Bee
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Hello! You address so many cool things in society and talk about so many different cultures and how they work! Is there any chance of polyamory/polygamy being addressed on any planets in future books?
Lois McMaster Bujold
That goes all the way back to The Warrior's Apprentice in 1986, when (admittedly mentioned in passing by Tav Calhoun) Beta Colony's arrangements are indicated to be highly flexible. And there was that poly family in The Sharing Knife. Athos... is in a class by itself. Lots of variety in the Vorkosiverse, although mercenary fleets, naturally, are not much about family formation. Jackson's Whole, anything can happen and does. And then there are the Cetagandans, the ghem indicated to practice polygamy sometimes, the haut deeply mysterious, no idea what their ordinary citizens get up to, and so on and on.
A lot of the stories touch on an exploration of what might happen when sexuality and reproduction are truly technologically separated. Sexuality becomes optional and malleable, and much less fraught, but somebody still has to change the babies' diapers, or they will die. Not everyone needs to have children, but all characters need to have parents -- or some SFnal equivalent, and no cheating by having people raised to adulthood in vats and anyway, who would run the vats? So.
No new books are in process at the moment, so I can't predict what I may like to explore next.
Ta, L.
That goes all the way back to The Warrior's Apprentice in 1986, when (admittedly mentioned in passing by Tav Calhoun) Beta Colony's arrangements are indicated to be highly flexible. And there was that poly family in The Sharing Knife. Athos... is in a class by itself. Lots of variety in the Vorkosiverse, although mercenary fleets, naturally, are not much about family formation. Jackson's Whole, anything can happen and does. And then there are the Cetagandans, the ghem indicated to practice polygamy sometimes, the haut deeply mysterious, no idea what their ordinary citizens get up to, and so on and on.
A lot of the stories touch on an exploration of what might happen when sexuality and reproduction are truly technologically separated. Sexuality becomes optional and malleable, and much less fraught, but somebody still has to change the babies' diapers, or they will die. Not everyone needs to have children, but all characters need to have parents -- or some SFnal equivalent, and no cheating by having people raised to adulthood in vats and anyway, who would run the vats? So.
No new books are in process at the moment, so I can't predict what I may like to explore next.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Tom Telford
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I mostly read your books on Audible. I've read all of Vorkosigan and the three main Five Gods books and want to start Penric but its hard to justify using a years worth of credits for short stories. Do you have any plans to release the collections as audiobooks to help solve this sort of issue? Side question: When the Audible Plus program was first introduced why were only some seemly random books available through?
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