interview, the Plot Trysts podcast invited me to guest on their miniseries about the Vorkosigan Saga and I triumphed over several other potential guests in a cage match in order to was delighted to coincidentally get the episode that discusses Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Meg and Alexandra have beautiful podcast voices, great opinions, and wonderful skills at shaping a discussion. I, for some reason, have the exact energy of someone who has arrived on In Our Time to enthusiastically recap an obscure controversy in 19th-century ethnography for the benefit of Melvyn Bragg. No, I don't know why I sound like that either. We had a super interesting discussion on one of my very favorite books and, it will not surprise many people to hear, I have so many thoughts and feelings about Miles and Ekaterin.

I am not actually sure how to link to a podcast, so if this sounds like your thing I suggest putting in "My Word As Vorkosigan Komarr" in whatever podcast app you use! (I also got some weird blank space at the start but the talking starts at about 00:30.)

[cookie-nom-nom]

Lois McMaster Bujold: okay so the A plot is an intense political romance dealing with slander and healing from abuse

me: cool cool and the B plot?

Lois: bugs

me: sorry, what?

Lois: B U G S

[umbershift]

I made more Vorkosigan memes

[thirdwifeofriversong]

y’all please pray for me i just finished cryoburn