[BRIEF NOTE] On Lois McMaster Bujold
Jul. 1st, 2004 12:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldNot a half hour ago, I bought Lois McMaster Bujold's novels Brothers in Arms and A Civil Campaign at Bakka-Phoenix on Yonge Street. Since my stay in Toronto began Friday, I've also bought Cordelia's Honor, Young Miles, Komarr, and Memory. (I bought Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem when I was still in Toronto.) These purchases, I believe, nearly constitute a complete set; they'll constitute the sum total of my purchases for the time being.
These purchases may appear somewhat spendthrift, I admit. I find that she ranks alongside John
Barnes as one of my favourite authors to read, regardless of genre, simply because her Miles Vorkosigan books are so wonderfully plausible. Likely they feel more plausible than Barnes'; the Thousand Cultures series takes place in the far future; the Century Next Door is more-or-less contemporary, but is perhaps too consistently dark to be plausible.
Her novels take place in the context of the Barrayaran Imperium, centered on the core planet of Barrayar which--just as settlement and the adjustment of the habitable world to an Earth-like biosphere began--was cut off for centuries by the disappearance of the wormhole connecting it to the interstellar nexus. By the time that Barrayar was recontacted, the world had become a feudal universe, as nasty--violent, misogynistic, autocratic, occasionally infanticida;--as one would expect in the Time of Isolation. After expelling the Cetagandans who invaded upon Barrayar's reintroduction to the nexus, the Barrayarans successfully adopted the latest military technologies, the better to form an empire. From Cordelia's Honor on, the world has been making a valiant effort to modernize socially.
Before I began reading Bujold's work, I knew a few fans of hers. Douglas Muir, for instance, is such a fan that he met his lovely wife Claudia on a Bujold-related discussion list and was tuckerized as Count Vormuir in A Civil Campaign. The true responsibility for my habit, though, can be laid at the feet of Jonathan Edelstein. When I picked up A Civil Campaign, I was caught.
Bujold's corpus appeals to me on multiple counts. Its depiction of the incestuous aristocratic politics of Barrayar, for instance, is quite convincing, as is its portrayal of the internal politics of a tempestuous multiplanet empire (the habitable and conservative homeworld of Barrayar, the conquered terraforming and mercantile world of Komarr, the new Imperium colony of Sergyar). Her description of other societies, too, is remarkable--oddly libertarian Beta Colony, home to the aforementioned Cordelia, and the baroquely transhuman and decidedly imperialistic Cetagandans, are rather interesting, too. Bujold also has a wonderful knack for describing social history and social hierarchies, of describing fluctuations in ethnicity, gender roles, and basic concepts of identity in a world not too far removed from our own. This, of course, says nothing of her very entertaining plots and her nice writing and narrative styles.
Right now, though, I find that Bujold's work appeals to me most strongly as, well, a source of bibliotherapy. If there is one thing that Bujold's characters and plots share, it's their basic assumptions that it is indeed quite possible for people to confront fate head on, to become the people that they want to be. Right now, Bujold's novels function as a not-so-odd-surprising source of inspiration, in fact, quite apart from their innate entertainment value.
Everyone should try at least one Bujold novel. Might I suggest Cordelia's Honor, both because of chronology and because, well, it's quite fun?
These purchases may appear somewhat spendthrift, I admit. I find that she ranks alongside John
Barnes as one of my favourite authors to read, regardless of genre, simply because her Miles Vorkosigan books are so wonderfully plausible. Likely they feel more plausible than Barnes'; the Thousand Cultures series takes place in the far future; the Century Next Door is more-or-less contemporary, but is perhaps too consistently dark to be plausible.
Her novels take place in the context of the Barrayaran Imperium, centered on the core planet of Barrayar which--just as settlement and the adjustment of the habitable world to an Earth-like biosphere began--was cut off for centuries by the disappearance of the wormhole connecting it to the interstellar nexus. By the time that Barrayar was recontacted, the world had become a feudal universe, as nasty--violent, misogynistic, autocratic, occasionally infanticida;--as one would expect in the Time of Isolation. After expelling the Cetagandans who invaded upon Barrayar's reintroduction to the nexus, the Barrayarans successfully adopted the latest military technologies, the better to form an empire. From Cordelia's Honor on, the world has been making a valiant effort to modernize socially.
Before I began reading Bujold's work, I knew a few fans of hers. Douglas Muir, for instance, is such a fan that he met his lovely wife Claudia on a Bujold-related discussion list and was tuckerized as Count Vormuir in A Civil Campaign. The true responsibility for my habit, though, can be laid at the feet of Jonathan Edelstein. When I picked up A Civil Campaign, I was caught.
Bujold's corpus appeals to me on multiple counts. Its depiction of the incestuous aristocratic politics of Barrayar, for instance, is quite convincing, as is its portrayal of the internal politics of a tempestuous multiplanet empire (the habitable and conservative homeworld of Barrayar, the conquered terraforming and mercantile world of Komarr, the new Imperium colony of Sergyar). Her description of other societies, too, is remarkable--oddly libertarian Beta Colony, home to the aforementioned Cordelia, and the baroquely transhuman and decidedly imperialistic Cetagandans, are rather interesting, too. Bujold also has a wonderful knack for describing social history and social hierarchies, of describing fluctuations in ethnicity, gender roles, and basic concepts of identity in a world not too far removed from our own. This, of course, says nothing of her very entertaining plots and her nice writing and narrative styles.
Right now, though, I find that Bujold's work appeals to me most strongly as, well, a source of bibliotherapy. If there is one thing that Bujold's characters and plots share, it's their basic assumptions that it is indeed quite possible for people to confront fate head on, to become the people that they want to be. Right now, Bujold's novels function as a not-so-odd-surprising source of inspiration, in fact, quite apart from their innate entertainment value.
Everyone should try at least one Bujold novel. Might I suggest Cordelia's Honor, both because of chronology and because, well, it's quite fun?
