The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

I can't find on the net whether or not Lois's husband was older or younger than she was when they were married, so I don't have much to back this up on but it may be a case of Author Appeal with the May-December thingy.

Anyone know if her children number any writers amongst them? That could be the only way we get more Vorkosigan Saga books, that is, if the rumours that she is perhaps understandably fed up writing them.

While this page says she has one son and one daughter, nothing is said about their occupational status, nor do I see any other reference to the children.

Google brings up a bunch of hits on "Bujold", but no relation to LMB as far as I can tell.

As a side note, if you own electronic copies of the Vorkosigan books, back them up. Everyone's probably aware that the Cryoburn CD was taken down from the Fifth Imperium site. Now, people who purchased the Cryoburn eBook from Baen can no longer download the CD from the site. According to LMB, Baen's license to distribute electronic copies of her books has lapsed. She's not stating it outright, but Baen's FAQ indicates that in matters of dispute, they reserve the right to remove download links at any time without warning.

@ Tam H: I don't know about the respective ages of LMB and her ex, but when a particular romance trope appears that often in a writer's works I feel safe in calling it Author Appeal. I'm not complaining mind you. She handles romance well. It was just very obvious after a week of concentrated reading.

I hadn't heard about the ebooks rights thing, but that explains why I couldn't buy one of the omnibus editions last weekend. Oh well, back to the horribly primitive and backwards technology of dead trees.

I got a reply back from Baen. Apparently they never hosted he CD, instead routing people to another site. They've only ever taken down one eBook. Their letter is excerpted below:

—-

Thank you for your support of Baen Books.

No sir, this wasn't a case of reverted rights. Due to the nature of the files, free versions were made available for download through a third-party site, where we directed purchasers of Cryoburn from the Baen Ebookstore. Per the request of the Author, these files on the third party site were made unavailable, as the CD was only produced for the first edition Hardback version of Cryoburn.

There has only been one case of a book becoming inaccessible, and that was a rare circumstance where we hosted a book on our site that was not published by Baen, and were instructed to take the files down. As both of the books you mentioned are published by Baen, (not to mention, wrote by LMB) rest easy knowing these will always be available to you.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards, Daniel Wolski Baen Ebooks Web Team

I don't have a citation on-hand, but I've seen several people say that the deal with Amazon may be the reason the kibosh has been put on omnibus editions (something to do with Amazon standardized pricing).

Toni has explicitly stated that the deal with Amazon means eARCs will not be available once the books are released and that it will impact the Free Library.

Have I mentioned that I hate Amazon? Like, hate-hate?

^^ Be aware that Bar links won't do non-Barflies any good, as those without Bar logins can only view the "welcome to Baen's Bar" forum.

As for the Free Library, yes many works were taken down, but at least for some of them they'll be going back up once a second edition of the book (for the most part some new content added, as I understand it) has been made and published, with the FL copy being first edition.

The cd images that were on the Baen site, and that I already paid for, have been nuked too. I am not happy about that at all. Seriously, Amazon, fuck you.

Most of them are still available on the Fifth Imperium site. Baen just isn't linking to them anymore. (Cryoburn is still available in a handful of the Baen CD torrents out there)

When I got my cds they weren't linked to the fifth imperium, or the redirect wasn't clear on that. It looked very much like I got them straight from the site. There was a whole category of Books With C Ds in the menu, from what I remember.

And I am still not sure who is doing the next batch of Vorkosigan Saga books, as I childishly refuse to believe that CVA was the last one as Miles doesn't deserve that horrible ending, damnit.

Lois apparently read to an audience part of a possible sequel continuing on Barrayar and involving genetically engineering the Butter Bugs to eat radiation to help clear out the ancestral lands when something goes wrong, but she says she's stalled at the moment on where to go on it.

Honestly, she's said that she's more interested in other projects. CVA was her attempt to tide over the fans (or, to quote her quotation of her daughter, "Mom, I fed this stray cat, and he still won't go away"), and to round out Ivan's character (incidentally, Cryoburn was the last one where we got a significant Miles presence and was also the one where we found out about Count Aral).

Engineering a bug to chase down trace particles and bring them back to a hive would.. work. Not really sure how that could go wrong. Engineer them for radiodurance, and there you go. Not really seeing how that can possibly go off the rails.. it isnt like "our hives are kind of radioactive" is much of a selective advantage? They could, I dunno, take up uranium mining? Would be bad if they crossbred with the food bugs, I grant..

Would kinda suck if they gathered enough of the material to go critical^note not go "boom", just start fissioning, the way that sometimes happens in natural Uranium deposits though...

edited 26th Feb '13 4:01:03 PM by Nohbody

Yeah, I got a bit flipped in perspective. You are right, Cryoburn was the last book with Miles really showing up on screen. Which makes it really rather odd that the last (so far) book in the Vorkosigan Saga makes NO MENTION of it Aral's death and seems to have time-skipped backwards.

Seems nothing. "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance" is explicitly set between "Diplomatic Immunity" and "Cryoburn".

Which I wish I had known before I bought both it and Cryoburn. Because the twist threw me for a loop.

That would require the planet to have a /much/ higher ratio of uranium 235 to 238 in its ore bodies. That is possible - earth used to be rich enough in u-235 that ore formation produced entirely natural reactors - however, even then you just end up with a hive that cooks itself. That might kill you if you happen to be watching it happen, but.. not really a major radiological event.

Also I think it can't happen in a hive that is gathering any significant amount of actual fallout (most of those isotopes are neutron poisons, so as long as there is a good deal of those mixed in, no criticality) Hmm. so it would require someone to misidentify a major uranium deposit for war fallout. That seems about right for the empire. I am thinking fission related studies are probably not very popular given the mutation phobia.

I've always imagined that Jackson's Hole survives for the same reasons Tax Havens exist IRL - governments might condemn tax shelters but too many people find them useful to really act against them. Hypocracy on a Galactic scale, if you will.

You mean hypocrisy...

Actually, I meant "Hippocracy" ( Rule by Horses)

edited 17th Mar '13 4:59:53 PM by JohnPotts

Well, there is that story about Caligula supposedly nominating his horse to the Roman Senate...

(Not true, as far as I can tell, but amusing nonetheless.)

edited 17th Mar '13 5:51:22 PM by Nohbody

You mean Count Midnight (given this is the Vorkosigan Saga thread)

Nope. He or she meant Caligula. He wanted to make Incitatus a no-shit, this is real, Consul of Rome.

At least, that's what Cassius Dio said anyways...

Seems like Lois took Picasso's advice to heart, 8-)

"Good artists copy, great artists steal!"

edited 17th Mar '13 6:52:55 PM by TamH70

"He", for the record.

And, yes, I meant the original, not the vor twit (who I didn't even remember ).