Lois McMaster Bujold's Blog, page 2

Penric 14 impending

I am pleased to report that the 14th Penric & Desdemona novella is complete in first draft, as of this afternoon. About 36K words at present.

There is still a ways to go till it's ready for e-publication. It lacks both final title and cover at the moment. The title, I've learned on previous outings, is really needed first to bring the cover into the right focus. Also the artist Ron Miller has not yet had a chance to read the full manuscript, which Ron generally does, bless him.

Title is still circling the field. "Penric's take your kids to work day goes wrong" is alas too long, and jokey, if accurate. "Penric's Ox" is too easy to confuse with "Penric's Fox", and besides the livestock is not really the core of the tale. Best and default candidate so far is the double-edged "Penric's Lessons", although that feels as if it would be better saved for some collection. Growf. I hope something snappier will emerge during the test-reading/editing/wait for the cover phase.

It's been pretty interesting to replace the typical lone-wolf magical protagonist living out his angsty extended adolescence with an actual mature adult embedded in a functional family, and see what that does to genre expectations. My first vision of the older Penric, back before I started all this, was more in the former mode. I'm glad I dropped back and started him at his beginning with what became "Penric's Demon" -- he's a much more engaging character now.

No, I don't know anything yet about Blackstone or SubPress. AFAIK, they've not yet been informed the story exists, though my agent will take care of that soon. But I prefer to have it in final, tidied-as-possible form before submitting it for subrights sales.

And now I'm going to go take the evening goofing off.

Ta, L.

Penric and the Bandit now shipping

Updating myself further, I see this morning that "Penric and the Bandit" is now in-stock and shipping from Subterranean Press.

https://subterraneanpress.com/bujold-...

Uncle Hugo's and Dreamhaven here in Minneapolis should get their copies pretty soon.

Ta, L.

Penric and the Bandit due from SubPress in July

The pre-order page has popped up on Subterranean Press's website --

https://subterraneanpress.com/bujold-...

This signed, limited edition hardcover book will also be available through Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore, and Dreamhaven Books & Comics, both in-store and by mail order.




Ta, L.

Addendum, 5/21: My author's copies arrived hot from the press yesterday, and lovely they are, so I expect this will be shipping sooner rather than later.

Ta, L.

audio of Memory on sale today at Downpour

Downpour.com, the e-retailer of Blackstone Audiobooks, has their audiobook of Memory on sale today for $3.95 --

https://www.downpour.com/memory?sp=12307

Not sure how long this sale will last, but I believe it is of short duration, maybe today only? Good chance to either stock up, and/or acquaint yourself with this audio vendor.

Ta, L.

Lois at Minicon April 19

Minicon 58 will be running here in Minneapolis on the weekend of April 18 - 20. More info here:

https://mnstf.org/minicon58/

I plan to be there as a programming participant on Saturday; two panels and a Q&A/signing.

Ta, L.

pretty but strange Chalion review

So, I ran across this the other day...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V1ko...

Someone has figured out how to illustrate book reviews, and has a lot more visual media chops than I ever will. It doesn't quite seem like AI -- the AI generated material I've seen so far seems to drift off into an uncanny valley of random errors partway through, and this stays very much on track. Might be AI assisted, maybe; the voice has a peculiar precision. I do wonder where all they grepped the gorgeous images. I see the creator has a whole series of other F&SF reviews in a similar mode.

Bemused by the 21st C. again, Lois.

more Ressler comments

Aha. I have finished my first run-through, but definitely not the last, of Prof. Stephen Ressler’s new Great Course Understanding the Marvels of Medieval Technology.

Best. Great Course. Ever.

Like his medieval artisan subjects, Ressler and the GC vid crew have clearly learned incrementally from all their prior practice. Models, visual aids, and animations have evolved, clarity of presentation has grown even better than the previous excellence, and, just wow, as the internet kids so succinctly say.

Do not skip the credits, which are pretty brilliant, using every bit of air time to include yet another layer of meta-information. Also, I was very chuffed that my guess that Ressler was now using 3-D printing to generate some of his more complex models was proved right, as we got therein to watch a printer producing an exactly replicated cathedral column (to scale.)

I spent so much time, earlier in my career, being baffled by written descriptions and woodcuts of a lot of these early (and not so early) machines and techniques, sometimes from some of the same sources Ressler quotes including De Re Metallica, hah… I did a lot of the usual writerly trick of ducking behind the limitations of my viewpoint characters to disguise my own, rather the way ancient Asian artists used foggy valleys to fudge perspective. Apparently, one must already know how most of those devices work before the woodcuts could make any sense. But damn, now I want to go reread my copy of Agricola and see if it works any better for me now, I mean, besides the footnote on the hazards of kobold infestations in German mines. Bet it would.

Also, unexpected vocabulary and etymology building!

I kind of want to go right back to the beginning and start over, but I see I’d skipped one of the prior Ressler courses -- Do-It-Yourself Engineering, because I have no desire to do anything myself these days -- but I suspect it might cross-illuminate some of the material here, so maybe I’ll break it up a bit.

Recommended summa cum laude.

The Great Courses, back in the day, started out as audio lectures, meant to be listened to on tape (remember tape?) Once they added visual, it’s been rather fascinating to watch the change of the presentations and sets over time, from just sticking a prof up behind a lectern and continuing as before, through the occasional wrong turn such as the unfortunate period where they were using random moving images on screens in the background that, instead of “adding visual interest”, just distracted from the central elements -- there’s a chemistry course I’d wanted to watch that I had to abandon after one episode, it was so headache-inducing -- to much more fully modern exploitation of really increasing the information visual density. Because many of the older courses are still up, one can study this progression even if one missed the last 30 years. Technological evolution in action, in real time.

Ta, L.

(To find this, google "Great Courses Plus" for their streaming site.) (Speaking of, they could do to add something on the history of Asian art to their menu, just sayin'.)

fake Lois impersonator appears again

Huh.

I'm informed by a friend that the Bujold impersonator, or another one, has also turned up on a site or platform called Mastadon.

The impersonator is using

https://mastodon.social/@loismcmasterb

and

loismcmasterb@gmail.com

This Is Not Me. Pass the word.

I'd email them a tart note, but I don't want to give them my real email address.

Still not sure what to do about this, besides warning folks. As before, if anyone wants to reach the real me, try simply Googling "Bujold Goodreads blog" or "Bujold Goodreads ask the author".

This, and my old hangouts on Baen's Bar and the dendarii.com chat lit, are the only places I am presently interacting with the internet; plus the mirrors of this blog on Facebook and Amazon, which are one-way. If you see someone claiming to be me anywhere else, be suspicious.

(Fan discussion and podcast sites are, of course, another thing altogether, but I think those are self-evidently fannish. And interviews, which I usually post about here.)

Ta, Lois (tm).

new Ressler course on Great Courses Plus

Woo hoo!

I see a new course has popped up by lecturer Stephen Ressler, Understanding the Marvels of Medieval Technology. Just buzzed through lecture one. It looks to be well up to the quality of all his prior series, with even better visual aids and models.

I highly rec all of Ressler's lectures on the Great Courses; for writers, in all genres, interested in doing better worldbuilding, and for pretty much everyone else who wants to better understand how the world they actually live in really works.

I sign up by the year, which makes the per-month cost quite low. And I get my money's worth most every month, one way or another. I believe the courses may also be accessed through some other platforms, though I've not yet needed to explore them myself.

In an only thematically related idle thought...

A little burst of podcasts this past couple of years discussing my books has led me to muse on how the shifting of the generations, especially across the pre- and post-internet divide, has changed the way some readers parse my stories, or fail to. (Not that futurism has ever been my main focus.) There is a certain amount of patronizing, "Well, she couldn't know, back then..." some of which is justified, some not. Stuff I Got Wrong naturally gets the most attention. But I only just realized how much of the stuff I got right -- passes invisibly.

Example in point, the passages from chapters 6 and 7 ofThe Warrior's Apprentice, written in 1984, where Miles is using the Betan internet "right from his grandmother's apartment" to outfit his new, well, used, RG freighter. Perfectly normal, anyone would do it that way...

1984. Just sayin'.

Ta, L.

Later: am a bit over halfway through. So many questions answered! From "what the hell is twill" to "how did they shoot crossbows?" to "how did mills/windmills work?" I've read so much about this stuff, and been baffled by the descriptions and 2-D pictures, figuring it was too complicated or I was too stupid, but Ressler's models and step-by-step explanations really show, not just tell.

Good teachers make you feel they're smart. Great teachers make you feel you're smart.

L.

Bujold reading-order guide, 2025 update

It seems time for my occasional repost and update of my reading-order guide, in an attempt to help quell the perpetual confusion about Where to Start with Bujold. Alas, it only helps people who actually get a chance to read it, so please do feel free to repost or link this wherever the questions arise.


A Bujold Reading-Order Guide

Note: almost all of my titles are presently widely and instantly available both as ebooks, and as audiobook downloads.

The Fantasy Novels

My fantasy novels are not hard to order. Easiest of all is The Spirit Ring, which is a stand-alone, or aquel, as some wag once dubbed books that failed to spawn a subsequent series. Next easiest are the four volumes of The Sharing Knife—in order, Beguilement, Legacy, Passage, and Horizon—which I broke down and actually numbered, as this is one continuous tale. The novella “Knife Children” is something of a codicil to the tetralogy.

The first three novels in the World of the Five Gods could each be read separately, but The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls are more closely connected and should be read in that order, and probably first, if one has a choice. The Hallowed Hunt really is a stand-alone, taking place in a different realm and earlier century and not sharing characters (apart from the gods) with the others.

In terms of internal world chronology, The Hallowed Hunt would fall first, the Penric novellas perhaps a hundred and fifty years later, and The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls would follow a century or so after that.

The internal chronology of the Penric & Desdemona subseries is presently:

“Penric’s Demon”
“Penric and the Shaman”
“Penric’s Fox”
“Masquerade in Lodi”
“Penric’s Mission”
“Mira’s Last Dance”
“The Prisoner of Limnos”
“The Orphans of Raspay”
“The Physicians of Vilnoc”
The Assassins of Thasalon
“Knot of Shadows”
“Demon Daughter”
“Penric and the Bandit”

(“Demon”, “Shaman”, and “Fox” are collected as paper volumes in Penric’s Progress; “Mission”, “Mira” and “Limnos” in Penric’s Travels; and “Lodi”, “Orphans” and “Physicians” are collected in Penric’s Labors.)


Other Original E-books

The short story collection Proto Zoa contains five very early tales—three (1980s) contemporary fantasy, two science fiction—all previously published but not in this handy format. The novelette “Dreamweaver’s Dilemma” may be of interest to Vorkosigan completists, as it is the first story in which that proto-universe began, mentioning Beta Colony but before Barrayar was even thought of.

Sidelines: Talks and Essays is a collection of three decades of my nonfiction writings, including convention speeches, essays, travelogues, introductions, and some less formal pieces.

The Gerould Family of New Hampshire in the Civil War: Two Diaries and a Memoir is a compilation of historical documents handed down from my mother’s father’s side of the family. A meeting of time, technology, and skillset has finally allowed me to put them in sharable form.


The Vorkosigan Stories

Many pixels have been expended debating the ‘best’ order in which to read the Vorkosigan saga. The debate mainly revolves around publication order versus internal-chronological order. I favor internal chronological, with a few adjustments.

It was always my intention to write each book as a stand-alone, so that the reader could theoretically jump in anywhere. But as the series developed it acquired a number of sub-arcs, closely related tales that were richer for each other. I will list the sub-arcs, and then the books, and then the duplication warnings. And then the publication order, for those who want it.

Shards of Honor and Barrayar. The first two books in the series proper, they detail the adventures of Cordelia Naismith of Beta Colony and Aral Vorkosigan of Barrayar. Shards was my very first novel ever; Barrayar was actually my eighth, but continues the tale the next day after the end of Shards. For readers who want to be sure of beginning at the beginning, or who are very spoiler-sensitive, start with these two.

The Warrior’s Apprentice and The Vor Game. The Warrior’s Apprentice introduces the character who became the series’ linchpin, Miles Vorkosigan; the first book tells how he created a space mercenary fleet by accident; the second how he fixed his mistakes from the first round. Space opera and military-esque adventure (and a number of other things one can best discover for oneself), The Warrior’s Apprentice makes another good place to jump into the series for readers who prefer a young male protagonist.

Borders of Infinity (3-novella collection) should be read before Brothers in Arms. Containing three of the six currently extant novellas, it makes a good Miles Vorkosigan early-adventure sampler platter for readers who don’t want to commit themselves to length, but it will make more sense if read after The Warrior’s Apprentice. Its three stories are short, not slight, and contain some essential elements that become important later in the series.

(These novellas are also available ala carte by title, as listed below, but the collection is by far the preferable format. Even its little frame story has a few payoffs later on.)

After that: Brothers in Arms should be read before Mirror Dance, and both, ideally, before Memory.

Komarr makes another alternate entry point for the series, picking up Miles’s second career at its start. It should be read before A Civil Campaign.

Falling Free takes place 200 years earlier in the timeline and does not share settings or characters with the main body of the series. Most readers recommend picking up this story later. It should likely be read before Diplomatic Immunity, however, which revisits the “quaddies”, a bioengineered race of free-fall dwellers, in Miles’s time.

The novels in the internal-chronological list below appear in italics; the novellas (officially defined as a story between 17,500 words and 40,000 words) in quote marks.

Shards of Honor
Barrayar
The Warrior’s Apprentice
“The Mountains of Mourning”
“Weatherman”
The Vor Game
Cetaganda
Ethan of Athos
Borders of Infinity (3-novella collection)
“Labyrinth”
“The Borders of Infinity”
Brothers in Arms
Mirror Dance
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
“Winterfair Gifts”
Falling Free
Diplomatic Immunity
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
“The Flowers of Vashnoi”
CryoBurn
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen


Caveats:

The novella “Weatherman” is an out-take from the beginning of the novel The Vor Game. If you already have The Vor Game, you likely don’t need this.

The original ‘novel’ Borders of Infinity was a fix-up collection containing the three novellas “The Mountains of Mourning”, “Labyrinth”, and “The Borders of Infinity”, together with a frame to tie the pieces together. Again, beware duplication. The frame story does not stand alone.

“Winterfair Gifts” and “The Flowers of Vashnoi” have not been collected, but are available individually as ebooks and audiobooks along with the rest of the series.


Publication order:

This is also the order in which the works were written, apart from a couple of the novellas, but is not identical to the internal-chronological. It goes:

Shards of Honor (June 1986)
The Warrior’s Apprentice (August 1986)
Ethan of Athos (December 1986)
Falling Free (April 1988)
Brothers in Arms (January 1989)
Borders of Infinity (October 1989)
The Vor Game (September 1990)
Barrayar (October 1991)
Mirror Dance (March 1994)
Cetaganda (January 1996)
Memory (October 1996)
Komarr (June 1998)
A Civil Campaign (September 1999).
Diplomatic Immunity (May 2002)
“Winterfair Gifts” (February 2004)
CryoBurn (November 2010)
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance (November 2012)
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (February 2016)
“The Flowers of Vashnoi” (May 2018)

Happy reading!

— Lois McMaster Bujold