The Vorkosigan Companion - Lillian Stewart Carl [81]
So, things can get heated, on-topic and off-, from time to time and as occasion serves—that Lois's books speak to such a wide range of people, and say such wildly different things to each reader, is, I think, a sign of her quality as a writer. It also makes for some—interesting—conversations among Bujold fans. Perennial on-topic favorites include "Beta Colony: Socialist Utopia, Stalinist Dystopia, or Kind of Scary but Better Than Barrayar?," "Ivan Vorpatril: How Can You Help Loving That Man? (Give Several Examples of How, Please)," "Uterine Replicators: Best Tech Ever or Unnatural, Wrong, and Just Plain Way Too Risky?," and "He Was Bisexual, Now He's Monogamous: How Aral Vorkosigan's Love Life Changed a Planet (Several Times)." Despite the fact that it seems unlikely at this time that any of Lois's books will be filmed, there is also the ever-popular (or much-feared) Casting Thread.
In the midst of it all there's Lois. Not "in the middle," exactly; Lois is, by some alchemy, the exact trick of which escapes me, as much a listee as any of us, without being self-effacing or falsely humble. I mean, she has this day10 job which has been known to come up on-list and which frequently requires her to lurk until she's finished a book, but it doesn't stop her being Lois, or from chatting about subtle points in the books, unsubtle misbehaviors practiced by her cats, what else she's reading, or current events—or, indeed, from posting truly brain-breakingly strange links on occasion. If her presence has an effect on the operation of her fandom, if Bujold fandom is because of her in any way different from other fandoms, and I think it is, it's subtle; it is, perhaps, a little difficult to deliberately behave more badly than you absolutely have to in front of the woman who invented Cordelia Vorkosigan—and Alys Vorpatril.
Or, just possibly, it is a bit easier for a Bujold fan to be a little better, a little more open to points of view they once considered completely deranged, than they thought they were—because of the woman who invented Mark Vorkosigan and Konstantin Bothari, whether she is around or not.
(Talking of Mark, shortly after Mirror Dance came out I had occasion to point Lois out at a convention to a new, young, male fan of hers. "She wrote Mirror Dance?" he said, in tones of deep shock. "She looks like somebody's mother!"
"Well, she is," I said rather dryly, and managed to wait until he was out of sight to laugh. It was several years before I dared tell Lois this story; as I recall she laughed quite a lot, herself.)
The list refers to new Bujold readers as "converts"; it's a running joke, funnier than it ought to be because of Lois's stunning improbability as a cult leader. On consideration, like most good jokes, it hides a grain of truth. To read Bujold—to read her with the kind of passion and fascination her works seem to inspire—is to see the world a little differently, forever after. She'll tell you that her characters' approaches to the difficulties of ordinary—or extraordinary—life are a case of "professional driver; closed course," and not necessarily to be attempted if you don't have the author on your side, and it's good advice.
The Vorkosigan series is fiction for a reason, and suborning, scamming, intimidating, and beheading people who get in your way should not be expected to produce excellent results when attempted as real-life forms of conflict resolution. Nevertheless, Lois has a great deal to say about how, and why, to be human, and while you're enjoying the twisty plots and the cracking dialogue and the entrancing characters, some of it will tend to slide under your