That’s the main quibble I’ve got with Bujold: she’s got a really bad case of Everybody Must Be Paired Off. (Even if they’re grouped.)
But she’s also always got something else to say that’s worth reading. And makes the reading fun.
Shards of Honor is actually one of my favorites. And she is saying something important there.
— I have no idea why discourse decided to put that previous line in a different font than the rest of my post. Am mildly curious as to whether a minor edit I made fixed it. (yes, it did. Huh. A couple of extra spaces equals a different font??)
I’ve read all of her fiction, in each series’ publication order. Overall, I like the Vorkosigan Saga best, though the Penric and Desdemona novellas are fun. My favorite of her books is Paladin of Souls, which sometimes made me laugh aloud with its clever turns. Generally, I like the worldbuilding of the World of the Five Gods–but again, Vorkosigan is fun and sprawling.
ETA: She just published a new Penric novella, Testimony of Mute Things, that takes place at an earlier point in the sequence.
Here’s a question. Does anyone know why Bujold has chosen to publish her recent works exclusively in non-print formats?
I wrote to Baen and asked is they planned on publishing future omnibus print editions like they did with the first nine novellas in the Penric series and they said they did not.
Seems like she would have no problem publishing her new books independently as well. If anything, the new books would draw in new readers who might then go back to buy her older books. And the ongoing popularity of the older books shows there’s a market for her new books.
I realize I’m old fashioned but I like books on printed pages. It seems strange that an established author would choose to only release their works in electronic editions.
Same here. I keep waiting for the latest Penric stories to be printed. Also, the latest Vorkosigan book (The Flowers of Vashnoi) has no dead tree edition except maybe a very limited printing.
I wonder if she influenced that type of romance series. Because today it’s very common to write romance series where all the characters are eventually paired off. In fact I’m working on a trilogy where each book is a different couple in the same universe.
But I consider the Vorkosigan Saga primarily military/political sci-fi with some romance thrown in.
If I think about it though… if she writes more romance than a typical sci-fi author that may be one reason I love her stuff. I approved of many of the pairings (and to be clear, a lot of this is happening in the background and not central to the stories) but I thought Ivan’s romance was a miss. And that was a major letdown for me. I wanted to see that done right.
I think it varies a great deal on a book by book basis. I remember someone (here I believe) saying “A Civil Campaign” was a Regency Romance in a Scifi setting.
My first book was a Warrior’s Apprentice, and I’m a pretty big fan of military sci-fi. So different books are going to speak to different people.
The Flowers of Vashnoi is a strange work. It feels like it’s the opening of a longer work rather than a self-contained story. It also seems very strange if you look at it as the final piece of the Vorkosigan saga.
But it was published seven years ago and there’s been no talk that I’ve heard of a follow-up of any sort.
That’s true. I thought Komarr and A Civil Campaign were highly effective and some of her best work. The former being deeply affecting and the latter being hysterically funny.
The series is definitely sci-fi, it has many examples of “here’s a fictional technology, and here are the consequences of that technology”. For example, stunner reflexes; “if safe and effective stun weapons exist, people will train to fire on sight without checking their targets” is a classic example of sci-fi extrapolation. And even plot relevant in at least one novel.
It’s not hard sci fi true, but most science fiction isn’t.
I think it would better described as a comedy of manners.
I just realized I got the name of the first Miles book wrong. It’s Warrior’s Apprentice, of course. The confusion in my mind comes from the fact that the title of the book is a play on the title of the Disney work. That, plus getting old.
One thing I like about Bujold’s SF is she doesn’t portray technology as something static. The technology in her books moves forward. Technology that’s portrayed as cutting edge in one book will be portrayed as obsolete in a book set twenty years later.
My introduction to the Vorkosigan books was reading “Winterfair Gifts” in a multi-author science fiction/romance anthology.
I felt like Bujold really nailed the science fiction/Romance crossover better than the other authors.
A couple had satisfying romances, but were more fantasy than science fiction, at least one told an unsatisfying (unneccesarily cliche’d fantasy romance), and a couple were kinda iffy on either romance or appeal to me.
At that point in my life, I read a lot more romance than science fiction. I tried Warrior’s Apprentice and bounced off it. I don’t remember whether I then tried Shards or if I tried the one where Miles Vorkosigan and Ivan end up on the planet where they do all the genetic tinkering. At some point I went back to Warrior’s Apprentice and liked it better–once I knew Miles and his home planet’s culture more.
And I’ve moved mostly to e-books, but i have moved on from the Kindle to Kobo (which is to say, the other ebook format.) Does she publish anywhere other than Amazon these days?