Bujold, Lois McMaster: Her books

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Red Queen

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Her books
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I'm shocked! I'm the first to post in this forum? Well, where to begin, then?

For those of you poor souls who have yet to discover LMB's books, she has written several, won Hugos and Nebulas and is a all round good sport about what her fans put her through :rolly2:

Her SF books in internal Chronological order

Falling Free
Shard's of Honor
Barrayar
The Warrior's Apprentice
"Mountains of Mourning" from Borders of Infinity
The Vor Game
Cetaganda
Ethan of Athos
"Labyrinth" from Borders of Infinity
"The Borders of Infinity" from Borders of Infinity
Brothers in Arms
Borders of Infinity
Mirror Dance
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
X (the one she's on chapter 17 of...I can hardly wait!)
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Just felt we were a bit behind with LMB listing, so in her Vorkosiverse add:
Winterfair Gifts
Diplomatic Immunity
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
and Cryoburn
Plus a number of omnibus - generally two of the novels and a novela- volumes.
Her Fantasy stuff:

The Spirit Ring
The Curse of Chalion due out in stores in Aug/Sept. some have got to read the ARCs. I'm intensely jealous of them!
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While the 'Chalion' universe has sprouted:
Paladin of Souls
and The Hallowed Hunt,
Inteding two more books for the remaining two gods, sometime,

And the "Sharing Knife" Tetralogy has been born:

Beguilement
Legacy
Passage
Horizon
With the possibility of at least one more book exploring the next generation.
 
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I just read the her for the first time the other day. I read Cordelia's honor with is a combination of Shards of Honor and Barrayar. Really enjoyed them and am planning on reading more of her when I get the chance.
 
I, too, am amazed at the lack of response here; Bujold is my absolute favourite writer. Over the years I've bought about six copies of The Warrior's Apprentice; whenever I lend it to someone I can be fairly certain that I'm never going to see it again.

I was a trifle trepidant when I heard about Curse of Chalion; I thought The Spirit Ring was pretty disappointing. However, Chalion is great. Better than the vast majority of fantasy novels I've read. The only author who comes close would be Dave Duncan.
 
Since there seems to be a growing interest in Bujold's work here (not that there hasn't been plenty of interest elsewhere over the years, but she's been sadly neglected here on Chronicles), it seemed like time to revive this thread,

I, too, was disappointed by The Spirit Ring and the only Miles book I had tried to read was A Civil Campaign which many, many friends have recommended. ACC struck me as the kind of book that's probably an absolute delight for those already familiar with the characters, but not a good introduction to the series for somebody coming to it cold as I did.

So I was not particularly interested in reading The Curse of Chalion when it came out. Had I been left to buy the book, I'm sure I wouldn't have read it to this day. But I picked up a free copy at WorldCon that year, and fell right into the story. Going by Chalion and its sequels, it's easy to see why Bujold has a loyal following: Interesting setting, sympathetic main character in circumstances that engage even more of our sympathy, a plot with a few unexpected twists and turns, but not too complex to follow. Developments while not predictable, always make sense -- at least in retrospect. She plays fair with the reader and doesn't spring surprises that depend on situations that are improbable in terms of human motivation or on characters acting out of character. Above all, Bujold knows how to tell a story.

If all of this is true of the Vorkosigan books as well, I might give Miles & his friends another try sometime, when I'm in the mood for some science fiction.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
the only Miles book I had tried to read was A Civil Campaign which many, many friends have recommended. ACC struck me as the kind of book that's probably an absolute delight for those already familiar with the characters, but not a good introduction to the series for somebody coming to it cold as I did.
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Yes, you'd miss out on a lot of the plot's implications coming to A Civil Campaign cold.
Try The Warriors Apprentice for the first *proper* Miles book, or Shards of Honour and Barrayar for the back story of Miles' parents.
I wish I was in your shoes; I'd love to be coming to the stories for the first time again (if you see what I mean)!:)
 
Well, I've got to show approval for this thread, even if I've got nothing particular to say. What can you say? She writes well, has a couple of intricately crafted and diverse universes (escaping from the science fiction tendency toward homogenous, frequently bipolar universes. Even if the good/evil split is reducing, there's still a lot of "our way of doing things" vs "theirs", a neat split that is unlikely to occur unless transport times are very short.) And her characters, even if there are fewer filled out characters than in some recent epics, are believable, frequently likable, and three dimensional.
I can't imagine entering the Vorkostigan universe at Civil campain; I got it wrong (entered at "Warriors apprentice" and read backwards and forwards) but meeting Miles that late in life?!
There are a couple of books missing from the list at the beginning; Diplomatic immunity, paladin of souls, the hallowed hunt, the sharing knife (and winterfair gifts, a short) but only a few, which goes to show she doesn't write fast enough for some of us, and I keep in contact (rarely communicate) both through Baens bar, where I still frequently drop in for a drink and a chat, even if they are, in general, the type of americans we love to hate) and at The Bujold Nexus - The Lois McMaster Bujold Homepage , which means I know more than I require about tiling her bathroom and the recent demise of her mother. (kindly imagine a smiley there; it's far too much work actually looking for one, and I would hate people to take me serously)
At any given time half of my Bujold books are lent out to people I think might apreciate them; and I'm proud to say no few of them have bought their own. To thy them is to buy them?
 
pyanfaruk said:
Yes, you'd miss out on a lot of the plot's implications coming to A Civil Campaign cold.
Try The Warriors Apprentice for the first *proper* Miles book, or Shards of Honour and Barrayar for the back story of Miles' parents.
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I second Pyanfaruk's recommendations, Teresa. Your friends probably suggested that you read A Civil Campaign because you enjoy romantic comedy of manners--but A Civil Campaign doesn't truly reflect the rest of the Miles books, and much of its impact depends on having a prior emotional investment in the characters.

The key thing about the Miles books is what you mention about The Curse of Chalion: Miles is most definitely a "sympathetic main character in circumstances that engage even more of our sympathy." In most of the books, that sympathy derives from his struggles with deformity (mental and physical) and societal expectations as he looks for a place to belong--struggles that he's overcome, for the most part, by the time of A Civil Campaign. Once you've gotten a few Miles books into your head, you'll be ready for the double-whammy of sympathy in Mirror Dance, where Bujold explores what it's like to be Miles's clone brother.

One of the things that most impresses me about Bujold is that she can write both science fiction and fantasy with equal skill--and what skill! She's one of the few authors whose books I will buy in hardback because I can't wait for the paperback versions.

(I know there are some devotees of hard science fiction that don't think much of Bujold's SF, but she's not trying to write hard SF, so it seems unfair to diss her for not doing so.)
 
I also recommend her latest fantasy book, which looks like it's to be part of a series or trilogy. The title of the book is The Sharing Knife, Book I of Beguilement. Liked it better than the Curse of Chalon.
 
Thanks for the info murphy, I really liked Curse of Chalion so I'll have to keep an eye out for The Sharing Knife. I'm not too much into scifi but maybe I'll give one of those a try too.
 
One of my favorites was Shards of Honor. A little bit of love interest along with the SciFi. But then I am a big Bujold fan, no matter what she writes, fantasy or science fiction.
 
Miles Vorkosigan is, in my opinion, the best character EVER created in science fiction.
 
No discussion of Komarr.

Falling Free might qualify as a hard SF story with all of the engineering but Bujold treats her "fantasy wormholes" in a scientific manner in Komarr. Physics works the way it works not the way people think or want it to work. Rather like The Cold Equations.

I have tried a couple of her fantasy books, Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls. I finished them but fantasy just doesn't hold my interest.

psik
 
Must try when I have more time. I'm afraid that first bit read more like a Weber and had me skimming already. But I'm sure it must be fabulous.
 
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