Anne
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
This question contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[...Ok, exactly how long have you been waiting to spring those perspective shifts in Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen on us? Two days after reading, I'm still counting up all the stuff that categorically changed in that book. I'm thinking some of those have been sitting around as little hints and implications for more than a decade. You, madame, are a literary magician of the first water. (hide spoiler)]
Lois McMaster Bujold
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[(Not only does the question contain spoilers, so does the answer. Beware.)
The answer varies with the specifics. I'd been thinking about the business surrounding the Cetagandan pullout from Barrayar for at least 15 years, or at any rate, so long that I've forgotten how long. I wanted to put it in at the end of Ivan's book, but was talked out of it by my test readers for issues of tone control. Aral, of course, has been canonically bisexual, and Cordelia canonically Betan, since 1983. I can't think how anyone could have missed that, but oh well. Readers.
Jole had been a glint in my eye since 1989, when I wrote The Vor Game, but that development certainly didn't belong in that book. (Nor in any of my other books of the 90s, when my most critical concern was career-building in order to make a living/not fall back into poverty in an extremely demanding literary marketplace.) The Sergyar developments were not thought of till after I'd written Memory, certainly. Then after the turn of the millennium I went off to write those seven fantasies for HarperCollins, with no plan to get back to the Vorkosiverse at all till Toni Weisskopf coaxed Cryoburn out of me. And then the Ivan book came along on its own, for lagniappe and for fun.
And then people kept asking and asking (and asking, and also asking) what happens to Miles after Cryoburn, which fell on deaf ears till I realized it was the wrong question. The real question was, what happens to Cordelia. This book is the answer to that question.
Ta, L. (hide spoiler)]
The answer varies with the specifics. I'd been thinking about the business surrounding the Cetagandan pullout from Barrayar for at least 15 years, or at any rate, so long that I've forgotten how long. I wanted to put it in at the end of Ivan's book, but was talked out of it by my test readers for issues of tone control. Aral, of course, has been canonically bisexual, and Cordelia canonically Betan, since 1983. I can't think how anyone could have missed that, but oh well. Readers.
Jole had been a glint in my eye since 1989, when I wrote The Vor Game, but that development certainly didn't belong in that book. (Nor in any of my other books of the 90s, when my most critical concern was career-building in order to make a living/not fall back into poverty in an extremely demanding literary marketplace.) The Sergyar developments were not thought of till after I'd written Memory, certainly. Then after the turn of the millennium I went off to write those seven fantasies for HarperCollins, with no plan to get back to the Vorkosiverse at all till Toni Weisskopf coaxed Cryoburn out of me. And then the Ivan book came along on its own, for lagniappe and for fun.
And then people kept asking and asking (and asking, and also asking) what happens to Miles after Cryoburn, which fell on deaf ears till I realized it was the wrong question. The real question was, what happens to Cordelia. This book is the answer to that question.
Ta, L. (hide spoiler)]
More Answered Questions
Kumuyi Jerry Ifyola
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
What were the names of the four mistresses of the palace beautiful in pilgrim progress?
Softness
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I read one of your interviews on LJ (Karen Miller, 2007). In it you mentioned a 6 week study tour of Africa. What was that like? Have you written more about that trip somewhere? Do you still have any of those picture slides you took? You also mentioned hitchhiking in Europe! What countries? I'd love to hear more if you ever feel like talking about these adventures. ^^ -Kalli
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