The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

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81

shrug I found the comment hilarious, mostly because Ringo has a hilarious of making fun of himself and his books (go read what he’s written about the Ghost series and have a good laugh). So I figure it’s more than half tongue-in-cheek, with just enough truth (because as far as society goes, YKINOK).

Personally, I thought it was tacked on. It wouldn’t be horrible in a continuing series of the type where the author is already working on the next book chronologically – things like this were sometimes tacked on in the O’Brian Aubrey & Maturin series. But when the author is not even intending to write the “next book” at all right now, it’s pretty weak, since it has nothing to do with the story.

what.

I’m seriously shocked that anyone who’s the slightest bit invested, emotionally, in the characters involved in the series could possibly think that it was “tacked on”. In a very real sense, the series has been building up to that moment since the first book, and it was fantastically done. It’s the first book I’ve read in over a decade to actually bring tears to my eyes, so I think I’m going to have to strongly disagree with you.

82

I actually enjoy most of Ringo novels. I read Ghost, knew it was some book John said was stuck in his subconcious and just wanted to purge it.

I will not read another book in that series. It is pure man porn. But up there with all the other romance drek in my mind (note I have not read a romance novel besides Ghost, which won some romance award)

I fear any of the crap in Ghost (or its sequels) making it into his other books. Sadly it has started in the Council War series with the main character and he hints at it in the Looking Glass series with one of the mains.

I really hope he can keep it down. Because it would drive me away.

The sad part??? The reason he keeps writing them? Because they are his best selling books. I lost my lunch a little when I read that once. egad.

83

Yeah, and his best book (in his opinion, not just mine) is the one that sold the least.

Bujold, on the other hand, is one of those authors who writes awesome books that sell quite well! So there is some hope in the world.

84

Yeah. I hopped on Baen’s forum and submitted a one word statement. Fuck.

The author replied back asking how I meant it. I explained. She was happy as that was her intent.

I still say it. Fuck.

85

Lois McMaster Bujold did a Q&A with iO9 that was supposed to be about Cryoburn, but ranged all over really:

There are spoilers for Cryoburn on that page, so be warned.

Click “All” in the Discussion Threads bar to see her answers from the start. Some interesting stuff in there, like for example the “Drabbles” at the end of Cryoburn weren’t originally part of the book, and it was just supposed to end with that last bit of dialog. I’m glad she included them personally (though I hate the name “Drabble” and am glad that it’s not her word).

86

I found her comments on ebooks interesting, and I wonder if she’s displeased with Baen’s handling of ebooks. Because she (understandably) wants to make money on them, but they’ve a) distributed them with Creative Commons licenses, so they can be legally redistributed for free for all time, meaning that anyone who wants to read her back-catalog can do so without paying on the up-and-up; and b) not put the books on Amazon despite them obviously being available, so that Kindle users who would like to buy a copy and wouldn’t necessarily scour the web for the free ones don’t even have the chance to buy the books in an easy way.

87

From what I’ve read, Baen’s approach to eBooks is the only one that’s actually making money. Eric Flint said in an editorial that his Baen eBook royalties are about 100x those from other publishers.

Generally speaking, the back-catalog should be a non-issue, because book revenues trail off fairly quickly. Baen wants to make money too, the reason they make the back-catalog available for free is to encourage you to purchase current books. This is particularly true with an author like Bujold, where current books are usually directly related to the back catalog.

Amazon’s a bigger issue. You have to know about Baen’s website to purchase their books in electronic form. It’s still working out for them, though.

88

When was Flint’s editorial? I can absolutely believe that was true in, say, 2007. I don’t believe it in 2011 (at least if the other publishers are on Amazon/B&N).

89

In her Q&A, Bujold did point out that the recent compilation of all her novels drove users to purchase “Memory”, which was the only book not in the compilation.

I assume this is evidence that free ebooks drive users to the back catalog, no?

90

Alternately evidence that new releases drive back-catalog sales of books in teh same series, but that the free ebooks of the others blunted that demand for all but Memory.

Also, keep in mind that Baen gave away Cryoburn free in ebook form on release date with the same CC-licensing. There’s no possible justification for that in this day and age.

91

No possible justification? Flint offered a possible justification in his editorial years ago which is still valid.

I don’t agree with it, but it’s still quite possible.

92

Free ebooks made sense when people preferred hardcopy, as a driver of hardcopy sales. That’s no longer true. Now, at best, they make sense as a time-limited promotion on a single book to drive interest in other works from the same author.

93

I think that statement will be true in about 6 months, Malkav11, but when Cryburn was released I don’t think ebook readers had reached critical mass yet. They were growing like crazy, sure, but an older generation of hard-core sci-fi readers are long-time holdouts on switching to digital readers, if the folks I know are any indication.

94

Arise!

I’ve now gone through this series three times, more or less. Bujold remains one of my absolute all-time favorite sci-fi/fantasy authors, largely because she has this uncanny ability to take tried and true tropes and reinvent them in ways that are deliciously addictive. Hell, A Civil Campaign is a tribute to Regency romance novels, for goodness sakes, and yet it’s fabulous! Her characters are amazingly well developed in an amazingly short period of time, compared to some long-winded writers.

If you like her Vorkosigan stuff, check out her Curse of Chalion/Paladin of Souls/Penric books, though the latter are a series of short novellas really. Amazing stuff. And for this male reader, she’s one of the few writers who can take female leads and make them every bit as engrossing for me as a male lead. I know, I know, it’s a weakness of mine I fully admit, but usually I have issues identifying with female lead characters. But in Bujold’s hands, that’s not an issue at all.

95

I need to catch up on the series. Last one I read was a disappointment (Diplomatic Immunity, which was very short and inconsequential, IIRC). I think I need to read Cryoburn, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance and Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.

Though it’s been about 14 years since I read the last one. Maybe it’s time to re-read the whole series.

I did read Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls, but I don’t remember anything about them. I remember enjoying the writing, but the fantasy world created therein didn’t really grab me. I never felt a curiosity with regards to that world.

I’ve never heard of the Penric books before.

96

Of course, like all literature, whether it grabs you or not is a rather personal thing, so certainly not everyone will react the same. I mean, folks love George R. R. Martin’s stuff, which I can’t stand, and I love Faulkner while many people can’t abide his four million word long sentences.

The Penric stories are set in the same world as Chalion. Me, I loved the fantasy world she created for those books because, in part, it was fairly low-magic, with an emphasis on a fairly well fleshed out religious system, something I really enjoy and which is absent in so many fantasy settings. Well, beyond a sort of D&D-ish “I pray to Zoxbra for a magic missile!” type of thing at least. Also, Bujold’s heroes in her fantasy books tend to have interesting backgrounds, a bit different from the farmboy-turned-prince or hero-turned-greater-hero you usually get.

The Vorkosigan books are uneven, that’s true. Diplomatic Immunity I enjoyed, but it mostly serves as a vehicle to outline Miles’ journey from they guy at the sharp end to the guy puling the strings; a lot of it is a meditation on mortality (again), though it does have some cool connections with the earlier adventures with the Cetagandans. Capatin Vorpatril’s Alliance is a great book IMO; for one, it features nothing of Miles and everything about “that idiot Ivan,” who is no idiot, and really comes into his own in the book. It also is, fundamentally, a romance, which usually I’d dislike, but again, like A Civil Campaign, Bujold manages to pull it off brilliantly. The book also features some of the previously nearly omnipotent characters caught with their metaphorical britches down, which is refreshing. Cryoburn, eh, not the strongest in the series, though the plot is interesting, and it certainly serves as a stopping point for this phase of the Vorkosigan saga, if not an ultimate terminus.

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is quite good, and returns us to Cordelia’s Honor-style focus on, well, Cordelia, and as I’ve noted, Bujold does female leads fabulously. She also handles sexuality in all of its forms well, and this book is no exception there.

If you have the time, I do recommend starting over, especially if you have all the books already, and going from the beginning, as it does flow pretty well.

97

I’d never quite understood where to ‘start’ this series, since she didn’t write them in a way that tells Miles’ tale chronologically. Then I found this:

I’ve only read two, Civil Campaign and Diplomatic Immunity. Perhaps it is time to ‘start’ at the beginning.

98

The thing about Ivan, of course, is that he’s not quite as smart or capable as Miles. But basically no one is. So when you finally take him out of Miles’ shadow, it turns out he’s actually quite good and just pales in comparison.

99

Yeah, I reread them all back when Diplomatic Immunity came out. Originally I started reading the saga by checking it out of the library after I’d had surgery on my knee. I knew I had several weeks of bed-rest ahead of me, so I needed something big to read. Back then the saga ended with Memory.

But around the time of Diplomatic Immunity I tried to track down all the books on Amazon, and I bought them in these multi-book edition. Like the first two books were under a title called “Young Miles”, and then the next two books, and the next two books, and so on. It was a weird but cheap way to get the whole saga in my collection.

I’ve moved several times since then though, and gotten married. I suspect that the books are at my brother’s place. I’ll have to track them down. Either that or I should re-buy the collection in digital form. I hope they have a deal sometime. I loved getting GRRM’s Ice and Fire book on the Kindle for $1 for all 5 books. Someone needs to do that with Vorkosigan! :)

I’ll keep an eye out for the Penric stories as well. Even though the world of Chalion didn’t grab me, I didn’t dislike it or find it boring, or anything like that. Whenever I read Bujold I feel I’m in the hands of a very capable writer. (Though I feel the same about GRRM. You crazy TheWombat!)

100

I had a devil of a time tracking down all my old paperbacks, not to mention the Kindle versions of some that I had forgotten I had as well. But I tend to re-read stuff a lot, sadly enough, so I managed to find 'em all.

My problem with Martin is the unrelenting grimness of it all, that, and the excessive (to me) complexity of his convoluted stories. It’s the same reason I never finished the Jordan/Sanderson Wheel of Time books, after literally decades (from 1988 on) reading them. Couldn’t keep track of all the stuff going on. But at least the WoT toned down the puppy killing, incest, mass murder and what not more than Martin does.