Ask the Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Answered Questions (1492)
Lois McMaster Bujold
This is a question that only a god can answer, through inner knowledge unavailable to human perceptions, a very private transaction between each human and their chosen or choosing (or rejected or rejecting) deity. There is no list of rules that one may mechanically check off to ensure a particular outcome.
Sincere repentance likely does count for something. (Not everyone, after all, is going to get an extended lifetime to make amends.) And the god would know whether or not the person was faking contrition in a mere self-centered attempt to avoid reprisal.
Ta, L.
This is a question that only a god can answer, through inner knowledge unavailable to human perceptions, a very private transaction between each human and their chosen or choosing (or rejected or rejecting) deity. There is no list of rules that one may mechanically check off to ensure a particular outcome.
Sincere repentance likely does count for something. (Not everyone, after all, is going to get an extended lifetime to make amends.) And the god would know whether or not the person was faking contrition in a mere self-centered attempt to avoid reprisal.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Real Soon Now! Later this week (10/20/25) if all goes to plan.
I will, as usual, make a blog post with links when it goes live.
Ta, L.
Real Soon Now! Later this week (10/20/25) if all goes to plan.
I will, as usual, make a blog post with links when it goes live.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Another question for FanficPerson, I expect. Personally, I see Jin as a future zookeeper, though probably a biologist as well. (Think Gerald Durrell, who was a partial inspiration for the character -- see his classic memoir My Family & Other Animals. Which is a great read, btw.) On what planet is an open question.
Ta, L.
Another question for FanficPerson, I expect. Personally, I see Jin as a future zookeeper, though probably a biologist as well. (Think Gerald Durrell, who was a partial inspiration for the character -- see his classic memoir My Family & Other Animals. Which is a great read, btw.) On what planet is an open question.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
I do indeed have enough Pen & Des stories for a couple more paper collections, and have packaged them that way for foreign sales, though so far the foreign publishers seem to prefer to buy the novellas ala carte and make their own assemblages.
The paper-only Baen version started out promising with sales, then the second volume was released in May 2020 when all the bookstores were closing, and so tanked through no fault of its own. Third one has not done well in sales, as far as I can tell from my royalty reports (which always arrive a year or more out of date, so, more history than current events.) I don't think any publisher could make bank with further paper volumes only, and most won't take paper without e-rights that that would reduce my income from them by half. There are scenarios where this would be a good choice, but I'm not there at this time.
Meanwhile, my ala carte e-editions and audio editions are selling just fine, and retain more flexibility for inserting prequels (which I've just again done, with the coming-very-soon "Testimony of Mute Things".)
So, short answer, no more paper collections are in the pipeline at this time. They are not ruled out for the future, but that's not up to just me.
Ta, L.
I do indeed have enough Pen & Des stories for a couple more paper collections, and have packaged them that way for foreign sales, though so far the foreign publishers seem to prefer to buy the novellas ala carte and make their own assemblages.
The paper-only Baen version started out promising with sales, then the second volume was released in May 2020 when all the bookstores were closing, and so tanked through no fault of its own. Third one has not done well in sales, as far as I can tell from my royalty reports (which always arrive a year or more out of date, so, more history than current events.) I don't think any publisher could make bank with further paper volumes only, and most won't take paper without e-rights that that would reduce my income from them by half. There are scenarios where this would be a good choice, but I'm not there at this time.
Meanwhile, my ala carte e-editions and audio editions are selling just fine, and retain more flexibility for inserting prequels (which I've just again done, with the coming-very-soon "Testimony of Mute Things".)
So, short answer, no more paper collections are in the pipeline at this time. They are not ruled out for the future, but that's not up to just me.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Your Penric problem is alas between you and your budget. I'd point out that they are novellas, not short stories -- each about a third of an average novel long, if that helps your calculations. I suppose you could try the first one, "Penric's Demon", and decide then if they are worth it. Or pick one up once in a while when you are having an otherwise too-busy-to-listen-much month?
The collections, technically, are not mine -- they are a Baen Books exclusive, and Baen does not have audio rights to them. So, no to that one.
Re: Audible, you'd have to ask them. I have no idea why my works were acquired in the order they were, whether constraints were budget or processing time or someone purchasing who had no idea what they were. (Wholesale buyers can't possibly read all the books they acquire for their employers; they have to use other metrics to decide.) I don't actually know how Audible's credits or indeed business generally work, not being an audio consumer myself.
Ta, L.
Your Penric problem is alas between you and your budget. I'd point out that they are novellas, not short stories -- each about a third of an average novel long, if that helps your calculations. I suppose you could try the first one, "Penric's Demon", and decide then if they are worth it. Or pick one up once in a while when you are having an otherwise too-busy-to-listen-much month?
The collections, technically, are not mine -- they are a Baen Books exclusive, and Baen does not have audio rights to them. So, no to that one.
Re: Audible, you'd have to ask them. I have no idea why my works were acquired in the order they were, whether constraints were budget or processing time or someone purchasing who had no idea what they were. (Wholesale buyers can't possibly read all the books they acquire for their employers; they have to use other metrics to decide.) I don't actually know how Audible's credits or indeed business generally work, not being an audio consumer myself.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Thanks for the rereads of increasing understanding!
Almost all my titles are widely and instantly available as ebooks and audio downloads, internationally on Kindle, Apple Books, Google Play Books, Rakuten Kobo, and (US only) Barnes & Noble's Nook. I don't see how, if you have enough computer power to be here, you can't get to them through at least one of these vendor platforms. I can't speak to the other vendors, but Amazon gives away their Kindle app as a free download, in multiple formats for multiple kinds and brands of devices.
I don't know how to make this any easier.
A paper boxed set seems unlikely. Print-on-demand may happen someday, although my current two, about to be three, PoD titles, have been selling in too small of numbers to make it an obvious thing to try, given the start-up hassles. For the moment, the ones we have are through Ingram Spark, which I believe is US-only (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about that) and through Amazon -- I don't know how their PoD program works internationally. (Have any non-US readers out there been able to successfully order The Spirit Ring or "Knife Children" PoDs though this on Amazon international?)
Ta, L.
Thanks for the rereads of increasing understanding!
Almost all my titles are widely and instantly available as ebooks and audio downloads, internationally on Kindle, Apple Books, Google Play Books, Rakuten Kobo, and (US only) Barnes & Noble's Nook. I don't see how, if you have enough computer power to be here, you can't get to them through at least one of these vendor platforms. I can't speak to the other vendors, but Amazon gives away their Kindle app as a free download, in multiple formats for multiple kinds and brands of devices.
I don't know how to make this any easier.
A paper boxed set seems unlikely. Print-on-demand may happen someday, although my current two, about to be three, PoD titles, have been selling in too small of numbers to make it an obvious thing to try, given the start-up hassles. For the moment, the ones we have are through Ingram Spark, which I believe is US-only (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about that) and through Amazon -- I don't know how their PoD program works internationally. (Have any non-US readers out there been able to successfully order The Spirit Ring or "Knife Children" PoDs though this on Amazon international?)
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Heh. Yes, recent covers are an improvement, both from Subterranean Press and from Ron Miller. Nevertheless, all the old ones are still following me around, in used bookstores if nowhere else.
(Quite a few of my old covers were actually good art, but very ill-served by some obscuring poor cover design, and/or the fact that they did not convey the actual content or tone of the story they encased.)
If I had my wish my book covers would all be plain blue rectangles with title, author's name, and any pertinent series information, and nothing else. But that seems not to be the fashion.
Word-of-mouth routes around cover treatment, and I value it greatly. Keep it up, folks...
Ta, L.
Heh. Yes, recent covers are an improvement, both from Subterranean Press and from Ron Miller. Nevertheless, all the old ones are still following me around, in used bookstores if nowhere else.
(Quite a few of my old covers were actually good art, but very ill-served by some obscuring poor cover design, and/or the fact that they did not convey the actual content or tone of the story they encased.)
If I had my wish my book covers would all be plain blue rectangles with title, author's name, and any pertinent series information, and nothing else. But that seems not to be the fashion.
Word-of-mouth routes around cover treatment, and I value it greatly. Keep it up, folks...
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Not much Napoleon in Miles, no. Initial historical precedents/inspirations that I can recall were T. E. Lawrence and young Winston Churchill. And my own experience with Great Man's Offspring syndrome.
Later, after Miles was launched, people brought my attention to other quirky short soldiers of history, including Eugene of Savoy and the very interesting Homer Lea. (I recommend both to your attention.) But they were very much after the fact.
Ta, L.
Not much Napoleon in Miles, no. Initial historical precedents/inspirations that I can recall were T. E. Lawrence and young Winston Churchill. And my own experience with Great Man's Offspring syndrome.
Later, after Miles was launched, people brought my attention to other quirky short soldiers of history, including Eugene of Savoy and the very interesting Homer Lea. (I recommend both to your attention.) But they were very much after the fact.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Nope, had never heard of him. Donna/Dono was invented out of the needs of a subplot for Ivan, on the spot as it were. He got a life of his own pretty instantly as I wrote him.
I had heard of other historical people gender-switching before then, usually women passing as men to become soldiers.
ACC was written in 1998, for anyone calibrating influences.
Ta, L.
Nope, had never heard of him. Donna/Dono was invented out of the needs of a subplot for Ivan, on the spot as it were. He got a life of his own pretty instantly as I wrote him.
I had heard of other historical people gender-switching before then, usually women passing as men to become soldiers.
ACC was written in 1998, for anyone calibrating influences.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
The actual answers to most of your questions are "not developed yet". Applying a bit of off-the-cuff logic, it does seem probable that any unhatched malices would be killed by another's blight. When blight recovers, it spawns no more malices, so that notion is supported. By the same logic, the Great Blight would indeed be malice-free once it recovers, whenever. Not a fast process.
Ta, L.
The actual answers to most of your questions are "not developed yet". Applying a bit of off-the-cuff logic, it does seem probable that any unhatched malices would be killed by another's blight. When blight recovers, it spawns no more malices, so that notion is supported. By the same logic, the Great Blight would indeed be malice-free once it recovers, whenever. Not a fast process.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
I've a notion there are survivors beyond the Great Blight and whatever lies athwart it, on the west coast. Some farmer navigator will discover it someday, circling the south coast. No, I don't know anything more than that.
The logical options for other continents are: fully blighted, slowly recovering but unpeopled; partly blighted, and fighting by some means magically related to what we've seen; or unblighted or fully cleaned, peopled, and keeping all other continents in quarantine. Or, some of each.
(When a malice had fully blighted its bounded region, a continent at the largest, but also possibly a closed circle or wall of other blight and, say, seacoast, it will die of starvation.)
I have a very dim memory of some reference to other continents on old maps somewhere in the tetralogy, but I couldn't for the life of me find it now.
Ta, L.
I've a notion there are survivors beyond the Great Blight and whatever lies athwart it, on the west coast. Some farmer navigator will discover it someday, circling the south coast. No, I don't know anything more than that.
The logical options for other continents are: fully blighted, slowly recovering but unpeopled; partly blighted, and fighting by some means magically related to what we've seen; or unblighted or fully cleaned, peopled, and keeping all other continents in quarantine. Or, some of each.
(When a malice had fully blighted its bounded region, a continent at the largest, but also possibly a closed circle or wall of other blight and, say, seacoast, it will die of starvation.)
I have a very dim memory of some reference to other continents on old maps somewhere in the tetralogy, but I couldn't for the life of me find it now.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Making it up as I go, of course. Yes, some Father's saints are canonically able to detect lies, and some Mother's saints to do healing. Other abilities not yet specified. Cazaril, Ista, and Umegat you've met. Cazaril was a full-on saint of the Daughter of Spring, with a boost from the Bastard. Note in this world being a saint, i.e., channeling a god, is a temporary job not necessarily a permanent identity.
That poor shaman who got buried under the rockfall in "Penric and the Shaman" was probably as close to being a saint of the Son of Autumn as it's possible to get.
Ta, L.
Making it up as I go, of course. Yes, some Father's saints are canonically able to detect lies, and some Mother's saints to do healing. Other abilities not yet specified. Cazaril, Ista, and Umegat you've met. Cazaril was a full-on saint of the Daughter of Spring, with a boost from the Bastard. Note in this world being a saint, i.e., channeling a god, is a temporary job not necessarily a permanent identity.
That poor shaman who got buried under the rockfall in "Penric and the Shaman" was probably as close to being a saint of the Son of Autumn as it's possible to get.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Not developed yet.
New developments are constrained, of course, by not contradicting prior ones. One way to sneak something new in might be to set it in a location the stories have not yet visited, of which there are potentially many.
I'd really love to have 5-gods-India Temple dancers, for example, but have never settled where to put an India analogue. Or a China one. Northern hemisphere, land mass quite disconnected from the southern cod-Europe, probably -- I very much fancy a very off-course and storm battered Chinese Imperial fleet limping into Visping Harbor about 1491-equivalent. Extra points if it is commanded by an eunuch admiral. So much xianxia tosteal be inspired by...
5GU Lithuania and points east are another possibility for interesting local magics. And the steppe lands also to the east, already established as existing, and contiguous -- lots of interesting early Church histories to draw on there, as the Greek church missionaries penetrated Rus, less well-known than the war/conquest histories of the region.
Many possibilities, no decisions. A story must pass through it for a setting to be generated. And I really can't make up stories in advance of making up stories.
Ta, L.
Not developed yet.
New developments are constrained, of course, by not contradicting prior ones. One way to sneak something new in might be to set it in a location the stories have not yet visited, of which there are potentially many.
I'd really love to have 5-gods-India Temple dancers, for example, but have never settled where to put an India analogue. Or a China one. Northern hemisphere, land mass quite disconnected from the southern cod-Europe, probably -- I very much fancy a very off-course and storm battered Chinese Imperial fleet limping into Visping Harbor about 1491-equivalent. Extra points if it is commanded by an eunuch admiral. So much xianxia to
5GU Lithuania and points east are another possibility for interesting local magics. And the steppe lands also to the east, already established as existing, and contiguous -- lots of interesting early Church histories to draw on there, as the Greek church missionaries penetrated Rus, less well-known than the war/conquest histories of the region.
Many possibilities, no decisions. A story must pass through it for a setting to be generated. And I really can't make up stories in advance of making up stories.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
My young-Midwesterner-dragged-to-church background has been supplemented by a lifetime of assorted reading, and now online Great Courses. After a whole bunch of church history from Roman and medieval European times, a surface acquaintance with Buddhism and Shinto, tiny bit on Hinduism, Chinese mythology which is in a class by itself. Ancient Egyptian gets a lot of coverage if one watches archeology programs. Pre-Christian Saxon/Germanic religions are, or were, hard to find much on back when I was researching _The Hallowed Hunt_; access may have improved since then. Other bits and bobs along the way.
I've done some reading of the writings of genuine mystics, most memorably (my memory is a sieve these days) St. Augustine and Thomas Merton, and a few deep meditative practices outside of the Christian sphere. What struck me most was their commonality, as if all were zeroing in on the same underlying thing, even if it was just the 60-cycle hum of their own biology.
When first setting up the 5 gods, it was not planned in advance, but rather, something I felt my way into as I wrote _The Curse of Chalion_. A few things I figured out very early on. I wanted a structure that resisted dualism, the easy good/evil divide that has caused so much trouble through history. Hence 5, a prime that can't be evenly divided, though of course humans being perverse like we are we immediately got dualism again with the Quadrene heresy.
Lots of fives in biology -- fingers, senses, some flowers, and on. It's very natural.
Another major initial reversal was that the 5 are not creator gods, but arise out of the workings of matter like everything else, a sort of World Overmind. They are inside time, and they _evolve_. They are thus neither omniscient nor omnipotent -- but the term omnisentient seems very apt.
Emergent properties were also much on my mind, talking of things that resist dualism. The mind-body or body/spirit problem, and all its logical snarls, drops away when body and mind are all part of the same thing. Take the fundamental structure of the universe, from which emerges physics, from which emerges chemistry, from which emerges biology, then brains, then consciousness -- take it up one fantasy step farther, and you can get plausible gods emerging. Endow them as well with perfect memories as well as perfect perceptions of Their pasts, and all pasts, and something pretty impressive... emerges.
Also, for life after death, the 5 are the only game in town.
A whole lot of the structural underpinnings of all this are drawn from biology, if you want another clue card. Because we are all biological organisms -- another only-game-in-town.
Many thoughts too on entropy, and how life temporarily resists it by, as someone put it, "climbing up the mast of a sinking ship". This comes out most in the magic.
Also, don't forget Narrative Constraints.
I talk about all this stuff scattered through many many interviews -- no way to auto-collate, I'm afraid, but there's this: https://vorkosigan.fandom.com/wiki/Au...
But I will certainly never be writing a textbook on all this invention -- I'd much rather spend my limited creative energy writing more fiction. (And I suspect you'd rather it, too.)
Ta, L.
My young-Midwesterner-dragged-to-church background has been supplemented by a lifetime of assorted reading, and now online Great Courses. After a whole bunch of church history from Roman and medieval European times, a surface acquaintance with Buddhism and Shinto, tiny bit on Hinduism, Chinese mythology which is in a class by itself. Ancient Egyptian gets a lot of coverage if one watches archeology programs. Pre-Christian Saxon/Germanic religions are, or were, hard to find much on back when I was researching _The Hallowed Hunt_; access may have improved since then. Other bits and bobs along the way.
I've done some reading of the writings of genuine mystics, most memorably (my memory is a sieve these days) St. Augustine and Thomas Merton, and a few deep meditative practices outside of the Christian sphere. What struck me most was their commonality, as if all were zeroing in on the same underlying thing, even if it was just the 60-cycle hum of their own biology.
When first setting up the 5 gods, it was not planned in advance, but rather, something I felt my way into as I wrote _The Curse of Chalion_. A few things I figured out very early on. I wanted a structure that resisted dualism, the easy good/evil divide that has caused so much trouble through history. Hence 5, a prime that can't be evenly divided, though of course humans being perverse like we are we immediately got dualism again with the Quadrene heresy.
Lots of fives in biology -- fingers, senses, some flowers, and on. It's very natural.
Another major initial reversal was that the 5 are not creator gods, but arise out of the workings of matter like everything else, a sort of World Overmind. They are inside time, and they _evolve_. They are thus neither omniscient nor omnipotent -- but the term omnisentient seems very apt.
Emergent properties were also much on my mind, talking of things that resist dualism. The mind-body or body/spirit problem, and all its logical snarls, drops away when body and mind are all part of the same thing. Take the fundamental structure of the universe, from which emerges physics, from which emerges chemistry, from which emerges biology, then brains, then consciousness -- take it up one fantasy step farther, and you can get plausible gods emerging. Endow them as well with perfect memories as well as perfect perceptions of Their pasts, and all pasts, and something pretty impressive... emerges.
Also, for life after death, the 5 are the only game in town.
A whole lot of the structural underpinnings of all this are drawn from biology, if you want another clue card. Because we are all biological organisms -- another only-game-in-town.
Many thoughts too on entropy, and how life temporarily resists it by, as someone put it, "climbing up the mast of a sinking ship". This comes out most in the magic.
Also, don't forget Narrative Constraints.
I talk about all this stuff scattered through many many interviews -- no way to auto-collate, I'm afraid, but there's this: https://vorkosigan.fandom.com/wiki/Au...
But I will certainly never be writing a textbook on all this invention -- I'd much rather spend my limited creative energy writing more fiction. (And I suspect you'd rather it, too.)
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Well, demonic possession is a very old idea, both in fantasy as a reading genre, and in traditional folklore and (some) religion. In the World of the Five Gods, I'm just doing my own very different take upon the idea, because the underlying theology is so different from that of historical Europe, or indeed from any other real-world religion I've yet read about.
I explore my own construction in much greater depth in the Penric & Desdemona series, starting with the novella "Penric's Demon", if you've not got to that yet. (Show don't tell 'n all that.)
Ta, L.
Well, demonic possession is a very old idea, both in fantasy as a reading genre, and in traditional folklore and (some) religion. In the World of the Five Gods, I'm just doing my own very different take upon the idea, because the underlying theology is so different from that of historical Europe, or indeed from any other real-world religion I've yet read about.
I explore my own construction in much greater depth in the Penric & Desdemona series, starting with the novella "Penric's Demon", if you've not got to that yet. (Show don't tell 'n all that.)
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
"Penric and the Demonic Ox" has been offered to Subterranean for their usual limited edition hardcover; I'll make a blog post if/when we get a contract. (As of this moment, August 2025, Blackstone Audio already has it in their production pipeline, release planned for October.)
I'm presently considering whether to put the remaining Pen & Des stories into my own print-on-demand collections. Much will depend on how the upcoming _Two Tales_, the little collection of stray Vorkosiverse novellas, does when we finally get it out via the Ingram's program, through which we've already done "Knife Children" and _The Spirit Ring_.
There are doubtless publishers who would take the remaining potential collections, but apart from the sales volume problem, they all want e-rights, which I'd be an economic idiot to give up. I do like the flexibility of the ala carte e-publication, that make dropping in prequel tales much less of an issue.
Ta, L.
"Penric and the Demonic Ox" has been offered to Subterranean for their usual limited edition hardcover; I'll make a blog post if/when we get a contract. (As of this moment, August 2025, Blackstone Audio already has it in their production pipeline, release planned for October.)
I'm presently considering whether to put the remaining Pen & Des stories into my own print-on-demand collections. Much will depend on how the upcoming _Two Tales_, the little collection of stray Vorkosiverse novellas, does when we finally get it out via the Ingram's program, through which we've already done "Knife Children" and _The Spirit Ring_.
There are doubtless publishers who would take the remaining potential collections, but apart from the sales volume problem, they all want e-rights, which I'd be an economic idiot to give up. I do like the flexibility of the ala carte e-publication, that make dropping in prequel tales much less of an issue.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
No.
The demons are a controlled leakage from the Bastard's hell, or hand, to balance the life in the world between the cold death of ice (stasis) and the hot death of fire (chaos.) Too much of either is bad.
The underpinnings of this theology _really_ are not based upon that of our Earth historical religions, and trying to draw 1:1 parallels between them will frequently go awry. (Though given the wild variety of human-devised religions through history, I am willing to be better advised.)
All information being lost, the source of one blob of chaos is not distinguishable from any other blob of chaos -- soul-plasma as it were, or quark soup. Entirely interchangeable.
Ta, L.
No.
The demons are a controlled leakage from the Bastard's hell, or hand, to balance the life in the world between the cold death of ice (stasis) and the hot death of fire (chaos.) Too much of either is bad.
The underpinnings of this theology _really_ are not based upon that of our Earth historical religions, and trying to draw 1:1 parallels between them will frequently go awry. (Though given the wild variety of human-devised religions through history, I am willing to be better advised.)
All information being lost, the source of one blob of chaos is not distinguishable from any other blob of chaos -- soul-plasma as it were, or quark soup. Entirely interchangeable.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Wonderful!
I recently received through my agent a scan of the cover, which I thought quite good. I figured to post it on my blog closer to the pub date -- do you know when that is? With luck all around, the Ukrainian publisher plans to follow it up with Barrayar.
bests, Lois.
Wonderful!
I recently received through my agent a scan of the cover, which I thought quite good. I figured to post it on my blog closer to the pub date -- do you know when that is? With luck all around, the Ukrainian publisher plans to follow it up with Barrayar.
bests, Lois.
Lois McMaster Bujold
This is similar to the question you just asked, but since Goodreads randomly sorts the Q&A, unless you select newest-first, I'd better repeat the relevant parts of the answer here.
To quote myself: "The gods are not so much judgmental as choosy. After all, they are talking these souls up into Themselves to become part of Themselves, as a person takes up food. (Open question how much souls are "digested" over time... But if one has less than 100 years in the world of matter, and thousands of years Beyond, it's inevitable that the latter experience must loom larger over enough time.)
Think of it as some gods really liking broccoli, but disliking green beans, so swapping those portions across the table with their sibling gods.
No god wants to consume actual poison, spoiled or toxic food. In which case one could also think of the Bastard's hell as the gods' sanitation department/water treatment facility. ... Note that this [sorting] is not a mechanical process; you will never get a hard-and-fast rule for the result in advance, since it will sensitively depend on, so to speak, the fine grain of the initial conditions; the hearts of men that only the gods can see into."
"Punishment" is something humans do, sometimes with good reason to protect their communities. They project this style of thinking onto their god/s; possibly that's where the Father of Winter has acquired His bias in a more literal fashion.
Which makes the evolution/differentiation of the gods a somewhat circular process, each self-selecting souls to become more Themselves over time.
Ta, L.
This is similar to the question you just asked, but since Goodreads randomly sorts the Q&A, unless you select newest-first, I'd better repeat the relevant parts of the answer here.
To quote myself: "The gods are not so much judgmental as choosy. After all, they are talking these souls up into Themselves to become part of Themselves, as a person takes up food. (Open question how much souls are "digested" over time... But if one has less than 100 years in the world of matter, and thousands of years Beyond, it's inevitable that the latter experience must loom larger over enough time.)
Think of it as some gods really liking broccoli, but disliking green beans, so swapping those portions across the table with their sibling gods.
No god wants to consume actual poison, spoiled or toxic food. In which case one could also think of the Bastard's hell as the gods' sanitation department/water treatment facility. ... Note that this [sorting] is not a mechanical process; you will never get a hard-and-fast rule for the result in advance, since it will sensitively depend on, so to speak, the fine grain of the initial conditions; the hearts of men that only the gods can see into."
"Punishment" is something humans do, sometimes with good reason to protect their communities. They project this style of thinking onto their god/s; possibly that's where the Father of Winter has acquired His bias in a more literal fashion.
Which makes the evolution/differentiation of the gods a somewhat circular process, each self-selecting souls to become more Themselves over time.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
The Bastard's Hell is simply insta-sundering, a soul boiled down to chaos, all information lost. Humans for whom this does not seem revenge enough make up more artistic interpretations to tell each other, for consolation or threat, but that's not from the gods.
The gods are not so much judgmental as choosy. After all, they are talking these souls up into themselves to become part of themselves, as a person takes up food. (Open question how much souls are "digested" over time... But if one has less than 100 years in the world of matter, and thousands of years Beyond, it's inevitable that the latter experience must loom larger over enough time.)
Think of it as some gods really liking broccoli, but disliking green beans, so swapping those portions across the table with their sibling gods.
No god wants to consume actual poison, spoiled or toxic food. In which case one could also think of the Bastard's hell as the gods' sanitation department/water treatment facility. It follows that most souls taken in the death miracle are such toxic persons. (It's technically possible for both souls to be insta-sundered, or rendered, and also for both to be sorted to gods who want them, but far more often the supplicant-soul just goes on to unite with the Bastard like any other of His portion, and the target-soul is boiled down.) Note that this is not a mechanical process; you will never get a hard-and-fast rule for the result in advance, since it will sensitively depend on, so to speak, the fine grain of the initial conditions; the hearts of men that only the gods can see into.
As for "how many", you are asking me to decide how many people there are or ever have been in this world, and make a god's eye taste-test of each, which seems too large as task before my second cup of tea.
(If you are asking "what proportion", the taste-test problem still applies. But the gods do try not to waste their food.)
Ta, L.
The Bastard's Hell is simply insta-sundering, a soul boiled down to chaos, all information lost. Humans for whom this does not seem revenge enough make up more artistic interpretations to tell each other, for consolation or threat, but that's not from the gods.
The gods are not so much judgmental as choosy. After all, they are talking these souls up into themselves to become part of themselves, as a person takes up food. (Open question how much souls are "digested" over time... But if one has less than 100 years in the world of matter, and thousands of years Beyond, it's inevitable that the latter experience must loom larger over enough time.)
Think of it as some gods really liking broccoli, but disliking green beans, so swapping those portions across the table with their sibling gods.
No god wants to consume actual poison, spoiled or toxic food. In which case one could also think of the Bastard's hell as the gods' sanitation department/water treatment facility. It follows that most souls taken in the death miracle are such toxic persons. (It's technically possible for both souls to be insta-sundered, or rendered, and also for both to be sorted to gods who want them, but far more often the supplicant-soul just goes on to unite with the Bastard like any other of His portion, and the target-soul is boiled down.) Note that this is not a mechanical process; you will never get a hard-and-fast rule for the result in advance, since it will sensitively depend on, so to speak, the fine grain of the initial conditions; the hearts of men that only the gods can see into.
As for "how many", you are asking me to decide how many people there are or ever have been in this world, and make a god's eye taste-test of each, which seems too large as task before my second cup of tea.
(If you are asking "what proportion", the taste-test problem still applies. But the gods do try not to waste their food.)
Ta, L.
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