Ask the Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Answered Questions (1516)
Lois McMaster Bujold
Temple ornament varies from realm to realm. And, given that everything is handmade locally, will probably even vary from from town to town in less overt ways. Braiding styles will also vary, but are usually 3 or 4 strands, different colors encoding different information depending on god, sub-specialty, and rank. No 2-strand twists; if two colors, there would be 2 strands of one color and 1 of the contrasting one, etc.
The Adriac braids Pen wears are like military braids, a long braid re-looped under the arm and/or off one shoulder. (Number of loops is also an opportunity for variation.) Orbas does not have braids, but rather colored sashes.
The pin can't be straight -- too insecure. Closed or safety-like pin or a broach would be sensible, plus the pin gives another chance to encode information. Fancier or jeweled for higher ranks (or just richer divines) or a gradation of metals seems possible. If there is any way to distinguish and advertise status and hierarchy, people will use it.
Ta, L.
The Adriac braids Pen wears are like military braids, a long braid re-looped under the arm and/or off one shoulder. (Number of loops is also an opportunity for variation.) Orbas does not have braids, but rather colored sashes.
The pin can't be straight -- too insecure. Closed or safety-like pin or a broach would be sensible, plus the pin gives another chance to encode information. Fancier or jeweled for higher ranks (or just richer divines) or a gradation of metals seems possible. If there is any way to distinguish and advertise status and hierarchy, people will use it.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
As before, I have nothing going in that direction at this time. But I'm so glad my books helped you get through a hard time! That's one of my fondest hopes for my work.
A general note, all my titles are widely and instantly available as low-priced ebooks on 5 vendor platforms. Their Blackstone audio editions are also available widely. Baen also still has some titles new in stock in paper editions. Used copies vary in availability, but Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis is always good to try, and they do mail order. Folks can try there for paperback replacements.
Ta, L.
As before, I have nothing going in that direction at this time. But I'm so glad my books helped you get through a hard time! That's one of my fondest hopes for my work.
A general note, all my titles are widely and instantly available as low-priced ebooks on 5 vendor platforms. Their Blackstone audio editions are also available widely. Baen also still has some titles new in stock in paper editions. Used copies vary in availability, but Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis is always good to try, and they do mail order. Folks can try there for paperback replacements.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
As not even the Cetagandans have conquered death, by the time such descendants came along, their progenitors would all be dead, rendering your concern for their concern rather moot.
Ta, L.
As not even the Cetagandans have conquered death, by the time such descendants came along, their progenitors would all be dead, rendering your concern for their concern rather moot.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
It being Barrayar, the most probable answer is "all of the above."
Ta, L.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Well, for life after death, the gods are the only game in town. If you don't want any of the 5 choices, the 6th is dissolution (not the fun kind) and nonexistence.
Going off in a snit because you didn't get your first choice is certainly an option, if a short-term one, free will and all that. You have until enough of you evaporates to be beyond assent to change your mind, then it's over. Amount of time varying by the individual and initial conditions. For the Weald warriors trapped in the Wounded Woods, it ran to ~400 years, but that case was an extreme outlier. For most people, it's a matter of days.)
Ta, L.
Well, for life after death, the gods are the only game in town. If you don't want any of the 5 choices, the 6th is dissolution (not the fun kind) and nonexistence.
Going off in a snit because you didn't get your first choice is certainly an option, if a short-term one, free will and all that. You have until enough of you evaporates to be beyond assent to change your mind, then it's over. Amount of time varying by the individual and initial conditions. For the Weald warriors trapped in the Wounded Woods, it ran to ~400 years, but that case was an extreme outlier. For most people, it's a matter of days.)
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Subtle and internal is certainly the mode of most of the 5GU magic, yes.
Tough on the cover artists.
Ta, L.
Subtle and internal is certainly the mode of most of the 5GU magic, yes.
Tough on the cover artists.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Possibly. There is a great deal of variety across countries and regions about the signs and ornaments of religion, which I might need to make up if any of my characters get to new places. The Father/Mother/Son/Daughter are fixed as to imagined gender, but the Bastard can be conceived as male/female/both/neither, depending. Leaving aside the innate dubiousness of assigning any sex to beings that never had bodies.
Ta, L.
Possibly. There is a great deal of variety across countries and regions about the signs and ornaments of religion, which I might need to make up if any of my characters get to new places. The Father/Mother/Son/Daughter are fixed as to imagined gender, but the Bastard can be conceived as male/female/both/neither, depending. Leaving aside the innate dubiousness of assigning any sex to beings that never had bodies.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Saints of the Mother are known mainly for healing and female fertility, which puts them in very high demand and makes them more visible to the public. The Father's arena includes justice, therefore law, truth, and correctness, which may sometimes also make them more visible. (Though I don't imagine someone getting divine inspiration in abstruse mathematics would make much of a splash outside their own specialty.) Also male fertility, likewise more a matter for private prayer or visits to the Mother's physicians.
I've not much worked on saints of the Brother, though the shaman Scuolla was as close to one as anyone could be. I've likewise not worked out much for the Daughter, though we did meet one great one, Cazaril, trained up for one great deed. Lines between areas of saintly doings are by no means rigid or impermeable, as we saw with Umegat and the healing menagerie that was staving off the effects of Orico's diabetes.
Petty saints have small apertures in their souls to let gods through, now and then. Greater saints have larger ones, though "now and then" may still apply. Consider the difference between a sink faucet and a fire hose. So, difference of degree not kind.
Ta, L.
Saints of the Mother are known mainly for healing and female fertility, which puts them in very high demand and makes them more visible to the public. The Father's arena includes justice, therefore law, truth, and correctness, which may sometimes also make them more visible. (Though I don't imagine someone getting divine inspiration in abstruse mathematics would make much of a splash outside their own specialty.) Also male fertility, likewise more a matter for private prayer or visits to the Mother's physicians.
I've not much worked on saints of the Brother, though the shaman Scuolla was as close to one as anyone could be. I've likewise not worked out much for the Daughter, though we did meet one great one, Cazaril, trained up for one great deed. Lines between areas of saintly doings are by no means rigid or impermeable, as we saw with Umegat and the healing menagerie that was staving off the effects of Orico's diabetes.
Petty saints have small apertures in their souls to let gods through, now and then. Greater saints have larger ones, though "now and then" may still apply. Consider the difference between a sink faucet and a fire hose. So, difference of degree not kind.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
I've used music quite a bit for inspiration in my earlier years; not so much nowadays, in part for hearing loss but mostly for not having so much time doing mindless physical chores -- I don't want music when I'm reading, writing, nor, obviously, watching TV. Driving, when I also used to pick up new music from the radio, is also much reduced, and my kids and their then-new music moved out long ago. I am not yet adapt at sorting streaming music, though I've finally mastered earbuds.
So, not much new to report past the era of Enya and Dave Carter, nor, reaching even father back, Steeleye Span or Mannheim Steamroller. I have picked up some assorted new-to-me songs from watching fan music vids, but they've not translated much beyond me rewatching their vids, and I haven't been tracking back much to the song origins to fix the original artists in what passes for my memory. Dessa, maybe? Taylor Swift? Fanvids are quite a random grab-bag.
Ta, L.
Added: was reminded of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga_jw...
Bringing the circle all the way around, like the Worm Ourobouros.
So, not much new to report past the era of Enya and Dave Carter, nor, reaching even father back, Steeleye Span or Mannheim Steamroller. I have picked up some assorted new-to-me songs from watching fan music vids, but they've not translated much beyond me rewatching their vids, and I haven't been tracking back much to the song origins to fix the original artists in what passes for my memory. Dessa, maybe? Taylor Swift? Fanvids are quite a random grab-bag.
Ta, L.
Added: was reminded of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga_jw...
Bringing the circle all the way around, like the Worm Ourobouros.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Thank you for passing this on!
I do have dim memories of secretaries coming out to our house in that period to assist in the assembling of The Handbook of Non-destructive Testing. Self-centered child as I was, I can't pull up names or faces at this late date, but I do remember all the stacks of paper involved, in the downstairs room on Henderson Road devoted to the project at one point. And. of course, in his upstairs office, the clack of my dad's IBM Selectric mixed with pipe smoke and classical music from the OSU radio station that he played while working. I remember lying on the floor in front of that radio and watching the hot orange glow of the vacuum tubes.
(And also, once, at a somewhat younger age, applying my cat's paws to the ink pad for stamping things, and turning it loose to walk across the typescripts on the desk. I don't think this crime was ever brought home to me...)
I've no idea if your parents ever encountered me, wandering around in the background in the 50s and 60s, but give them my best wishes.
Ta, L.
(More on my dad here, for those wondering: https://www.dendarii.com/tribute.html )
Thank you for passing this on!
I do have dim memories of secretaries coming out to our house in that period to assist in the assembling of The Handbook of Non-destructive Testing. Self-centered child as I was, I can't pull up names or faces at this late date, but I do remember all the stacks of paper involved, in the downstairs room on Henderson Road devoted to the project at one point. And. of course, in his upstairs office, the clack of my dad's IBM Selectric mixed with pipe smoke and classical music from the OSU radio station that he played while working. I remember lying on the floor in front of that radio and watching the hot orange glow of the vacuum tubes.
(And also, once, at a somewhat younger age, applying my cat's paws to the ink pad for stamping things, and turning it loose to walk across the typescripts on the desk. I don't think this crime was ever brought home to me...)
I've no idea if your parents ever encountered me, wandering around in the background in the 50s and 60s, but give them my best wishes.
Ta, L.
(More on my dad here, for those wondering: https://www.dendarii.com/tribute.html )
Lois McMaster Bujold
Thank you so much for your kind wishes!
(Actually, winter solstice is just the Father's Day. Father's Midwinter would be halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox, i.e., around Groundhog Day, Feb. 2. Not that the months have to have the same number of days as in our world, nor the days the exact time duration... Pretty close though. But any planet with axial tilt should have seasons, solstices, and equinoxes, which make them a pretty good universal fantasy calendar marker.)
Ta, L.
(Actually, winter solstice is just the Father's Day. Father's Midwinter would be halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox, i.e., around Groundhog Day, Feb. 2. Not that the months have to have the same number of days as in our world, nor the days the exact time duration... Pretty close though. But any planet with axial tilt should have seasons, solstices, and equinoxes, which make them a pretty good universal fantasy calendar marker.)
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Yeah, lack of a search function here is a trial. I've sometimes had luck using just plain old Google, plus enough assorted unique key words. Ferex, if you google "Was Shards of Honor ever a Star Trek fanfic?" it will take one to my posted Goodreads Q&A answer explaining no, not.
Anyway, back to the Five Gods. It was not, alas, grandiloquent heroism that lost Lewko his demon, it was overwork, trying to do too hard a job/jobs of uphill magic too fast until his demon violently rebelled. So, chaos run amok, but also misjudgment, mismanagement (by both Lewko and his seniors) and perhaps a touch of hubris. (Demons are not, generally, into self-sacrifice.)
The hard-learned humility that followed for Lewko probably had something to do with his later ability to channel his god, but I've never worked out the details.
Ta, L.
Yeah, lack of a search function here is a trial. I've sometimes had luck using just plain old Google, plus enough assorted unique key words. Ferex, if you google "Was Shards of Honor ever a Star Trek fanfic?" it will take one to my posted Goodreads Q&A answer explaining no, not.
Anyway, back to the Five Gods. It was not, alas, grandiloquent heroism that lost Lewko his demon, it was overwork, trying to do too hard a job/jobs of uphill magic too fast until his demon violently rebelled. So, chaos run amok, but also misjudgment, mismanagement (by both Lewko and his seniors) and perhaps a touch of hubris. (Demons are not, generally, into self-sacrifice.)
The hard-learned humility that followed for Lewko probably had something to do with his later ability to channel his god, but I've never worked out the details.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Yeah, lack of a search function here is a trial. I've sometimes had luck using just plain old Google, plus enough assorted unique key words. Ferex, if you google "Was Shards of Honor ever a Star Trek fanfic?" it will take one to my posted Goodreads Q&A answer explaining no, not.
Anyway, back to the Five Gods. It was not, alas, grandiloquent heroism that lost Lewko his demon, it was overwork, trying to do too hard a job/jobs of uphill magic too fast until his demon violently rebelled. So, chaos run amok, but also misjudgment, mismanagement (by both Lewko and his seniors) and perhaps a touch of hubris. (Demons are not, generally, into self-sacrifice.)
The hard-learned humility that followed for Lewko probably had something to do with his later ability to channel his god, but I've never worked out the details.
Ta, L.
Yeah, lack of a search function here is a trial. I've sometimes had luck using just plain old Google, plus enough assorted unique key words. Ferex, if you google "Was Shards of Honor ever a Star Trek fanfic?" it will take one to my posted Goodreads Q&A answer explaining no, not.
Anyway, back to the Five Gods. It was not, alas, grandiloquent heroism that lost Lewko his demon, it was overwork, trying to do too hard a job/jobs of uphill magic too fast until his demon violently rebelled. So, chaos run amok, but also misjudgment, mismanagement (by both Lewko and his seniors) and perhaps a touch of hubris. (Demons are not, generally, into self-sacrifice.)
The hard-learned humility that followed for Lewko probably had something to do with his later ability to channel his god, but I've never worked out the details.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
As near as I can remember from a thought-stream 42 years ago, I made the term up on the fly for the scene in Shards of Honor in which the tech first appears, and Cordelia is explaining it to Aral (and the reader.) I wanted a term which was not that used in prior SF works -- Huxley's Brave New World most obviously, but there were others, including Zelazny's Lord of Light. (I don't offhand now remember what terms those authors used in their books without looking them up.) I wanted my term for it to have an inherently obvious meaning to the readers, so I didn't have to spend a lot of time teaching new pseudo-vocabulary or neologisms.
I didn't at the time push any particular opinion over which method was "superior" -- a loaded term -- although if one is a human of the female reproductive persuasion, the advantages and disadvantages become more obvious the more one thinks about them, which I did later on. Most immediately in Ethan of Athos, though also touched on in the ensuing Falling Free. And then explored further from time to time throughout the series, all the way up through Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.
Ta, L.
As near as I can remember from a thought-stream 42 years ago, I made the term up on the fly for the scene in Shards of Honor in which the tech first appears, and Cordelia is explaining it to Aral (and the reader.) I wanted a term which was not that used in prior SF works -- Huxley's Brave New World most obviously, but there were others, including Zelazny's Lord of Light. (I don't offhand now remember what terms those authors used in their books without looking them up.) I wanted my term for it to have an inherently obvious meaning to the readers, so I didn't have to spend a lot of time teaching new pseudo-vocabulary or neologisms.
I didn't at the time push any particular opinion over which method was "superior" -- a loaded term -- although if one is a human of the female reproductive persuasion, the advantages and disadvantages become more obvious the more one thinks about them, which I did later on. Most immediately in Ethan of Athos, though also touched on in the ensuing Falling Free. And then explored further from time to time throughout the series, all the way up through Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Assuming you are asking about the codicil chapter "Aftermaths", it was written soon after Shards, somewhere around or just before the time of starting The Warrior's Apprentice. (Recall that the first ~ 8 chapters of what later became Barrayar were written back in 1983 before I broke off and started writing Warrior's in 1984.)
I was still trying to break in at this time, so sent the short story around to the then-extant SF magazine markets, along with a few others I was circulating in hope, where it did not sell, but got completely contradictory rejection letters. (A lesson to me it took a while to figure out.) By the time in late 1985 that the 3 finished novels all sold to Baen, it was still kicking around unsold.
I forget what phone conversation I was in with Jim Baen when the discussion came up of what he called his "paperback magazine", Far Frontiers, monthly short story collections packaged as and marketed with Baen's mass market paperback offerings. Anyway, his idea came up of pubbing the story there a month or two before Shards was launched, to introduce this new writer Bujold to his audience. (Jim schemed a lot about how to launch new writers.) I also don't remember if it was his idea or mine to append the story to the novel as an afterword, but anyway, that was when it joined the text, after the manuscript was sold to Baen but before the novel was published.
Anyway, good call; I think it strengthened the thematic weight of the novel ever after, as you experienced.
Ta, L.
Assuming you are asking about the codicil chapter "Aftermaths", it was written soon after Shards, somewhere around or just before the time of starting The Warrior's Apprentice. (Recall that the first ~ 8 chapters of what later became Barrayar were written back in 1983 before I broke off and started writing Warrior's in 1984.)
I was still trying to break in at this time, so sent the short story around to the then-extant SF magazine markets, along with a few others I was circulating in hope, where it did not sell, but got completely contradictory rejection letters. (A lesson to me it took a while to figure out.) By the time in late 1985 that the 3 finished novels all sold to Baen, it was still kicking around unsold.
I forget what phone conversation I was in with Jim Baen when the discussion came up of what he called his "paperback magazine", Far Frontiers, monthly short story collections packaged as and marketed with Baen's mass market paperback offerings. Anyway, his idea came up of pubbing the story there a month or two before Shards was launched, to introduce this new writer Bujold to his audience. (Jim schemed a lot about how to launch new writers.) I also don't remember if it was his idea or mine to append the story to the novel as an afterword, but anyway, that was when it joined the text, after the manuscript was sold to Baen but before the novel was published.
Anyway, good call; I think it strengthened the thematic weight of the novel ever after, as you experienced.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
I am not, and never will be, on X. I am only on Goodreads. That person is a scammer/impersonator.
I am told I can only get them thrown off X if I sign up myself, which I am not willing to do. I was able to get one (no telling how many scumbags are doing this) thrown off Mastodon with the help of a reader there.
Please tell everyone on X and elsewhere you can reach that this is an impersonator, and I blog only on Goodreads.
A good recent SFWA Writer Beware post tackled the problem more generally --
https://writerbeware.blog/2025/11/14/...
My own ones have been reported to me before --
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Please repost these links wherever the matter next arises! Especially the SFWA one, which is very informative.
Ta, L.
I am not, and never will be, on X. I am only on Goodreads. That person is a scammer/impersonator.
I am told I can only get them thrown off X if I sign up myself, which I am not willing to do. I was able to get one (no telling how many scumbags are doing this) thrown off Mastodon with the help of a reader there.
Please tell everyone on X and elsewhere you can reach that this is an impersonator, and I blog only on Goodreads.
A good recent SFWA Writer Beware post tackled the problem more generally --
https://writerbeware.blog/2025/11/14/...
My own ones have been reported to me before --
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Please repost these links wherever the matter next arises! Especially the SFWA one, which is very informative.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
The foxes in "Penric's Fox" were directly observed and inspired by the family of foxes who took up residence under my garden shed for two wonderful springs, to the great benefit of all my garden plants suddenly not being chewed down to the roots by rabbits. Six or eight fuzzy fox cubs tumbling over one another playing out beside the shed were a dose of cuteness (I will not say overdose) that had even the neighbors stopping to watch. I wish the foxes would come back, and the rabbits be their lunches... Alas, only those two years.
Something else is under there this year but I haven't seen what. Suspect it's raccoons, but, despite also being fun to watch if you catch them in daylight, can carry distemper or rabies, and leave problematic droppings.
So, no connection to the Rivers of London, fun reading though that series is.
Ta, L.
The foxes in "Penric's Fox" were directly observed and inspired by the family of foxes who took up residence under my garden shed for two wonderful springs, to the great benefit of all my garden plants suddenly not being chewed down to the roots by rabbits. Six or eight fuzzy fox cubs tumbling over one another playing out beside the shed were a dose of cuteness (I will not say overdose) that had even the neighbors stopping to watch. I wish the foxes would come back, and the rabbits be their lunches... Alas, only those two years.
Something else is under there this year but I haven't seen what. Suspect it's raccoons, but, despite also being fun to watch if you catch them in daylight, can carry distemper or rabies, and leave problematic droppings.
So, no connection to the Rivers of London, fun reading though that series is.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Well, I did explicitly give Pen's age -- 27, was it? Might have been 26. A couple of years before Llewen's death, and Pen's mother's. He was 30 when he first reached Cedonia, so must have been ~29 during his year in Lodi/Adria.
For a few more markers, he was 19 when he contracted Des, ~22 when he graduated seminary. 23 - 24, for "Shaman" and "Fox".
Ta, L.
Well, I did explicitly give Pen's age -- 27, was it? Might have been 26. A couple of years before Llewen's death, and Pen's mother's. He was 30 when he first reached Cedonia, so must have been ~29 during his year in Lodi/Adria.
For a few more markers, he was 19 when he contracted Des, ~22 when he graduated seminary. 23 - 24, for "Shaman" and "Fox".
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
I can now say that there is! Blackstone contract is supposedly en route, and will get here when it gets here.
Word is they will try to move production along briskly, and have Grover Gardner as narrator again. Couple of months, maybe? Average the lead times of the last three between epub and audio release, and you can likely get a good estimate.
Ta, L.
I can now say that there is! Blackstone contract is supposedly en route, and will get here when it gets here.
Word is they will try to move production along briskly, and have Grover Gardner as narrator again. Couple of months, maybe? Average the lead times of the last three between epub and audio release, and you can likely get a good estimate.
Ta, L.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Umegat's first love was indeed horribly executed. Daris was a later love. Who also ran into grave perils, presumably on some joint spying mission, possibly against the Golden General's forces, but at least he survived. There might have been a heroic or at least clever rescue by Umegat in there somewhere.
Ta, L.
Umegat's first love was indeed horribly executed. Daris was a later love. Who also ran into grave perils, presumably on some joint spying mission, possibly against the Golden General's forces, but at least he survived. There might have been a heroic or at least clever rescue by Umegat in there somewhere.
Ta, L.
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