Ah, the Heinlein school of “strong” women.
Falling Free’s not really part of the Vorkosigan series, though she did work it in there later on. But it’s a great book. “It’s an engineering problem” –
Bujold’s actually a bit too into pairing people neatly off for my tastes – a few of the books seem to be written primarily for that purpose. But even in some of those, there’s often something else she’s working on getting into the back of the readers’ heads while they’re busy reading the love story.
Eek, sorry about that, I guess you’re right. I was thinking of it as more of a medium-length prose poem than a short story with a sequential plot that could be “spoiled”, which I suppose is just another way the author is overturning our genre expectations. Mods, please feel free to rectify my error (in fact, I think I’ll report the post myself to flag it for them).
Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls are two of the finest fantasy novels I have ever read.
Or follow the recommendation of others regarding the Vor series, if you’re leaning more SF than fantasy at the moment.
On that subject, it is interesting to check this funny review of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Red, the woman reviewer from Overly Sarcastic Productions gives a very female perspective to items that some reviewers from the past did not mention much about Heinlein’s ideas.
Special attention to her asides bout “Deep Thoughts with Heinlein” 
Can Grok that.
That was a lot of fun. Thanks!
I attended SMOFCon in virtual mode all day yesterday. SMOFCon is an annual convention attended by those who run science fiction conventions(SMOF stands for Secret Masters Of Fandom-an injoke), and in all the panels and discussions I attended there was not one mention of any of the “puppie” groups or of those behind them.
Glad to hear they’re sinking into irrelevancy.
How did she do that without taking a breath? 
When I was 18 I thought Stranger was the best book I ever read.
Then I turned 19.
It’s truly amazing how many 18-year-olds there are reading sf.
The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls are both set in a county called Chalion, that Bujold based on 15th c. Spain. The next novel, The Hallowed Hunt, is set in a different country on the same continent. Then Bujold started a series of novellas about a sorcerer called Penric, and his demon Desdemona. Same world as Curse, Paladin, and Hunt, but different times and different countries within that world. The commonality to all these stories is the interaction of people with the five gods that created the world (but can’t materially affect it without the willing cooperation of a human saint). So Bujold stopped calling the series “the Chalion novels”, and re-dubbed them “the World of the Five Gods”.
I feel some pleasure that a thread about the Sad Puppies has been hijacked into a Bujold discussion.
The puppies were always a minority of fandom (note they needed to manipulate the Hugo ballot to get any attention). I’ve been running Albacon and I don’t think we’ve ever had anyone show up who identified with the group.
Ok, sorry to sidetrack for a sec, and sorry if someone else already brought this up - I am still catching up. But the bolded bit brings up a question I have.
Quick note - I’m gonna talk about the ugly underbelly of a couple gaming communities. I’m not trying to shit on people who play video games in general. In fact, the only reason I’m familiar with these people is because I play all of the games I’m about to mention, and have had to deal with these sorts; please remember that they are a tiny minority of the people playing these games, and the companies making them have been doing better and better at distancing themselves from this crap - both because it is the right thing to do, and because it is probably starting to cost them money as sane customers get turned off by these sorts.
Anyways- some background:
The Grand Strategy video game world has its share of racist assholes, the type who play as Germany in Hearts of Iron IV a bit TOO enthusiastically (and complain that the Germany ingame, while led by Hitler [unless you restore the Kaiser instead!] uses Iron Crosses instead of Swastikas.
To give another example, Crysader Kings II used to give you a little pop-up when a Crusade starts; if you are playing as a non-Catholic you get some dismissive message about dangerous infidels (if you are the target) or the bickering of fools (if you are not), or - if you are Catholic - it says “Deus Vult”. That same subgroup of grand strategy players spun this off into an anti-Muslim alt-right meme, and so (wisely) Paradox decided to distance themselves from this controversy, and when reporters asked about it, they said that the phrase Deus Vult would not return to Crusader Kings 3. Cue even more epic whining by the alt right subgroup.
Well, obviously the Alt Right is gonna latch on to the Crusaders in a medieval game or the Germans in a WW2 game. And in a third strategy game, this one space based - Stellaris - the subgroup is obsessed with the Empire of Man from Warhammer 40k. Again, that makes sense - the Empire of Man is basically the Holy Roman Empire in space, so if you are the sort of Alt Right moron who idolizes nazis, you probably idolize Hitler’s version of the Second Reich. And Games Workshop has their own issues with the Alt Right, as they learned recently when they made a statement in support of… I think it was BLM? And a subgroup of their fanbase shat a brick.
But more generally, they seem obsessed with exactly what you mentioned - the whole “humans are vastly superior to aliens” shtick. I always assumed this directly stemmed from the WH40k thing, but it sounds like it is a wider trend in scifi in general? I’d never heard of this before. It seems completely absurd for a whole bunch of reasons, like the fact that we have no idea what aliens might be like. Or that they might be so different from us that trying to say we or they are “superior” is not just comparing apples and oranges - those are both fruits from angiosperm trees! It’s more like comparing lions and petunias, only even more different.
John Campbell had a “Humanity is Superior” preference, which several authors complained about. William Tenn altered “Firewater” when Campbell objected to the unalloyed superiority of aliens in that story, Asimov made the Foundation universe alien-free to avoid Campbell’s issues on the subject, etc. Heinlein was somewhat immune to this issue, so stories he published with Campbell, like “Methuselah’s Children” and “Goldfish Bowl” did have superior aliens
I had to do a bit of a double take there because there is a Dr John Campbell from England who puts out videos about COVID on YouTube which are pretty informative - but I assume you are referring to the editor of the science fiction magazine!
I did read a lot of Asimov as a kid, and I knew his books were originally published in magazines, but I didn’t know much about Campbell; according to the Wikipedia article about him, he also took a liking to pseudoscience which - according to Asimov at least - is why things like “psionics” became so popular in science fiction? That’s interesting…
Just picking out this bit…
Games Workshop intended Warhammer 40K, and the Empire of Man in particular, as dry, darkly humorous satire. The Empire of Man is supposed to be a clearly awful, dystopian nightmare. You’re supposed to play them with a sense of ironic detachment. When you play them, you’re supposed to realize that you’re a villain, that the God-Emperor is a fraud, and that you’re playing as a brainwashed fascist stooge. A lot of fans didn’t get the joke.
He spent the 50s demanding stories to have psionics as part of the plot until writers began fleeing the magazine. And that doesn’t even get into nonsense like Dianetics or the Dean drive or other pseudoscientific rot. He was one of those people who raise contrariness into a religion.
Yeah. He was angry about the Thalidomide incident because he felt that the US was too hasty in banning the stuff (he said that after the bad consequences were known).
Campbell also had another bit of weirdness. Being a diehard smoker, even posting Editorials where he insisted it was good for you, 
he made many SF writers add smoking in their stories.
Note Asimov, who was a dedicated anti-smoker, having many cigar scenes in Foundation.
Here’s an example: Do you watch 'The Masked Singer?"
Last year, in my opinion, a far less talented person won the competition vs the 2nd place finisher. The winner even mentioned something along the lines of “it’s about time a woman won” right before the judges made their decision. I believe the judges were fearful of appearing to discriminate against women so they let the gender of the competitors partially influence their decision.
These are the “bonus points” I’m talking about. Yes, it’s a silly example but it’s pervasive throughout our culture that winners are not chosen solely based on who is best.
I don’t watch “The Masked Singer”. But I take it that it’s a talent competition, and hence the judgements are entirely subjective. Isn’t it possible that the judges just, y’know, maybe, disagreed with you?
That’s the fundamental problem with the “Sad Puppies” and their arguments. They can’t show any evidence that “bonus points” are being awarded on the basis of “political correctness” beyond their own subjective opinions of who deserves to win being different from the subjective opinions of the awards judges.
I mean, it’s possible that the Hugo and Nebula judges both decided it was time for a woman of color to win a major award. But how do you tell the difference between that and them just thinking that N.K. Jemison is really good writer? What is it, exactly, that makes you think that they’re awarding “PC bonus points” rather than just liking different things than you?