The Vorkosigan Companion - Lillian Stewart Carl [43]
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.
ASPECTS OF THE VORKOSIVERSE
Romance in the Vorkosiverse
Mary Jo Putney
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