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Borders of Infinity (3-novella collection - Vorkosigan Saga) Kindle Edition
“Bujold continues to prove what marvels genius can create out of basic space operatics.”
- Library Journal
“Bujold is not just a master of plot, she is a master of emotion.”
- SF Site
“Bujold is one of the best writers of SF adventure to come along in years.”
- Locus Magazine
“A superb craftsman and stylist, Ms. Bujold is well on her way to becoming one of the great voices of speculative fiction.”
- Rave Reviews
"Boy, can she write!"
- Anne McCaffrey
“Bujold has a gift, nearly unique in science fiction, for the comedy of manners.”
- Chicago Sun Times
“Superb far-future saga.”
- Publishers Weekly on the 'Vorkosigan' series
Bujold's "work remains among the most enjoyable and rewarding in contemporary SF."
- Publishers Weekly
"Bujold is also head and shoulders above the ruck of current fantasists as well as science-fictionists."
- Booklist
Lois McMaster Bujold was born in 1949, the daughter of an engineering professor at Ohio State University, from whom she picked up her early interest in science fiction. She now lives in Minneapolis, and has two grown children. She began writing with the aim of professional publication in 1982. She wrote three novels in three years; in October of 1985, all three sold to Baen Books, launching her career. Bujold went on to write many other books for Baen, mostly featuring her popular character Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, his family, friends, and enemies. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages. Her fantasy from Eos includes the award-winning Chalion series and the Sharing Knife series.
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateOctober 31, 2011
- File size964 KB
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Editorial Reviews
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From Library Journal
Review
"These stories showcase Bujold at her complex-plot-resolution best...Grover Gardner...truly gets to the heart of the story and has an abiding ability to deliver a narration which communicates the emotional aspects of both the overall tale and the individual characters...Blackstone and Gardner have given Bujold's...Vorkosigan series high-quality treatment."
-- "SoundCommentary.com (starred review)""The variation in tone across the tales is handled exceptionally well."
-- "Amazon.com editorial review""Essential for all SF collections."
-- "Library Journal"From the Author
The Vorkosigan Saga Reading Order Debate: The Chef Recommends
Many pixels have been expended debating the 'best' order in which to read what have come to be known as the Vorkosigan Books, the Vorkosiverse, the Miles books, and other names, since I neglected to supply the series with a label myself. The debate now wrestles with some fourteen or so volumes and counting, and mainly revolves around publication order versus internal-chronological order. I favor internal chronological, with a few caveats.
I have always resisted numbering my volumes; partly because, in the early days, I thought the books were distinct enough; latterly because if I ever decided to drop in a prequel somewhere (which in fact I did most lately with Captain Vorpatril's Alliance) it would upwhack the numbering system. Nevertheless, the books and stories do have a chronological order, if not a strict one.
It was always my intention to write each book as a stand-alone so that the reader could theoretically jump in anywhere, yes, with that book that's in your hand right now, don't put it back on the shelf! While still somewhat true, as the series developed it acquired a number of sub-arcs, closely related tales that were richer for each other. I will list the sub-arcs, and then the books, and then the caveats.
Shards of Honor and Barrayar. The first two books in the series proper, they detail the adventures of Cordelia Naismith of Beta Colony and Aral Vorkosigan of Barrayar. Shards was my very first novel ever; Barrayar was actually my eighth, but continues the tale the next day after the end of Shards. For readers who want to be sure of beginning at the beginning, or who are very spoiler-sensitive, start with these two.
The Warrior's Apprentice and The Vor Game (with, perhaps, the novella "The Mountains of Mourning" tucked in between.) The Warrior's Apprentice introduces the character who became the series' linchpin, Miles Vorkosigan; the first book tells how he created a space mercenary fleet by accident; the second how he fixed his mistakes from the first round. Space opera and military-esque adventure (and a number of other things one can best discover for oneself), The Warrior's Apprentice makes another good place to jump into the series for readers who prefer a young male protagonist.
After that: Brothers in Arms should be read before Mirror Dance, and both, ideally, before Memory.
Komarr makes another good alternate entry point for the series, picking up Miles's second career at its start. It should be read before A Civil Campaign.
Borders of Infinity, a collection of three of the five currently extant novellas, makes a good Miles Vorkosigan early-adventure sampler platter, I always thought, for readers who don't want to commit themselves to length. (But it may make more sense if read after The Warrior's Apprentice.) Take care not to confuse the collection-as-a-whole with its title story, "The Borders of Infinity".
Falling Free takes place 200 years earlier in the timeline and does not share settings or characters with the main body of the series. Most readers recommend picking up this story later. It should likely be read before Diplomatic Immunity, however, which revisits the "quaddies", a bioengineered race of free fall dwellers, in Miles's time.
The novels in the internal-chronological list below appear in italics; the novellas (officially defined as a story between 17,500 words and 40,000 words, though mine usually run 20k - 30k words) in quote marks.
Falling Free
Shards of Honor
Barrayar
The Warrior's Apprentice
"The Mountains of Mourning"
"Weatherman"
The Vor Game
Cetaganda
Ethan of Athos
Borders of Infinity
"Labyrinth"
"The Borders of Infinity"
Brothers in Arms
Mirror Dance
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
"Winterfair Gifts"
Diplomatic Immunity
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
CryoBurn
Caveats:
The novella "Weatherman" is an out-take from the beginning of the novel The Vor Game. If you already have The Vor Game, you likely don't need this.
The original 'novel' Borders of Infinity was a fix-up collection containing the three novellas "The Mountains of Mourning", "Labyrinth", and "The Borders of Infinity", together with a frame story to tie the pieces together. Again, beware duplication. The frame story does not stand alone, and mainly is of interest to completists.
The Fantasy Novels
My fantasy novels are a bit easier to order. Easiest of all is The Spirit Ring, which is a stand-alone, or aquel, as some wag once dubbed books that for some obscure reason failed to spawn a subsequent series. Next easiest are the four volumes of The Sharing Knife--in order, Beguilement, Legacy, Passage, and Horizon--which I broke down and actually numbered, as this was one continuous tale divided into non-wrist-breaking chunks.
What have come to be called the Chalion books, after the setting of its first two volumes, were also written, like the Vorkosigan books, to be stand-alones as part of a larger whole, and can in theory be read in any order. (The third book actually takes place a few hundred years prior to the more closely connected first two.) Some readers think the world-building is easier to assimilate when the books are read in publication order, and the second volume certainly contains spoilers for the first (but not the third.) In any case, the publication order is:
The Curse of Chalion
Paladin of Souls
The Hallowed Hunt
The short story collection Proto Zoa was an e-book experiment; it contains five very early tales--three (1980s) contemporary fantasy, two science fiction--all previously published but not in this handy format. The novelette "Dreamweaver's Dilemma" may be of interest to Vorkosigan completists, as it is the first story in which that proto-universe began, mentioning Beta Colony but before Barrayar was even thought of.
My latest original e-edition is Sidelines: Talks and Essays, which is just what it says on the tin--a collection of three decades of my nonfiction writings, including convention speeches, essays, travelogues, introductions, and some less formal pieces. I hope it will prove an interesting companion piece to my fiction.
Happy reading!
-- Lois McMaster Bujold.
About the Author
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Product details
- ASIN : B0062CKP2S
- Publisher : Spectrum Literary Agency, Inc. (October 31, 2011)
- Publication date : October 31, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 964 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 305 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #103,835 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,177 in Military Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #2,163 in Military Science Fiction (Books)
- #39,237 in Literature & Fiction (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
A science fiction legend, Lois McMaster Bujold is one of the most highly regarded speculative fiction writers of all time. She has won three Nebula Awards and six Hugo Awards, four for best novel, which matches Robert A. Heinlein's record. Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan saga is a massively popular science fiction mainstay. The mother of two, Ms. Bujold lives in Minneapolis.
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This collection of short stories gives you a peek at how he developed over the years, and what some of the challenges he faced were. It gives you the flavor of the Vorkosigan universe, and most of all it gives you some wonderful stories about someone who refused to turn aside just because the going got tough, and solved every one of the problems he ran into with his wits. Lois McMaster Bujold is an amazing author, and for me, this is flat out her best series.
"'The proper tone of voice is Mercenaries!— with a glad cry.'"
This is story is many things, a lesson in Humanity, a Mystery, and still Current Cultural Practices. We have in our time, this being the last day in the year 2019, cultures that still practice Honor Killings, Genital Mutilation of Girls, which the Mountains of Mourning echoes, in the context of the world Miles lives in.
Great works of Fictional Literature almost always work both as entertainment, as well as lessons about he Human Condition.
Lois McMaster Bujold, has in this one short story penned a brilliant story that would win tons of honors were it not published as Science Fiction. This too is an example of lack of true merit in our current Literary and Publishing culture.
This book is collection of three novellas with short stories gluing them together. The first novella is the Hugo winning "The Mountains Of Mourning". The second novella is the awesome story "Labyrinth" about Miles meeting the extreme genetically manipulated human. And the third novella is "The Borders of Infinity" about Miles in a Cetagandan prison camp.
I've been reading fantasy and spec fiction for over 60 years, since I was 10. I've read most of the major novels of the late 20th century. I'm glad I've lived long enough to enjoy the incredible craft of someone like Lois McMaster Bujold. I dreamed of writing sci-fi but quickly realized that although I could be a great reader, I would never be a great writer. I'm glad great writing takes both.
Wow! Wow! Wow! Now to start on her fantasy novels....
Top reviews from other countries
The first Novella "Mountains of Mourning" is introduced as Miles remembering why he would never cheat the ordinary Barrayan subjects whose taxes paid for his training and career.
Miles, newly commissioned as a Ensign in Imperial Service is on a ten day home leave, spent at his father's lakeside country retreat, where he burns his cadet insignia and a copy of his commission on his grandfather's grave, to prove to the deceased military hero that he has succeeded despite crippling disabilities from birth that had made his grandfather demand his mercy killing.
A woman from the backwoods community of Silvy Vale has walked for four days to report a murder, and in the absence of a magistrate she exercises her right to appeal for justice directly to Miles's father, Count Aral Vorkosigan, who is also Prime Minister of Barrayar and its two planet empire.
The case is one of infanticide, which is the last thing in the world that Miles wants to deal with, but something which is father is determined to stamp out. The woman, Harra, accepts the Count's choice of Miles as investigator and judge, "speaking with the Count's voice". Partly to scotch any notion Miles had of leaping into an aircar and getting the matter settled by suppertime, Count Aral Vorkosigan dispatches Miles to carry out his duty on horseback, which ensures that the matter is dealt with at an appropriate pace and without any mistakes.
There are twists to the murder story, but the landscape that Miles has to traverse in the process tells stories of its own, about the fight which his grandfather led against the Cetagandan occupation of Barrayar in the mountains and forests, and of the half finished terraforming process which was interrupted by the "Time of Isolation" -a period when there were no working jump points giving Barrayar access to interstellar traffic and off planet resources generally. The first fifty thousand colonists had to struggle to survive, as did all the Earth plants and animals introduced with them. Sugar Maples and Roses seem to be successful introductions though.
In the process of seeing justice done for a dead baby, Miles becomes involved in the life of ordinary Barrayarans in Silvy Vale and even contemplates some personal financial sacrifices on their behalf.
The second Novella "Labyrinth" is presented as testimony by Miles to his Imp Sec boss as to why one of his missions involved a cost overrun. In his deep cover persona of mercenary Admiral Miles Naismith, Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan is to bring about the defection of a leading geneticist from House Bharaputra on the planetary kleptocracy of Jackson's Whole. The cover story for the defection involves Miles buying a shipload of weapons from another semi-criminal enterprise "House Fell" and taking several days to load the cargo. His ships captain, the Betan hermaphrodite Bel Thorn, commits them to rescuing a damsel in distress, however, which complicates things, and Miles also finds himself committed to murdering a monster on behalf of his defecting scientist. The monster turns out to be another damsel, however.
Miles gets himself, the scientist and assorted damsels out of the mess in typical style, which involves abandoning half his paid for cargo and inciting civil war between three of the Houses of Jackson's Whole: Fell, Bharaputra and the unspeakable House Ryoval. The scientist is worth the loss, however Miles's enemies in Imperial Accounting can make the charge that he is a peculator. (He has made serious enemies, on Jackson's Whole, which haunt him in a later novel in the saga. Mirror Dance (Vorkosigan Saga Book 9) )
The third novella "Borders of Infinity" has "Admiral Naismith" tasked with entering Dagoola IV Top Security Prison Camp #3 and rescuing one Colonel Tremont, who is seen by Barrayaran Imperial Security as a potential leader of resistance on the planet Marilac which has been invaded by the Cetagandans, Barrayar's greatest foe. The camp is deliberately designed to break the will to resist in any of its inmates, however, and Colonel Tremont is in a catatonic state and dies. Miles tries to keep his mission on track by rescuing ALL the Marilacan prisoners, about ten thousand of them, a readymade resistance army.
There's a lot of psychological warfare of various sorts, and female prisoners turn out to be key to Miles's plan, which depends on discipline and calm deliberation under fire. A spur of the moment decision, to sacrifice brand new drop shuttles rather than leave anyone behind, adds another charge of peculation to Miles's tally. The price he pays in the lives of subordinates is higher still, but Barrayar gets to thwart Cetagandan aggression in a spectacular way.
Back in the hospital, Imperial Security is mollified and the chief promises to defend Miles from his enemies. Miles's mother comes and defends him in turn from the chief of Imperial Security.