alison
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Hello! A couple of questions ago you mentioned A Warrior's Apprentice as one of your evergreens, having never won awards (among some other criteria), which I'm so shocked by! I read it in high school and one of its lines is now memorialized as my senior year quote (too embarrassed to say which one). I've now graduated from college and still go back to it every year. Thanks for writing it all those years ago <3 [?]
Lois McMaster Bujold
You are welcome!
I was, I think, too new in the marketplace at time time (1986) for the book to have attracted notice from enough readers for an award. The Hugo award for The Vor Game, a couple of years later when I'd gained more visibility, was something in the nature of compensation, I feel. And the Nebula for Falling Free I attribute in part to its serialization in Analog Magazine, which brought it before a lot more reader-voters than might have encountered it otherwise. Awards are very much an intersection of skill, work, and luck -- the skill and work, which are under a writer's control, are required to put one in the pool that luck, which is not, may fall upon.
What's important, then and now, is that the book is still finding readers, which I'd always felt was the main utility of winning an award, one more bit of advertising. If the work can find its readers without same, that's just as good.
Ta, L.
I was, I think, too new in the marketplace at time time (1986) for the book to have attracted notice from enough readers for an award. The Hugo award for The Vor Game, a couple of years later when I'd gained more visibility, was something in the nature of compensation, I feel. And the Nebula for Falling Free I attribute in part to its serialization in Analog Magazine, which brought it before a lot more reader-voters than might have encountered it otherwise. Awards are very much an intersection of skill, work, and luck -- the skill and work, which are under a writer's control, are required to put one in the pool that luck, which is not, may fall upon.
What's important, then and now, is that the book is still finding readers, which I'd always felt was the main utility of winning an award, one more bit of advertising. If the work can find its readers without same, that's just as good.
Ta, L.
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Connie Dannemiller
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Lois McMaster Bujold:
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Lois McMaster Bujold:
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Lois McMaster Bujold:
Hi Lois, I'm reading through the Vorkosigan saga for the first time and I am a big fan! I have been referencing your great GoodReads article for the past couple years to know what to read next.Unfortunately the link is now broken. Is this some kind of mistake? Was the post taken down on purpose? Thanks! https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/293438-the-vorkosigan-saga-reading-order-debate-the-chef-recommends
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