Lois McMaster Bujold Fans discussion

Who else thinks that the female courier who passed Caz, Ferda and Foix on the city gate of Valenda, with flying black braids, was Liss?
All Bujold's books need to be reread!

cool idea :-)

Welcome Ivana, my friend from the Croatian LMB discussion forum.
I am sure you will enjoy it here and contribute a lot :)

vorbore wrote: "Who else thinks that the female courier who passed Caz, Ferda and Foix on the city gate of Valenda, with flying black braids, was Liss?

I was wondering if dy Cabon was the man that de Ferrej was gossiping with in the first book that led to Iselle's unwise actions as Daughter of Spring.... A divine of the bastard had come looking for wet nurses I believe ... he is described as a "most earnestly long winded young man"

Hmmm. Do we have textev that dy Cabon was a resident of Valenda? I somehow got the impression that he was just visiting when he joined Ista's pilgrimage. I tried to find their dialogue when dy Cabon admitted that he tricked his way to this pilgrimage, but I could not. :( It is much easier to find textev when books are on the computer...

vorbore wrote: "Hmmm. Do we have textev that dy Cabon was a resident of Valenda? I somehow got the impression that he was just visiting when he joined Ista's pilgrimage. I tried to find their dialogue when dy Cabo..."

I haven't gotten to this part yet, but I'll pay close attention to the scene ... It was just something niggling at the back of my mind when you mentioned Liss...

Yes, please. And do share your findings. I long for an easy search function in my hard copy books...

vorbore wrote: "I long for an easy search function in my hard copy books..."

I dream of a portable ebook reader someday.... all LMB books would be first to load in!

I would still rather have the easy search function in my books books. Although I hear that there are ebook readers that make e-books look like Books, there are left and right pages, and you get to turn them and everything. Still, they would not smell like books, would they? And I already half ruined my eyesight by staring at various screens all the time...

the Hallowed Hunt is set in the Quintarian universe, but which country? They refer to fleeing to Chalion or Ibran. Is there reference to the were-rituals (as in were-wolf, were-leopard) in Curse of Chalion or Palidan of Souls?

Wikipedia says. . . oh crap, Wikipedia only says "in a country only mentioned [in Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls:] in passing."

Bujold's website says. . . oh crap, her website says NOTHING about this.

Well. . . in some interview (I forget where) I think Bujold said she was drawing on German myths for The Hallowed Hunt, so since Chalion is roughly where Spain is, and on the map here http://www.dendarii.com/map.html Darthaca is roughly where France is and there isn't ANYTHING shown beyond Darthaca, I believe the country in The Hallowed Hunt is (on the map) south of Darthaca.

That's all I got. Now I'm going to have to find time to read the books again to track down any clues. . . ;)

Hmmm I thought I was just unobservant (sorry, should say I KNOW I am unobservant...). Interesting that it is indeterminate.

LOL, I think it's because it was pretty much irrelevant. . . if you had asked whether HH was in the past from CoC/PoS, contemporary with them, or in their future I would've been just as hard-pressed to answer. It's just a book set in the same universe; they aren't really a trilogy at all. It's like reading Shards of Honor, The Warrior's Apprentice, then Ethan of Athos -- like, where's Barrayar? Where are the Vorkosigans? Heck, if I had read the books as they were published (and if the publisher didn't help me out) I might not even have twigged that Admiral Naismith was Miles. . . though maybe I would have, I definitely would have if Elli mentioned the Dendarii Mercenaries, but I don't remember if she ever mentioned them by name. . .

Ack, I'm rambling. But my point is, if there hadn't been umpteen more Vorkosigan novels, if they had stopped after Ethan of Athos, it would have looked just as strange as the Chalion books look now. . .

That's true. When it came out I thought it was part of a trilogy. Interesting that Bujold is drawing on German myths. I certainly picked up on the spanish feel of Chalion. Hadn't noticed the germanic qualities in HH.

I'm enjoying it, but I'm finding it hard to follow the twists and turns, the spiritual aspects etc, the interaction between Quintarian and Old Weald rituals etc.

On a related note, I like the way the planets in the Vorkosiverse suggest earthly national identities. Barrayar as Russian, Beta Colony as American, Cetaganda as Japanese, Escobar as Spanish or South American. Komarr? Jackson's Hole?

Re: The Vorkosiverse

I think that's a little simplistic. . . Barrayar isn't just Russian, it's also Greek and something else (I forget what); Beta Colony is more Western Industrialized generic than specifically American; I didn't get any Cetaganda-Japan connection at all; and we haven't seen enough of Escobar to really be able to tell anything other than it has a Spanish-derived name.

Barrayar was settled by Russian, Greek, and [whatever the other one was:] settlement groups, or so I thought Bujold made explicit somewhere (maybe The Vor Game?) so I was just reading all the ethnicities/nationalities as an indication that Earth maintained national boundaries through the colonization of space -- something that seemed backed up by the way she portrayed Earth in Brothers in Arms. The national boundaries seemed irrelevant now, but everyone still knew that London used to be in a country called England. . .

And after all, it's only about 1000 years into our future -- not long enough to have totally broken down national barriers, IMO.

In the Vor Game, it is revealed that there is a Greek sub-culture. The dominant culture is post-feudal so I suppose it could be compared to any European post-feudal monarchic culture, but the whole style of it, the 'guttural' accent. They always make me think 'Russia'.

Yeah, I am being simplistic, but I think not inaccurate. Beta Colony, it goes beyond the western industrialised generic. I need to think through exactly why I see it as American.

I'm blown away that you don't see Cetaganda as Japanese... Its really interesting to think that others have such a different take on it.

Anybody else see Cetaganda as Japanese? I'm wondering if I'm alone in this. . .

If a lot of other people see that tie, then I may be blind to it because I am half Japanese myself, but about as Americanized as any other 4th generation happa, and with a strong cultural tie to Hawaii that has been blended in my head with whatever tie I have left to Japan. . . so Cetaganda had nothing of "me" in it, so to me it's not Japanese, but my interpretation of Japanese is mediated by the American upbringing and Hawaiian culture.

Yeah, I'd be interested to see how others see it. I have absolutely no insight into actual Japanese culture.

I saw Ceta similar to Far East civilizations too, but the imperial ones, not the modern ones. The warrior caste, haut ladies separated physically from the rest of the world, should not even be looked at by commons, the Celestial Garden (Forbidden City), the whole high decorum atmosphere, the meticulous way the food is prepared...
Barrayar was not only Russia for me (although prevailingly) - it is more like a conjunction of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Beta - totally USA to me too; and I suspect it was inspired by America's political correctness ;)
Komarr - Italian, somewhat French - the Western European countries of the Mediterranean, the leader of medieval commerce, Venice, strikes back :)
Escobar sounds Spanish, both the name of the planet and the names of the few (three) Escobarans we had the joy of meeting. Jackson's Hole is just a conglomerate of the universe's criminals, undiscriminating in matters of origin. Marilac puzzles me though.

'Komarr - Italian, somewhat French - the Western European countries of the Mediterranean, the leader of medieval commerce, Venice, strikes back :) '
hmmm. Hadn't thought of that! It rings true to me.
Sounds like you see Ceta as more akin to China than Japan. Or, as you say , far eastern generally.

As some sort of mixture of far eastern tropes, yes.
Does anyone has an idea about Marilac and Vervain? They do not seem so strictly defined as the main players are. Lairuba, mentioned in Brothers in Arms, is built on middle eastern trope obviously, although it is not one of the story leaders among the planets. I can't wait to see what would this new planed from Cryoburn be like...

Ummm. . . Marilac reads vaguely Spanish to me (judging just by the name of the planet) and it is also the name of a city in Brazil, so maybe Portuguese?

Vervain: the only hit I get by googling is that verbenas (a type of plant) are also called vervains. ;)

In the new novella Pendric's Demon we find out all of the previous carriers of the demon. One of them is Learned Hallana from The Hallowed Hunt.

I disagree. Though I initially wondered the same thing. The physician of the Mother that was in Desdemona was named Helvia, not Hallana. Actually, I looked up the relevant part of the story. The ones who bore the demon were: Ruchia, Helvia, Amberein, Aulia, Umelan, Mira, Rogaska, Vasia, Litikone, Sugane, a lioness and a wild mare.

Claire wrote: "I disagree. Though I initially wondered the same thing. The physician of the Mother that was in Desdemona was named Helvia, not Hallana. Actually, I looked up the relevant part of the story. The on..."

I guess I remembered wrong. That would be cool if it was so.