Andrew Van Ness
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I've been listening to an excellent podcast about WWI and the diplomatic/military complexity of the situation is astounding. What historical influences/texts helped you to form the mindsets of Aral, Piotr, and Miles? I love the way they strategize and plan. They make me think of many different generals and tacticians, and I would love to read those auto/biographies. I wish to plumb the depths of your mind.
Lois McMaster Bujold
My mind has no wish to be plumbed at this time, nor even have wiring run in, but off the top I can direct you to T. E. Lawrence, Basil Liddell Hart, John Keegan, and Barbara Tuchman.
Probably about a hundred more historians and memoirists (first-hand accounts are way the best) whose names escape me without a major spelunking. I read a lot of this stuff back in my teens, when WWII was still saturating the zeitgeist, and my 20s. I was recently reminded of Bat Bomb by Jack Couffer, my fave WWII memoir, although it has no actual war in it. Unless you count burning down the army air corps base.
I don't think you realize how far down and murky the depths of my mind are by now. A lot of my references are reduced to hand-waving and things like, "that memoir by the youngest paratrooper general (oh, Gavin), or "that appalling account of the Bataan death march" (could be any of many), or "the one by the Pacific pilot (Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, aha!) or "the one about the Flying Tigers", or, "the one about the borked first landing in Italy", or... And so on.
You could just take it chronologically, and start with Thucydides, I suppose. Or Herodotus. I can't say that either informed my mind that much, but I guarantee many of the military geeks you wish to study, studied them. Have not read Julius Caesar, but he still has works in print, too.
Ta, L.
My mind has no wish to be plumbed at this time, nor even have wiring run in, but off the top I can direct you to T. E. Lawrence, Basil Liddell Hart, John Keegan, and Barbara Tuchman.
Probably about a hundred more historians and memoirists (first-hand accounts are way the best) whose names escape me without a major spelunking. I read a lot of this stuff back in my teens, when WWII was still saturating the zeitgeist, and my 20s. I was recently reminded of Bat Bomb by Jack Couffer, my fave WWII memoir, although it has no actual war in it. Unless you count burning down the army air corps base.
I don't think you realize how far down and murky the depths of my mind are by now. A lot of my references are reduced to hand-waving and things like, "that memoir by the youngest paratrooper general (oh, Gavin), or "that appalling account of the Bataan death march" (could be any of many), or "the one by the Pacific pilot (Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, aha!) or "the one about the Flying Tigers", or, "the one about the borked first landing in Italy", or... And so on.
You could just take it chronologically, and start with Thucydides, I suppose. Or Herodotus. I can't say that either informed my mind that much, but I guarantee many of the military geeks you wish to study, studied them. Have not read Julius Caesar, but he still has works in print, too.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Steve Berliner
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Hi Lois! In Masquerade in Lodi, thank you for acknowledging the question I previously raised here on Goodreads about the existence of saints of the Son. I was tickled pink to read that comment! Will you perhaps be examining that issue in more detail in a future story, or is this all we get? ;-)
Julia Babcock
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
How did you start writing and how did you keep momentum by writing a whole book?
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