#penric

[swordshapedleaves]

Actually I wanna name more women whose work I love.

Lois Bujold has written truly excellent sci fi and fantasy. She is so excellent at making the Character and putting them in Situations that I think a lot of people miss that her world building is also peerless. The Vorkosigan series has such excellent characters and plot and prose that it gets overlooked for the brilliant hard sci aspects. She is examining how reproductive and genetic engineering technology impacts societies in ways I've never seen anyone else tackle them.

But also her fantasy series are amazing? The multiple separate unique magic systems she's come up with are all fascinating. From the beautiful meditations on faith and fate and free will in the Five Gods series to the low magic post-post-apocalypse Americana of The Sharing Knife to the historically grounded Italian politicking but with magic of the Spirit Ring, Bujold was constantly creating the most unique and thought-provoking settings I've read.

She's so old and has only written fun novellas for the last several years but I love her work so much and I wish more people would read her.

[beroebluejeans]

Lois McMaster Bujold creating a protagonist: time to max out this boy’s charisma stat

[cannary]

The remedy for finishing one Bujold series is simply to start another

[aquitainequeen]

As Bujold once wrote, one of the things that make her work indubitably sf is the recurring subject of "the stresses on people of technological change driving social change". That was in the same essay "Space Opera, Miles and Me" (2007 web) as the following frank account which shows a total awareness of her deliberate subversion of reader conservatism: "That my novels of character were packaged and sold as military SF by Baen Books was probably a lucky break for me, as it allowed me to sneak in under the radar of genre expectations. By the time folks began to notice that nothing about my work was quite what it appeared, I had begun to acquire the readership who have sustained my art ever since." [...] Another instance of typecasting Bujold for roles she does not precisely fit is to see her as primarily an author of comic novels [...] She is a very witty writer, but sometimes when she is at her funniest she is like Chaucer's "smyler with the knyf under the cloke". She is the boisterous girl next door, but also the quiet woman who looks like Greta Garbo playing Mata Hari, both living on the same street. Comedy and tragedy are the two sides of her coin.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

[teasugarsalt]

Lois Bujold stopped writing Miles Vorkosigan and started writing exclusively novellas about a nice boy whose magic is entirely powered by the gallons of respect women juice he drinks every morning and anyway it's never too late and you can do whatever you want and I think about that a lot.

[abigailspinach]

“Pen woke aroused, rolled over sleepily, and reached for himself. The room seemed warm and dim and safe and quiet. His hand had barely touched its target when his mouth commented, “Ooh, I’ve not felt it from this angle before. This should be interesting.” Pen’s hand froze. “Don’t stop on our account,” said Desdemona. “Physicians, remember?” “Yes, don’t be shy. I’ve seen a thousand of ’em.” “Speak for yourself!” “Well, I’ve certainly diapered them a thousand times.” Pen had no idea what the next comment was, and it might just have been the language, but it certainly sounded obscene. He rolled from the bed and dressed as fast as possible. He couldn’t be out on the road soon enough.” ― Lois McMaster Bujold, Penric’s Demon

(Context.... a very nice young man (Penric) has picked up a demon (a demon plus her memories of ten generations of women, a horse, and a lion) and they are now psychically connected forever and just getting to know each other).

[sleepycatmama]

Lois McMaster Bujold has a new Penric story out!!!

I strongly recommend ALL of Bujold's fiction. She is my very favorite author. She's the one who wrote the Miles Vorkosigan series - I've started a post about those that gets reshared often.

The Penric stories are generally novella length, although at least one is novel length, as most of her earlier works were. The setting of the Penric books, the World of the Five Gods, starts with three novels. The first is Curse of Chalion. They are delightful. But you can also start with the Penric stories themselves. The first is Penric's Demon.

They are all books that I eagerly await, I make loud squeeing noises when I see they're out, I immediately buy the ebook, and whatever else I was reading gets set aside. I reread the whole series now and then, as with all Bujold, there's more delight to be found on reread.

Amazon.com: Demon Daughter (Penric & Desdemona) eBook : Bujold, Lois McMaster: Kindle Store

[fabiansociety]

it's been a sad sort of a week — a lot of sorrow, a lot of stress — but i'm reading lois mcmaster bujold's penric stories and that's been lovely. she's such a charitable writer to her characters — puts 'em through hell, sure enough, but gives 'em a lot of grace, too. never fails to move me. a lot of writers forget that part