The Vorkosigan Companion (13 page)

What do you look for each time a new Miles novel lands on your desk?

A free evening to read and a comfy chair! I admit, it's hard to complain about the press of work when "work" is sitting back and reading a Vorkosigan Saga book!

As the series editor, what would you like to see explored in future Miles books?

As a reader, of course I want to see Ivan settle down with a nice girl just like his mom and live happily ever after. As a series editor, I'm afraid Ivan is due for some adventures before Lois will let him settle down, if she even does let him settle down. But getting away from the personalities—which is hard; Lois makes her characters come alive for her readers so that we
can
talk about them like people we know, because we
do
know them—I think the series can grow thematically if Lois wants it to. The previous books have explored what cultures do to individuals. It might be interesting to see what individuals do to cultures. We've seen some of that with Cordelia's fairly subtle influence on Barrayar, but to me the big question is what will Miles do when serious problems shake the Barrayaran way of life he's worked so hard to protect, his Winston Churchill moment.

What kind of challenges did you face bringing this series from its early years to today's success? Were there any specific issues that come to mind?

It's been hard to market these books so that all of those whom they will appeal to will find it. In the early years if a chain store passed on a book, it would take years to build an author or series back up with that chain, even if you could prove they were losing sales. These are not easy books to put covers on, too, and the cover is your primary advertisement about the content of the book, especially before an author has built up a reputation. The Vorkosigan Saga is about heroism—but how can you portray a short guy with bone problems heroically? How do you
paint
charisma? The books are about family and loyalty and honor—great to read about, hard to portray in concrete images. They contain epic love stories—but how to put that on a cover without alienating the people who are first attracted to the interesting world-building and scientific extrapolation, which are also integral? Probably we needed to put three or four covers on each printing of each volume in the saga!

What goals do you have for the future Miles novels?

I think there's a tremendous, broad market for Lois's work, equal to that of the great SF of the 1980s which regularly hit the
NY Times
best-seller lists without media tie-ins. She has all the appeal of McCaffrey
and
Heinlein and I'd like to get her books into as many readers' hands as possible.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers that would like to follow in Lois's footsteps?

A young writer could scarcely do better than to follow Lois's career path. She wrote several short stories and sent them around before and during the writing of her first novels. She didn't rush to send out the novels before they were ready for a general audience. She didn't rush to accept any old agent, but by the time her career was at a point to actually benefit monetarily from an agent she was able to get one of the top agents in the field. She took and takes her writing seriously. She respects her fans and her readers and responds to them with grace and care.

And she's constantly refreshing her brain—researching all different sorts of things, from metallurgy to medieval history—which diverse inputs she can then draw on in her fiction. Keep expanding your horizons—good advice for anyone who doesn't want to get mentally flabby, not just writers.

I'm a romance writer, so it's no surprise that I discovered the Vorkosigans through an online romance discussion group. Several fans of romantic SFF kept recommending this Bujold person. When I inquired where to start, I was told that
Shards of Honor
was a strong romance as well as first in the series.

Shards
should have been classified as a "gateway drug." Once I read the story of Captain Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkosigan, the Butcher of Komarr, I was doomed. Since then, I've read and reread every novel Lois McMaster Bujold has ever written. (And checking facts for this essay kept hooking me into still more rereading!)

The Vorkosiverse is a feast of relationships, not just romances. I love how cousins Miles and Ivan interact like evil brothers who nonetheless trust each other unconditionally. The way marriages mature and change. The way the boy emperor, Gregor, grows into his insanely demanding role. Cordelia, Aral, Gregor, Mark—there are so many marvelous characters who are defined as much by their relationships as by their actions.

The Vorkosigan books aren't genre romances, where the developing relationship is at the heart of the story. Yet the series is romance in the literary sense: a vast and sweeping tale of high adventure. The story of Miles Vorkosigan is a classic bildungsroman, the chronicle of a young man learning about life as he grows to manhood.

And, like most young men, Miles has a natural interest in the female half of the species. (We won't get into Betan herms here.) His passion for Elena Bothari, with whom he was raised, is unrequited, but there will be other women in his future.

Terrific women, too. As a female reader, one of my pleasures in the books is how strong the female characters are. Perhaps this isn't surprising, given that the author is female, but there are never enough great fictional women to take them for granted.

Miles's lovers are always accomplished and interesting. A favorite moment of mine is when clone brother Mark, whose actions have gotten Miles killed, is confronted by the ferocious Amazons that were his clone brother's former girlfriends.

Elli Quinn, whose face was burned off in battle, is given a new face courtesy of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, and grows into his second-in-command and eventual successor. A "drunkard's dream" of a girlfriend, Quinn is funny, smart, sexy, and a warrior to reckon with.

Sergeant Taura is equally dangerous—bred as a disposable super-warrior, she can terrify with a smile, but inside she's a lonely girl who has never known affection, much less love. Granted, when an eight-foot-tall teenager with fangs and claws wants sex as a price for her cooperation, a man might suffer world-class performance anxiety, but Miles is up to the challenge. Indeed, he and Taura develop a lasting bond they both cherish.

Though Miles tends to be monogamous, sometimes circumstances bring on diversity. His occasional liaisons with Taura when they're far from the Dendarii overlap his long affair with Quinn. And during his amnesia after cryo-revival, there was that fling with Rowan Durona, his accomplished and attractive doctor. Very healing.

Miles isn't the only one who gets to fall in love. When Bujold first takes us to Barrayar, it's a brutal world where women have little status and life is run along hierarchical and militaristic lines. One of the pleasures of the series is watching how Barrayar changes after Cordelia arrives and Aral becomes the Regent. Their rock-solid marriage, based on mutual trust and respect, lays the foundations for a more civilized society.

For that reason, several romances have a feminist and radical subtext. When Cordelia settles in Barrayar, the military is strictly for men, and a girl with warrior aspirations is shut out. Ludmilla Droushnakovi, known as Drou, is the tall, blond, athletic daughter of a non-com. She can't join the imperial forces, but at least she's trained to fight while serving as a bodyguard to Princess Kareen.

Drou is attracted to Lieutenant Koudelka, Aral's war-injured secretary, and vice versa, but the romance almost founders over the issue of a woman's strength. When Kou attempts to confess to Aral that he raped Drou, Aral summons Cordelia and Drou. Drou almost breaks her confused lover in half while proving her point that he couldn't have laid a hand on her if she hadn't been willing.

It takes Cordelia in terrifying Betan matchmaker mode to sort out their misunderstandings and send them toward their happy ending. When Drou and Kou marry at the Imperial residence, Aral comments that every class of Barrayaran society is represented on the guest list. It is a sign of the changes ahead. Drou and Kou go on to produce a gaggle of handsome blond daughters who will have romances of their own.

Elena Bothari is another Barrayaran woman frustrated by her native world's sexism. The romance of Elena and Baz Jezek is only sketched in, but I've always assumed that part of their bond is that they're both Barrayarans who can't go home again. She won't and he
can't
,
but they have each other and a shared culture.

Miles is shocked when he realizes that Lord Vorkosigan has no sex life. Quinn and Taura and Rowan Durona are the lovers of Miles Naismith. The little admiral of the Dendarii fleet has sucked up all the passion and fun available to Miles's identities.

When a disastrous lie forces Miles to leave his mercenary fleet and rediscover what it means to be Barrayan, that includes finding a mate who will fit into his new future. He and Elli Quinn do their best to persuade each other to a different path, but Quinn won't settle on Barrayar and Miles won't abandon his homeworld. In the end, they settle for parting as friends. Which is a fine ending to a love affair, actually.

Inevitably, the love of Miles's life, the widowed Ekaterin Vorsoisson, is Vor. Like Miles, she has faced struggles in life that have seasoned and matured her. She is a "woman [who] went down and down, like a well to the middle of the world."

Though no warrior, Ekaterin doesn't lack courage, and she shares Miles's Vor values right down to the cellular level. To be Vor is to serve, even if the cost might be one's own life. To be Vor also means living by a code of honor. Miles is shocked when an angry Lieutenant Vorberg accuses him of abandoning Illyan, head of Imperial Security, who has been asking for Miles as his mind slowly shatters. Miles immediately answers the call, even if that means bringing down the fearsome walls of ImpSec itself. Both he and Vorberg understand that it matters to "make Vor real."

Hyperactive overachiever that he is, Miles almost loses Ekaterin by failing to understand her need to make him a gift of her talents. She, too, has her honor. As always, Miles learns the hard way, but he learns. Just as his military skills include the ability to bring out the best in those around him (a trait inherited from both parents), he is able to bring out the best in Ekaterin. And she is wise enough to cherish all that is special about Miles, while being entirely aware of his many and colorful shortcomings.

The essence of good romance is to show how two people suit each other. What is unique about each individual, and about their relationship to each other? What does he love about her, what does she love about him? Bujold shows such things with impeccable accuracy. By the time Ekaterin proposes to Miles in front of the entire Council of Counts, there is no doubt that these two people are made for each other.

Another Vorkosiverse romance that feels utterly right is that of Emperor Gregor. Gregor's cool, razor-insightful style defines him brilliantly. He serves the Imperium as he was born and bred to do. Yet when he falls in love, the object of his affection isn't a tall, slim Vor maiden "whose family tree crosses [his] sixteen times in the last six generations," but Doctor Laisa Toscane, a luscious and intelligent Komarran heiress. (What female reader can't appreciate the fact that the round girl gets the guy?)

It's a powerful moment when Gregor, whose life has been lived for Barrayar, tells Miles that Laisa is the one thing that he absolutely wants for himself. Miles gives Gregor permission to grab her with both hands and "don't let the bastards" take her away. Gregor deserves no less than a woman as lovable and loving as Laisa.

There are romances in virtually all of the books, because romance makes a great subplot and also they're fun. But the real Saturnalia of romance is
A Civil Campaign.
While the centerpiece is Miles's courtship of Ekaterin, the Koudelka girls fall for an amazing range of men.

In
Memory
, Delia Koudelka secured Komarran Duv Galeni, who had yearned for Laisa Toscane, but didn't move fast enough. As Miles observed after that book's final crisis, it would take four large and foolhardy men with hand tractors to pry Delia off Galeni's arm. Galeni clung to her just as hard. This one wouldn't be allowed to get away.

In
A Civil Campaign
, Martya sets her sights on the mad Escobaran scientist Enrique Borgos, who needs a managing woman to take care of his interests while he spends fourteen-hour days in his lab. Martya is fully qualified to manage a man, and she won't mind spending all the money his inventions will make, either.

Olivia Koudelka pairs off with the most unusual Lord Dono Vorrutyer. Though perhaps the quietest of the Koudelka girls, she was trained by her mother and is quite capable of taking down three thugs when they attack her beloved—two with a stun gun and one by bashing his head into a concrete pillar. The Koudelka girls are as formidable as they are blond.

But the romance that proves the Vorkosiverse is circular is that of clone brother Mark Vorkosigan and Kareen, the youngest Koudelka daughter. When terrorized by Miles's "hellish harem" in
Mirror Dance
, Mark had thought wildly that he wanted a nice small, soft, meek blonde. Kareen isn't meek, but she's blond and soft and compassionate, and she loves the dark and twisty complexities of Mark's tormented soul.

Her parents are less enthused, given the massive amount of baggage Mark carries. Once again Cordelia goes into Betan matchmaker mode to convince Drou and Kou that Mark and Kareen deserve a chance to see if they suit.

Thirty years have passed, and it is no longer necessary for young people to claim their sexuality in "a mad secret scramble in the dark, full of confusion, pain, and fear." That was a time Drou remembers without affection. Barrayar is a better place now, and even Kareen's protective Da eventually agrees to give love a chance.