Lois McMaster Bujold (born November 2, 1949, Columbus, Ohio) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy works. Bujold is one of the most acclaimed writers in her field, having won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record. Her novella "The Mountains of Mourning" won both the Hugo and Nebula Award. In the fantasy sphere, The Curse of Chalion won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the 2002 World Fantasy Award for best novel, and both her fourth Hugo and second Nebula were for Paladin of Souls.
Easton Press Lois McMaster Bujold books
Borders of Infinity - Signed First Edition of Science Fiction - 1989
The Vor Game - Signed First Edition of Science Fiction - 1990
Barrayar - Signed First Edition of Science Fiction - 1991
Mirror Dance - Signed First Edition of Science Fiction - 1994
Cetaganda - Signed First Edition of Science Fiction - 1996
Komarr - Signed First Edition of Science Fiction - 1998
A Civil Campaign - Signed First Edition of Science Fiction - 1999
Falling Free - Masterpieces of Science Fiction - 2001
Diplomatic Immunity - Signed First Edition of Science Fiction - 2002
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Writer Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois is the daughter of Robert Charles McMaster and attributes her early interest in SF to his influence. He was editor of the monumental "Nondestructive Testing Handbook" generally referred to as McMaster on Materials.
Bujold is a highly successful writer, having won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record matched only by Robert A. Heinlein. She has also won the Nebula award for best novel twice, and her novella "The Mountains of Mourning" won both prizes. In the fantasy sphere, The Curse of Chalion won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the 2002 World Fantasy Award for best novel, and her fourth Hugo for a novel was for Paladin of Souls.
Bujold is best known for her series of novels featuring Miles Vorkosigan, a severely disabled interstellar spy and mercenary admiral from the planet Barrayar, set approximately 1000 years in our future. The series demonstrates Bujold's mastery of various science fiction genres and sub-genres. Earlier titles are generally firmly in the space opera tradition with no shortage of battles, conspiracies, and wild twists, while in more recent volumes Miles becomes a detective. In A Civil Campaign, Bujold explores yet another genre: a high-society romance with a plot that pays tribute to Georgette Heyer (as acknowledged in the dedication). It centers on a catastrophic dinner party, with misunderstandings and dialogue justifying the subtitle "A Comedy of Biology and Manners". Her psychological insights and creation of complex characters are particularly appreciated by many readers.
There is debate among readers as the best order to read the Vorkosigan series. Some favor reading in publication order, some in order of internal chronology, and some other orders. This illustrates the widely held view that this series consists of a set of independent works which none the less gain from their inter-relations. The author has stated that her Miles Naismith Vorkosigan series structure is modeled after the Horatio Hornblower books documenting the life of a single person. In themes and echoes, they also reflect Dorothy L. Sayers' mystery character Lord Peter Wimsey. Bujold has also said that part of the challenge of writing a series is that many readers will encounter the stories in "utterly random order," so she must provide sufficient background in each of them without being excessively repetitious.
Falling Free - Vorkosigan Saga Book 4
Leo
Graf was an effective engineer. Safety regs weren't just the rule book
he swore by; he'd helped write them. All that changed on his assignment
to the Cay Habitat. Leo was profoundly uneasy with the corporate
exploitation of his bright new students... until that exploitation
turned to something much worse. He hadn't anticipated a situation where
the right thing to do was neither safe, nor in the rules...
Leo Graf adopted a thousand quaddies now all he had to do was teach them to be free.
Falling
Free takes place approximately 200 years before the events in
Cordelia's Honor and does not share settings or characters with the main
body of the series.
Borders of Infinity - Vorkosigan Saga Book 5.3
The
popular adventures of Miles Vorkosigan, a clever and outlandish
science-fiction hero for the modern era, continue in these three tales.
In "The Mountains of Mourning," Miles is dispatched to a back-country
region of Barrayar, where he must act as detective, judge, and
executioner in a controversial murder case. In "Labryinth," Miles adopts
his alternate persona as Dendarii Mercenary Admiral Naismith for an
undercover mission to rescue an important research geneticist from
Jackson's Whole. And in the title story, Miles infiltrates an
escape-proof Cetagandan POW camp and plays hero to the most deeply
distressed damsel of his colorful career.
Miles infiltrates a
prison camp at Dagoola IV, where he plots from within to free the
prisoners.The Borders of Infinity was originally published as a
stand-alone novella in the anthology Free Lancers in September 1987. It
was then included in the novel Borders of Infinity (October 1989). For
the novel, Ms. Bujold added a short "framing story" that tied the three
novellas together by setting up each as a flashback that Miles
experiences while recovering from bone-replacement surgery.
The Vor Game - Vorkosigan Saga Book 6
Hugo
Award Winner! Miles Vorkosigan graduates from the Academy, joins a
mutiny, is placed under house arrest, goes on a secret mission,
reconnects with his loyal Dendarii Mercenaries, rescues his Emperor, and
thwarts an interstellar war. Situation normal, if you're Miles.
Together,
they can get into a lot of trouble. Trouble only the combined forces of
the Free Dendarii Mercenaries can get them out of. At least, that's
what they're hoping...
In this latest adventure with the galaxy's
craftiest mercenary leader Miles, starts out by so shaking up the High
Command on his home planet of Barrayar that he is sent to the other side
of the galaxy where who should he run into but his old pals the Free
Dendarii Mercenaries. And a good thing too, because it turns out that
Miles' childhood chum, that's Emperor Gregor to you, has been the victim
of foul play, and only Miles with a little Dendarii muscle can save
him. This is very important to Miles; because if Gregor dies, the only
person who could become the new emperor is Miles himself and that he
regards as a fate worse than death.
Barrayar - Vorkosigan Saga Book 7
Cordelia
and Arol Vorkosigan's plans for a peaceful married life (after all the
bloodshed and trials recounted in Shards of Honor) are soon shattered by
the polital tumult on Barrayar. Resisting enormous pressure, they
struggle to keep their family alive while while protecting the child
Emperor from enemies who would murder him and assume absolute power over
all of Barrayar.
Mirror Dance - Vorkosigan Saga Book 8
Not
everyone would envy young Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, even though
he had formed his own mercenary fleet before attending the naval
academy, and even though his mother was the beautiful Cordelia, the ship
captain who has taught the Lords of Barrayar much about the perils of
sexism. Even the fact that Miles is third in line to the throne and
personally owns a major chunk of his home planet would not tempt any
normal person to change places with him.
When assassins came to
rid the world of his father, his mother, pregnant with Miles, was in the
line of fire, and Miles was but an egg for the omelet in an all too
literal sense. Thanks to heroic medical intervention, Miles survived his
near fatal brush with war gas-as a pain-filled dwarf with bones as weak
and brittle as some malign composite of chalk and glass. Miles is often
mistaken for a mutant by his mutant loathing countrymen.
But
there is one who does envy him, who wants to be him: his brother, his
cloned stranger formed from tissue stolen from Miles when he was a
child. For Mark Vorkosigan was created and raised up for only one
purpose: to become Miles, to murder and replace him. In Brothers in Arms
that conspiracy was routed and Mark made more or less compliant to his
new Miles-less fate. But in the intervening years Mark has learned that
without Miles he is . . . nothing. The new and better Mark doesn't
really want to kill his brother, but still it may come to that: Mark to
stay, Miles to go. . . .
Cetaganda - Vorkosigan Saga Book 9
The
latest instalment in the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan. Miles and
Cousin Ivan travel to Cetaganda to play the part of sprigs of nobility
doing their diplomatic duty. But when the Empress of Cetaganda dies
naturally, and her lifelong attendant dies unnaturally, Miles and Ivan
finds themselves in the thick of it.
Attending a diplomatic
ceremony on Cetaganda, Miles and Cousin Ivan get into a heap of
political trouble when the late empress's lifelong attendant is
murdered, and Ivan gets involved with several beautiful and
well-connected aliens.
Komarr - Vorkosigan Saga Book 11
Komarr
could be a garden with a thousand more years' work, or an uninhabitable
wasteland if the terraforming fails. Now, the solar mirror vital to the
terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship
hurtling off course. The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest imperial
auditor, Lord Miles Vorkosigan, to find out why. The choice is not a
popular one on Komarr, where a betrayal a generation before drenched the
name of Vorkosigan in blood. Thus, the Komarrans surrounding Miles
could be loyal subjects, potential hostages, innocent victims, or rebels
ready for revenge. Lies within lies, treachery within treachery, Miles
is caught in a race against time to stop a plot that could exile him
from Barrayar forever. His burning hope lies in an unexpected ally, one
with wounds as deep and honor as beleaguered as his own.
A Civil Campaign - Vorkosigan Saga Book 12
Miles
Vorkosigan has a problem: unrequited love for the beautiful widow
Ekaterin Vorsoisson, violently allergic to marriage after her first
exposure. If a frontal assault won't do, Miles thinks, try subterfuge.
He has a cunning plan... Lord Mark Vorkosigan, Miles' brother, also has a
problem: his love has just become unrequited again. But he has a
cunning plan... Lord Ivan Vorpatril, Mile's cousin, has a problem:
unrequited love in general. But he too has a cunning plan...
A
complex story, as the various members of Miles' family attempt to find
their one true love, and a measure of destiny. This against a background
of domestic political squabbles and an earnest attempt at capitalist
enterprise.
Diplomatic Immunity - Vorkosigan Saga Book 13
A
rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station, in
distant Quaddiespace, after a bloody incident on the station docks
involving a security officer from the convoy's Barrayaran military
escort. Lord Miles Vorkosigan of Barrayar and his wife, Lady Ekaterin,
have other things on their minds, such as getting home in time to attend
the long-awaited births of their first children. But when duty calls in
the voice of Barrayar's Emperor Gregor, Miles, Gregor's youngest
Imperial Auditor (a special high-level troubleshooter) has no choice but
to answer.
Waiting on Graf Station are diplomatic snarls,
tangled loyalties, old friends, new enemies, racial tensions, lies and
deceptions, mysterious disappearances, and a lethal secret with wider
consequences than even Miles anticipates: a race with time for life
against death in horrifying new forms.
Source and additional information: Lois McMaster Bujold