Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Lois McMaster Bujold has tried really hard to make all novels standalone. But for some, I think there's a particularly close prequel book. My 4 rationales are below:

1) "The Vor Game" is a Hugo winner according to a GR list, and I know "The Mountains of Mourning" won for Best Novella, so here's an idea.

Read "The Warrior's Apprentice," then Hugo winner "The "Mountains of Mourning," then Hugo winner "The Vor Game." These three are actually in chronological order anyway. (You don't actually need the info in "The Mountains of Mourning" until later in the series, after "Mirror Dance." So if you don't have time for it, skip it. But, hey, it won both the Hugo and the Nebula for best Novella, so it fits in with our goals.)

2) Next, read "Brothers in Arms" and then Hugo Winner "Mirror Dance" There are other books and novellas/novelettes in between "The Vor Game" and "Brothers in Arms," but they are not as critical, IMHO. But I don't think you can read "Mirror Dance" without reading "Brothers in Arms" first. Fortunately, "Brother's in Arms" is shorter. (And then after that you HAVE to read "Memory," my favorite book just about ever, but it was nominated only.)

3) Also, you really shouldn't read "Barrayar" (Hugo Winner) without reading "Shards of Honor," written much earlier. These two books are about the mother of the main character in almost all of the other Vorkosigan saga books. Maybe read them first?

If I recall correctly, "Shards of Honor" and "The Warrior's Apprentice," were her first two books. They might be good to read as a comparison of an author's early writing and the Hugo-level books written later.

4) About Paladin of Souls--I just read the first two Chalion books within this last year. (I got stuck on the first book years ago and never read it. My mistake!)

I think you can read "The Paladin of Souls" without reading "The Curse of Chalion." Although the books are related and contain similar magical occurrences, the major "Paladin" character is only a minor character in "Curse." The events in "Curse" were required to free that character and allow the events in "Paladin," but that's all. HOWEVER, the religious/cultural structure of the world might be harder to understand without reading "Curse" first.

Maybe I'm preaching to the choir and you all read everything she's written. Comments?

Just found a great blog entry about reading order and publication order of the Vorkosigan universe. I was going to copy and paste here, but I think it is just as easy to go there . . .

http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2014/...

Also, here is a great Wikipedia entry about the planets in Vorkosigan universe. CAUTION: There be SPOILERS there. (Many, many spoilers there!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Looks great and thanks for all the info, Kate. I also like your idea about pulling a 5-book challenge lasting a couple of months. Something to look forward to.

When I wrote the first post about this series, I thought we were just reading the winners of Hugo and Nebula awards, I did not realize we were reading all.

Here's a list of all of the Vorkosigan related material in chronological order. Next post will be a list of all the awards and nominations.

From http://www.dendarii.com/biblio.html (a page at "the official and authorised Lois McMaster Bujold website")

Dreamweaver's Dilemma in Dreamweaver's Dilemma (1996) [DD]
Falling Free (1988) [FF]
Shards of Honor (1986) [SoH]
Barrayar (1991)
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986) [TWA]
The Mountains of Mourning in Borders of Infinity (1989) [tMoM]
The Vor Game (1990) [TVG]
Cetaganda (1995)
Ethan of Athos (1986) [EoA]
Labyrinth in Borders of Infinity (1989)
The Borders of Infinity in Borders of Infinity (1987)
Brothers in Arms (1989) [BiA]
Linking sections of Borders of Infinity (1989) [BoI]
Mirror Dance (1994) [MD]
Memory (1996)
Komarr (1998)
A Civil Campaign (1999) [ACC]
Winterfair Gifts (2004) [WG]
Diplomatic Immunity (2002) [DI]
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012) [CVA]
Cryoburn (2010) [CB]
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2016) [GJRQ]

Awards and nominations from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosi...

Falling Free – won the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 1988; nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1989[10][11]

Mountains of Mourning – won the 1990 Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella[12]

Weatherman – nominated for 1991 Nebula awards for best novella[13] NOTE THAT THIS MATERIAL IS IN THE VOR GAME and IS OMITTED AS A SEPARATE ITEM at http://www.dendarii.com/biblio.html

The Vor Game – won the Hugo for Best Novel in 1991;[14]
nominated for the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel that same year[15]

Barrayar – won the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1992;[16]
nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 1991[15]

Mirror Dance – won the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel in 1995[17]

Cetaganda – nominated for the Locus Award in 1997[18]

Memory – nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards in 1997[18]

A Civil Campaign – nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards in 2000[19]

Diplomatic Immunity – nominated for the Nebula Award in 2002[20]

Winterfair Gifts – nominated for the 2005 Hugo for best novella[21]

Cryoburn – nominated for the Hugo Award[22] and Locus Award[23] in 2011

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance – nominated for the Hugo Award[24] in 2013

Here's what the author says . . .

https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

when we get to setting up a schedule for these:

Don't bother with Dreamweaver's Dilemma. I read it years ago and no longer have it. As the author states, there's just a mention of one of the planets that is a setting in later books.

I think we can omit Falling Free from the order, but it IS a Nebula winner, so it can be read at any time, even without setting a schedule for the other books. As the author says, read before Diplomatic Immunity.

We can omit Ethan of Athos and Cetaganda because they really don't touch too much upon the ongoing story. They are more standalone than the others. But these are the only two, I think, including the short stories.

We must include these non-nominee novels or you won't know what is going on . . .
Shards of Honor before Barrayar
The Warrior's Apprentice before The Vor Game
Brother's in Arms before Mirror Dance
Komarr before A Civil Campaign

It would be best to include
The Mountains of Mourning (novella) and
The Borders of Infinity (novella)
Labyrinth (a short story) because it introduces two characters that we see in other books

Otherwise, we just read from the beginning to the end

Whew!

Whew indeed!

Thanks again for taking the time, Kate. This is all extremely valuable , were I to research any of this I would get nowhere near the amount of information without bumping into a ton of spoilers.

I believe the importance of determining what will be read in this group lies solely in finding out what books from a series must be read in order to fully enjoy the nominated book itself. So all the info you posted in this thread will make it a great read for every member of the group.

Well, I agree about the spoilers in a series. The only other series I know of that I could research is Orson Scott Card. I will do that within the next few days, if you like. I have read several of his years ago, don't remember them too well, but have liked some and not liked others. I will look at the list and see if I can shed any light in the next few days.

I also had some Lensman books years ago, but I don't remember much about them. I must not have liked them much.

Ender's Game books 1-3 are on the list if I remember correctly. I remember reading two of them and the quality reduced dramatically, but we can definitely discuss it in another thread.

Well, I was looking through LMB books and now I think we HAVE to read Cetaganda in order to understand what happens in a later book that is on the list.

Therefore, FINAL OPINION

Read everything in order including the Novellas EXCEPT we can skip Ethan of Athos.

Sorry! But you will LOVE them. Really.

The final verdict is out then. If I got it right, here's what we are looking at:

Falling Free 288pg NWBN
Shards of Honor 313pg
Barrayar 336pg HWBN
The Warrior's Apprentice 372pg
The Mountains of Mourning 112pg HWBnv, NWBnv
The Vor Game 346pg HWBN
Cetaganda 302pg
Labyrinth 91pg
The Borders of Infinity 78pg
Brothers in Arms 338pg
Mirror Dance 560pg
Memory 509pg HNBN, NNBN
Komarr 384pg
A Civil Campaign 544pg HNBN, NNBN
Winterfair Gifts
Diplomatic Immunity 367pg NNBN
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance 422pg HNBN
CryoBurn 345pg HNBN
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen 352pg

HWBN and HNBN are Hugo Winner for Best Novel and Hugo Nominee for Best Novel respectively.

Yes, except

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen 352pg

was not nominated for anything and is last chronologically so need not be read (sorry I misled you there!)

AND

Unless you get the actual paperback of Borders of Infinity,
you will not find "Linking sections of Borders of Infinity (1989) [BoI]" because they are a few hundred words of the main character reporting to his boss (I think) between each of the stories. So forget them.

FYI, there are some anthologies that have more than one book in them. Some seem to be Kindle and some don't. If you want details, I can find them.

I used to have multiple copies of some of these books but I gave them away. Sorry that I did, or I could just send them to you.

A word of warning. Once I loaned these books to my friend. I think we were up to "Memory" then. I tried to give her all of them but she said, no, she didn't read that fast. She took the first four. (Probably not including Falling Free, as I did not think of it as a Vorkisigan book at that time.)

A week later, she's at my front door (and she lives WAY across town) to get the rest of the books. So we may be in a Vorkosigan frenzy once we start.

So

Falling Free 288pg NWBN
Shards of Honor 313pg
Barrayar 336pg HWBN
The Warrior's Apprentice 372pg
The Mountains of Mourning 112pg HWBnv, NWBnv
The Vor Game 346pg HWBN
Cetaganda 302pg
Labyrinth 91pg
The Borders of Infinity 78pg
Brothers in Arms 338pg
Mirror Dance 560pg
Memory 509pg HNBN, NNBN
Komarr 384pg
A Civil Campaign 544pg HNBN, NNBN
Winterfair Gifts
Diplomatic Immunity 367pg NNBN
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance 422pg HNBN
CryoBurn 345pg HNBN

Kateblue wrote: "Yes, except

CryoBurn 345pg HNBN
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen 352pg

were not nominated for anything and are last chronologically so need not be read (sorry I misled you there!)

AND

Unless y..."

I think Cryoburn is a 2011 nomination for Hugo. You are right about the other one though.

So you think we skip Gentleman Jole completely?

Falling Free 288pg NWBN -- IN ANTHOLOGY Miles Mutants and Microbes (see below)

ANTHOLOGY: Cordelia's Honor
Shards of Honor 313pg
Barrayar 336pg HWBN

ANTHOLOGY: Young Miles
The Warrior's Apprentice 372pg
The Mountains of Mourning 112pg HWBnv, NWBnv
The Vor Game 346pg HWBN

ANTHOLOGY Miles, Mystery and Mayhem
Cetaganda 302pg
(Ethan of Athos which we don't need to read)
Labyrinth 91pg

ANTHOLOGY Miles Errant
The Borders of Infinity 78pg
Brothers in Arms 338pg
Mirror Dance 560pg

Memory 509pg HNBN, NNBN NOT in an anthology

ANTHOLOGY Miles in Love
Komarr 384pg
A Civil Campaign 544pg HNBN, NNBN
Winterfair Gifts


ANTHOLOGY Miles Mutants and Microbes (These stories here have a common thread though separated in time. You'll see why when you get there)
Falling Free 288pg NWBN
Labyrinth 91pg **also in Miles, Mystery and Mayhem**
Diplomatic Immunity 367pg NNBN

NO MORE ANTHOLOGIES

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance 422pg HNBN
CryoBurn 345pg HNBN

You are right. The Wilipedia article I was looking at before Brian made his great spreadsheet did not mention it. I will fix my previous post. This is getting too long. Sorry


I think that everyone will want to read Gentleman Jole when they get there. Make it optional

I just went back and looked at the Wikipedia page about LMB to see if Winterfair Gifts had won or been nominated for anything, and guess what?

All this torture might have been unnecessary. "In 2017 she won a Hugo Award for Best Series, for the Vorkosigan Saga.[4]"

So we can just read them all.