Lillian S Carl - The Vorkosigan Companion (Vorkosigan Saga)

This is a reference work about works of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright @ 2008 by Tekno Books, Lillian Stewart Carl, and John Helfers.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN 10: 1-4165-5603-6
ISBN 13: 978-1-4165-5603-9
Cover art by Darrell K. Sweet
First printing, December 2008
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Vorkosigan companion / edited by Lillian Stewart Carl and John Helfers.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-4165-5603-6
1. Bujold, Lois McMasterHandbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Vorkosigan, Miles (Fictitious character)Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Science fiction, AmericanHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Carl, Lillian Stewart. II. Helfers, John.
PS3552.U397Z95 2009
813'.54dc22
2008032556
Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Printed in the United States of America

Preface copyright 2008 by Lois McMaster Bujold.

"Putting It Together: Life, the Vorkosiverse, and Everything," copyright 2008 by Lois McMaster Bujold.

"A Conversation with Lois McMaster Bujold," copyright 2008 by Lillian Stewart Carl.

"Publishing, Writing, and Authoring: Three Different Things," copyright 2008 by Lois McMaster Bujold.

"A Conversation with Toni Weisskopf," copyright 2008 by John Helfers.

"Romance in the Vorkosiverse," copyright 2008 by Mary Jo Putney.

"Biology in the Vorkosiverse and Today," copyright 2008 by Tora K. Smulders-Srinivasan.

" 'What's the Worst Thing I Can Do to This Character?': Technology in the Vorkosiverse," copyright 2008 by Ed Burkhead.

"Through Darkest Adolescence with Lois McMaster Bujold, or Thank You, but I Already Have a Life," copyright 2008 by Lillian Stewart Carl.

"Foreword to Falling Free," copyright 2004 by James A. McMaster. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"Foreword to Shards of Honor," copyright 2000 by James Bryant. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"More Than the Sum of His Parts: Foreword to The Warrior's Apprentice," copyright 2002 by Douglas Muir. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"Foreword to Ethan of Athos," copyright 2003, revised version copyright 2009 by Marna Nightingale. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"Come for the Bujold, Stay for the Beer: Science Fiction Writers as Occasions of Fandom," copyright 2008 by Marna Nightingale.

"A Pronunciation Guide to the Vorkosigan Saga," copyright 2008 by Suford Lewis. Revised from "A Pronunciation Guide to Names and Places," copyright 2001, 2000, 1996 by Suford Lewis.

"An Old Earther's Guide to the Vorkosigan Universe," copyright 2008 by Denise Little.

"The Vorkosigan Saga Novel Summaries," copyright 2008 by John Helfers.

"The Vorkosigan Saga Concordance," copyright 2008 by Kerrie Hughes, John Helfers, and Ed Burkhead.

"Topology of the Wormhole Nexus," copyright 2008 by Crystal Carroll and Suford Lewis. Revised from "Galactic Tourist Bureau Map" copyright 1999 by Crystal Carroll.

"Timelines: 800 Years in Barrayaran and Galactic Human History; 60 Years in Barrayaran and Galactic Human History," copyright 2008, 2001, 2000, 1996 by Suford Lewis.

"Some Barrayaran Genealogy," copyright 2008, 2001 by Suford Lewis. Revised from "Towards a Genealogy of Lord Miles Vorkosigan and Other Persons of Interest," copyright 2000, 1996 by Suford Lewis.

The Vorkosigan Saga:

Shards of Honor
Barrayar
The Warrior's Apprentice
The Vor Game
Cetaganda
Borders of Infinity
Brothers in Arms
Mirror Dance
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
Diplomatic Immunity
Falling Free
Ethan of Athos

Omnibus Editions:

Cordelia's Honor
Young Miles
Miles, Mystery & Mayhem
Miles Errant
Miles, Mutants & Microbes
Miles in Love

There are many memorable firsts in a writer's career. First story startedfirst finished. First submission. First rejection. First sale! First review, good/bad. First public speech about one's writing, urk. First fan letter! First time meeting one's editor face-to-face. First award nominationfirst win! Maybe, a first film option. First time on a genre best-seller listfirst time on a general best-seller list, though this is a much rarer prize. First career awardwhat, already? but I'm not finished yet! First book about one's books.

I'm not just sure where we've arrived, but we're definitely here.

Head down and pedaling as hard as possible, it's not often that working writers have a chance to look back and see just how far they've traveled. Much of my biography and literary biography are covered in the articles and interview that follow, so I won't linger to recap it all here. But in this year, 2007, and in 2008 upcoming, have fallen a couple of firsts that force me to pause and put it in perspective.

My first career award came last month from the Ohioana Library Association. Literary awards generally, by nature intrinsically subjective, are mysterious gifts bestowed upon writers; it is something done to us, not somethinglike finishing a novelthat we do. Career awards seem to be awards for winning awards, a suspicious circularity. (That said, this year's Ohioana memento takes the prize for being the prettiest ever, a gorgeous piece of art glass looking like a transparent blue jellyfish. Lead glass apparently looks extremely strange on airport X-ray machines, however. Someone could write a whole essay on the sometimes-deadly designs of the various awards and the challenges of getting them home.)

Next year, as I write this (though it will be a done deal by the time this book is published) I have been invited to be Writer Guest of Honor at the 2008 World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, Colorado, which is very much a career award in its own right. I put pencil to paper for my first science fiction novel in 1982; from there to this in a mere twenty-six years. Seems... fast.

Writing stories, using words to sculpt other people's thoughts, would appear to be the most evanescent of arts. Writers make and sell dreams; the vast publishing industry that conveys those dreams between the writer's head and the reader's seems a lumbering vehicle for such a light load. And yet, of all the many tasks I've undertaken in my lifeapart from bearing and raising my childrenit's my books that have best lasted and carried forward, the main thing I have to show for all my efforts. The lineup of first editions on my office bookshelf seems a procession of captured years, my basement full of books like an array of vintages laid down in a wine cellar.

A certain branch of linguistics and culture studies has a catchphrase"time-binding"to tag those inventions, including writing, that allow humans to carry their culture and achievements forward, through time that otherwise destroys all things each instant. I would quibble a little with the phrase, since it's not actually time that is bound. "We can neither make, nor retain, a single moment of time," as C. S. Lewis remarks somewhere. But for a little while, time's grinding teeth may be eluded. Most of my life's labors were consumed almost as soon as committedall that housekeeping plowed under, all those meals I cooked gone in a day, all the forgettable daily tasks duly forgotten. But "Words," as another writer said, "can outlast stones." I'm not sure mine will go that far, but they definitely outlast meals.