The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Aha, a Bujold thread! The Vorkosigan Saga is my single favourite science fiction series and my equal-favourite book series (tied with ASOIAF), so it’s always great to see more Bujold discussion.

Cryoburn: I reviewed Cryoburn for my blog last week. I think it’s one of the weakest novels from a plot perspective – don’t go in expecting the brilliance of the earlier novels – but I really enjoyed its worldbuilding. Cryoburn is basically the worldbuilding payoff for a series veteran, because it’s where Bujold sits down to explore the social and economic consequences of a technology introduced many novels earlier. Worth checking out if you’re a fan of the series.

Where to start: I’d second Warrior’s Apprentice (which you can find in the Young Miles collection) as a hook into the series. I would not start with Shards of Honour, which is the first of the “parents” novels – as it’s also the first to be written, it feels quite a bit rougher than Warrior’s.

Favourite book: Memory for me too, for reasons similar to Rock8man – at first I liked it but didn’t love it. Then I came back to it years later, after I’d said goodbye to a certain part of my life, and wow did it hit me hard. Civil Campaign is the runner-up, not only because it is so funny (dinner party! dinner party!) but because it, to me, caps off an important part of Miles’ story arc: how he finds his happy ending.

Ivan: So, anyone else seen the snippets (#1, #2 – spoilers, obviously) of the upcoming book – the long-awaited one starring Ivan Vorpatril?

Now, where’s Jeff Green…?

True. For most of the books, Miles usually has to work outside the system because he is fairly far down the totem pole (ImpSec stories), he’s dealing with a more powerful organization (most Naismith stories), or he’s outside his jurisdiction (Cetaganda). With the Auditor role, he’s at the absolute top of the heap, excepting Gregor. Cryoburn is another “outside his jurisdiction” story, but for the most part what he’s dealing with isn’t that challenging or Byzantine, and we don’t see that much of him anyway.

I also loved Memory, mostly for how brave it was that she so drastically changed Miles’ life.

Oddly, I went looking for that book on the CD after the mentions in this thread and it isn’t there. Or anyway I can’t find it. I think this is because the CD contains all the omnibus editions, rather than individual novels, and Memory is the only novel that was never included in an omnibus (probably because it doesn’t really “fit” together thematically with another book in the series, the way many of the others do).

So if you want to read the whole series, you’ll have to grab this one by itself. Unless it is on the CD and I just can’t find it, but I don’t think so.

I thought A Civil Campaign second weakest after Cryoburn, but I hate Jane Austen with a passion…

Why yes, I have! And they’re even on-topic for this thread.

Shards of Honor, Komar, and A Civil Campaign are all romance novels. They follow the classic conventions of the romance genre, and none of them would be out of place shelved in the romance section rather than the SF one.

A Civil Campaign’s dedication even reads: “For Jane, Charlotte, Georgette and Dorothy — Long may they rule.” That’d be Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Georgette Heyer, and Dorothy L. Sayers.

There are, of course, bad romance novels that are “porn with a pretense for a plot”. That’s not the whole genre.

Speaking of Bujold’s romantic storylines, I think she has a (sometimes weird) thing for May-December romances. I stop short of wondering whether her mother, or she herself, was married to a man far older, but both the Vorkosigan saga and her fantasy work (The Curse of Chalion and The Sharing Knife series) feature a relationship between a woman and a much older man.

The Sharing Knife series in particular features a romance between an eighteen-year-old girl and a fifty-five-year-old man that seems borderline creepy. She does at least deal with the age difference usually, and handles it well, so maybe it’s just me.

A Civil Campaign breaks this mould, however, and I would call it more of a Comedy of Errors than a Romance, per se. In fact, the book’s full title is: “A Civil Campaign: A Comedy of Biology and Manners”, so it’s Shakespearian-ness is definitely deliberate.

Miles always puts people under his command in danger, though. His entire life is one long series of insane risks. It’s a miracle that he’s only gotten someone killed once. (Bothari, of course.)

Up to Memory, Miles’s modus operendi has been to bluff his way through every situation. He never, ever admits that he might not be able to do something. And, through a combination of luck and skill, it’s worked most of the time. Memory is the inevitable moment when it finally catches up to him.

It’s an uncomfortable book, and I understand not liking it. Miles is entirely in character throughout it, however.

What’s the May-December romance in the Vorkosigan series? I’m certain I should know what you’re referring to, but I can’t bring anything to mind.

If I recall, Aral is supposed to be a good two decades older than Cordelia.

Well, if you recall, Bujold’s very first Vorkosigan book is essentially a star-crossed romance (Shards of Honor). She very much likes that kind of thing, so I’m not surprised she’s gone that way more than often. I haven’t even delved into it yet but I’m sure The Shearing Knife series is pretty much the same, but fantasy.

— Alan

I don’t think he’s that much older than her. I have no idea where in the books their ages are mentioned, but Wikipedia claims Aral was 44 when he married Cordelia, and the Vorkosigan wiki has her at 30 “several years” before meeting Aral.

They’re both old b/c one of the key suspicions of the Betan police of their unlikely romance is how old she was.

Why are there several answers as to which book is the first in the series ? Chronological order doesn’t really matter, the order the author intended does, and I can’t think of any cases where that’s not the order the author wrote them in. This seems overcomplicated :(

However, I’m reading Warrior’s Apprentice and liking it, so I guess for me that is the first book.

From the first Omnibus volume:

So I wrote “The Mountains of Mourning” next, followed by “Labyrinth,” incidentally establishing a pattern of writing at will anywhere in Miles’s timeline, and accidentally setting up the subsequent perpetual readerly argument of whether it is better to read the Miles stories in publication order or by internal chronology. In these omnibus volumes you are getting them by internal chronology, by the way—until I wreck the nice arrangement by writing another prequel someday.

What a scatterbrain. So do they not refer to each other much? I mean, if she hadn’t written the book that takes place in year 4 when she wrote the book that takes place in year 5, then the book that takes place in year 5 couldn’t possibly have any dependence on knowing what happened in year 4, right?

Or in TV terms, they’re purely episodic with no overarching plot?

The key thing to remember with all three of those books is that they are not just a romance. Komarr is an investigative thriller, A Civil Campaign is a Comedy of Errors, and Shards of Honor is more Space Opera/Politics than Romance; if anything, it’s a worldbuilding novel, written to set a stage already being acted on.

Most romance is more like Wuthering Heights; entirely lacking in any major themes other than insipid relationships and tepid, badly-described sex. Everything revolves around those, whereas in Komarr and Shards of Honor, there’s far more going on (the invasion in SoH, the investigation in Komarr).

Whatever McMaster Bujold’s stance on relationships and the age of people in them, I am convinced that she’s on a pro-oral sex crusade.

They certainly have overarcing plots, but more in the sense of Miles’ life passing. I’ve been reading timeline-wise, and I haven’t really noticed any problems.

You’ll have to spell that one out for me - I don’t recall any mentions of specific acts in the Vorkosigan books.

“SF’s no good!” they bellow till we’re deaf.
“But this is good.” “Well, then it’s not SF.”

Only, you know, with romance.

Sturgeon’s Law applies to romance as much as any other genre. This doesn’t make your characterization of the genre remotely accurate.