The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Why does this series not have a forum topic? When it has one of the biggest pages in the entire wiki?

I would like to talk about the books and how much I love them and just about everything else in them, but I have to wonder if anyone else does?

I actually have a complaint about the series. Or more specifically Baen's handling of it.

I can understand the reasoning of not including Memory in the omnibuses. However there was no excuse for not including the e-book version on the CD that came with Cryoburn.

That being said I am looking forward to the upcoming Captain Vorpatril's Alliance in November. Ivan gets his own book!

I do.

I rather enjoyed Cetaganda. That tree was creepy. Anyone who remembers that book should know what I'm talking about.

Sadly, that's the only book in the series I've finished so far. I have a few others, but haven't gotten into them.

I'm actually going through the series now, courtesy of a copy of the Cryoburn CD before it was pulled from Joe Buckley's "The Fifth Imperium" CD archive.

At the moment I'm in the first half of Mirror Dance (just after Aral Vorkosigan's heart aneurism).

I have read all of them. All of them. Even Captain Vorpatril's Alliance(and yep, broke the habit of a lifetime. Paid retail for the eARC), which is hands-down the funniest one in the whole series. And the Vorkosigan Companion. The most heartbreaking line in the whole saga?

"Count Vorkosigan, sir?"

My objectivity is shot to hell as far as the books go. I cannot fault them at all. Ok, I could probably do so if I tried but...

I have heard young Miles being compared to a Mary Sue. To that accusation I would reply, "does Tam have to Force Choke a bi&^*h?" Mary Sues do not get bleeding gastric ulcers and get confined to sick-bay just before an away-team mission. My favourite character so far apart from Miles himself is his brother, Mark. Mainly because I cannot split Cordelia and Aral - choosing between those two is a task that Solomon himself would have struggled with.

edited 7th Aug '12 4:29:50 PM by TamH70

^ I hadn't heard the Mary Sue accusation, but I'd also be calling "bullshit" on it if I had. Mary Sues don't get ulcers (like you noted), aren't so fragile that throwing a single punch will break their own bones, and don't make non-minor mistakes (like in "Borders of Infinity" off the top of my head, labeling the bully a Ceta spy caused him some not-minor problems later in the story), and don't get into multi-day lethargic funks like in The Warrior's Apprentice.

Yeah, he's really "thinky" and fast about it, and he does seem to make friends easily, but given his physical limitations it's not like he didn't have incentive to work on the things where he's stronger, especially given Barrayaran's rather fatal social attitudes towards "muties" ("not a mutant" doesn't go very far with the types who'd kill people simply because they're "different").

Miles is a human sacrifice for the next generation. So that no more poor wee babies get murdered by their parents or grandparents for the crime of having a hare lip. And he knows it.

To quote something from the last CMOT scene in Shards of Honor:

“The good face pain. But the great? They embrace it.”

edited 7th Aug '12 5:28:11 PM by TamH70

People misuse "Mary Sue" for any "special" character these days. Miles isn't a boring, generic Everyman, thus the accusation.

Now, some people don't like special characters. They prefer the adventures of ordinary people. That's fine, but mistaking attributes you don't personally like for universal bad things is stupid.

Miles doesn't have the universe hand him everything on a platter; he has to fight for it. Sure, the universe bends for him, but that's because he works for it, he takes a big metaphorical hammer to it.

Even Miles' "positive" special attributes, like his aristocratic rank and family money, aren't always advantages for him.

"Mary Sue" basically means "character I dislike", nowadays.

I got the omnibuses from Fifth Imperium a while back, and just started the third omnibus. Obviously, I really liked them, considering I'm the equivalent of four books in.

edited 9th Aug '12 1:03:16 PM by Benluke

Pro-tip. Read the most recent one (Captain Vorpatril's Alliance), before you read Cryoburn. No spoilers why, I will leave it up to you to find out, but I heavily recommend you read them in that order.

It struck me recently that I have no clue at all what Ender Wiggin, fresh from the Battle School, and Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, fresh from the Academy, would make of each other. Maybe they would be too much alike, or too totally different from them to relate.

On the subject of "Memory" not being on the Cryoburn cd, I agree, it should have been. It is the pivotal book in the whole saga. None of the latter books make any sense without reading it. I mean, who is this Lord Auditor guy, where the hell is Admiral Naismith?

Or sapper charges. He has a thing for sapper charges. Uses them to blow the shit out of windmills.

edited 9th Aug '12 3:00:16 PM by TamH70

Dammit, you reminded me there's a new book and I had to buy it, even if it's expensive right now.

The eARC version? Yeah, fifteen bucks is a lot of money at times.

Well I would say Ender as the superior military mind but even fresh from the academy Miles would be way ahead in terms of political savvy.

I'm a fan too, I do so want to see what Miles does with toddlers, I'm hoping they'll be at least as challenging as he must have been. I love how Bujold does family life in her books, even in Ethan of Athos you get a good feel for how families are structured despite never seeing more than the one man from Athos.

And finished it. A good one! Nice to have a book from Ivan's POV; he's a character that's grown on me as I've understood him better.

Does this mean that every character's paired off now? Except, tragically, one.I wonder what she's going to do with now-widowed Cordelia ...

As to Tam's recommendation to read Cryoburn last: enough to say that it's chronologically slightly later than Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, especially certain things that happen in the ending. Bujold has not written these books in strict chronological order.

@Lightningnettle: indeed. And family is especially important in semi-feudal Barrayar, but moreover it shapes everyone, no matter what their relationships with their families.

edited 11th Aug '12 3:38:49 PM by Morven

^ IIRC LMB has said that she wrote the books so you don't have to have read them all in the right order to get everything, though that was said in the afterward of one of the earlier collections (Young Miles, I think), so that may have changed.

(Between The Other Wiki's summary of Memory and the hints dropped in Komarr I don't feel all that shorchanged by not having access to Memory, FWIW.)

I don't think I read them in the "right" order myself, and it doesn't really matter to me.

Some people really, really hate reading things out of order, though. Especially people who are easily spoiled by knowing something about the ending of an chronologically earlier book, or who aren't good at picking up what happened before.

"Right order" was, in retrospect, the wrong term. "Internal chronological order" would have been more accurate. My mistake.

I don't think anyone could replace Aral Vorkosigan in Cordelia's eyes. He would need to be something close to god to compare, to match up to around forty years of marriage, all the shared adventures. Having all the political power on a planet and having the strength to give it all up in favor of an Emperor that was untried yet not untaught. Having the guts to stand up to one's own father when repeatedly told to kill one's own child when it was born deformed yet having no idea that that child would grow up to become Lord Auditor, the best covert asset in Imp Sec and an Admiral in charge of the best mercenary fleet in the sector. Sacrificing all the trust between father and son on just a hope that the child would survive.

How would you equal that? How could you even come close?

I hope that more books get written to take up events between Diplomatic Immunity and Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. There is about seven years of a timeskip, and I refuse to believe that the smallest Lord Auditor on record did nothing for that period of time.

I don't think anyone could replace him, but I hope that one way or another, we see more of Cordelia.

Huh, it turns out that I actually hadn't read Diplomatic Immunity. Thought I had. Correcting this.

I went and picked up the Memory e-book since it wasn't on the Cryoburn CD, and after finishing it the day before yesterday I wish I had done that instead of The Other Wiki shortcut. Summaries just aren't the same.

And on the subject of Cryoburn, just finished it a few minutes ago. I knew what happened at the end thanks to the spoilers I highlighted in this post, but... damn. I think I have something in my eye...

Me too. I would love for there to be another book about Aral. His adventures from the murder of his family to him cutting Mad Ivan up like a kipper. He had forty odd years of life before he met his Captain. And the tantalizing glimpses of that life that Bujold has given us so far are not enough for me. I am greedy for more.

It also hasn't slipped my mind that Mrs Bujold is growing older. I would hate for the books to just finish without the story coming to an end.

edited 16th Aug '12 3:38:08 AM by TamH70

The Mad Emperor was Yuri. Ivan is the idiot.

(Haven't read Alliance, waiting for the final release. I don't buy eARCs of anyone's writing. I find all the typos and such inherent with an eARC too distracting to enjoy or fully understand the relevant work.)

As for Author Existence Failure, while definitely a concern in general I more worry about letting a series drag on and on and on and on and... *ahem*. It's getting to the point where I'm hesitant to continue with some series, if I haven't abandoned them entirely. Honor Harrington is getting to be the former, Jack Ryan is the latter (assisted by a continuing drop in Clancy's writing quality).

edited 16th Aug '12 5:57:44 AM by Nohbody