> "Some of them are visibly fused. Some idiot must have welded them.”
> “Welded, yes. But not by some idiot. By the sun.”
> “Leo, it doesn’t get that hot—”
> “Not directly. What you’re seeing is spontaneous vacuum diffusion welding. Metal molecules are evaporating off the surfaces of the pieces in the vacuum. Slowly, to be sure, but it’s a measurable phenomenon. On the clamped areas they migrate into their neighboring surfaces and eventually achieve quite a nice bond. A little faster for the hot pieces on the sun side, a little slower for the cold pieces in the shade—but I’ll bet some of those clamps have been in place for twenty years.”
You know, I’m a hyper voracious reader of sci fi and I’ve never read any Bujold.
I’m down to correct that strange oversight, do you recommend that novel as a decent starting point? If that quote is representative it seems right up my street!
Lois McMaster Bujold is one of those authors that never got as popular as they deserved. She does have a niche following, though. The Vorkosigan saga is very solid space opera with, unusually for SF, innovative and sensitive character work.
The question isn't quite as hard as with Terry Pratchett novels (yes, I do place Bujold in that tier) and I think the major choices boil down to:
1. Cordelias' Honor: Unusually, this is not about the character who will star in the next umpteen novels, but it does a lot of world-building and introduces some important characters who will be pervasive supporting cast later. (It's an omnibus that merges what was originally published separately: Shards of Honor, Aftermath, Barrayar.)
2. The Warrior's Apprentice: The first of the books focusing on the main protagonist of the rest of the series, however if you value knowing the world-building, backstories, and references to earlier books, then this would be a weaker start.
3. Falling Free: A stand-alone novel 200 years earlier in the main universe, which can be good or bad depending on your appetite.
Honorable mention: The Curse of Chalion if you prefer fantasy. [0]
_________
[0] There's also The Sharing Knife series which is... I dunno, fantasy of the hinted-post-apocalyptic variety? Somehow I was never drawn into those, in my dim memory they were disappointing.*
Falling Free is a great place to start, as it has a stand-alone plot and introduces the setting very well. If you like it then I'd also recommend the Vorkosigan saga.
That quote is a bit outlier in my opinion. She doesn't do all that much technolecture like that.
The series is pretty full of sci-fi ideas and real application of them and exploration of their consequences though. I don't mean to imply it's sf in name only but really fantasy with search & replace.
It's a bit hard to pick a single first book to suggest, because while most of the series centers around a particular character Miles Vorkosigan, the first book I would suggest takes place a bit earlier and centers around his parents.
And then yet another difficulty is that book is a sequel to another, and it's hard to recommend not reading those two in order, even if I think the 2nd is the real heart and soul and spirtitual kicking-off point of the whole thing. And this is already including the fact that I'm already not being a slave to chronology, already skipping over some other prequels that really don't need to be read in order at all. They are hundreds of years earlier and do not need to be read in any particular order. It's just these two where, the real choice gem and spritual kicking-off-point of the whole thing in my opinion happens to be a close sequel to another that, IF you read the 2nd and liked it, then it it hurts the 1st a little to have to then read that after.
So I want to say Barrayar, but it is such a close sequel to Shards of Honor, that it should really be Shards of Honor. And really, it's not like Shards is weak. It's great. Very in-line with the rest in tone and quality. It is pretty much as good as any other as a litmus test for if you will like the rest.
The progression goes like, Shards is great and is I think a good place to start reading the whole thing, but Barrayar that comes next is even better, and BOTH of those still aren't even centered around Miles yet, who is the center of most of the rest. So it starts off great, gets better, and then better again, and yet I don't really think it would be great to start with one of the Miles books, even if you are testing to see if you maybe don't even care for the style or the series in general. Test a whole series without spending any time with that series main character???? Yeah. Well that's why I say a bit hard to pick a suggestion ;)
I guess I can say it this way: It's definitely safe that if you did like Shards that you then somehow won't like all the Miles books. The trasition to to following Miles around won't be like "Wtf is this crap? My good series went bad!" And it's pretty safe that if you did not like Shards, that the others aren't different enough that you would love them and miss out by a false negative impression from Shards.
> It's definitely safe that if you did like Shards that you then somehow won't like all the Miles books.
From context, I think some word-logic got reversed during the text-editing process here. I assume you meant: "It's safe to say that if you liked Shards the other books won't disappoint."
IMO the decision to skip to The Warrior's Apprentice should really hinge on how much you care about (A) knowing world-building and backstory and (B) getting references/jokes to the earlier novels.
Hey thanks for this thoughtful reply. I tend to be a completist so I will start with shards.
I think Cordelia’s Honour as mentioned above seems a decent omnibus?
It was fascinating reading your thought process and I love to answer questions this way especially about literature but I have to mask my adhd and never know when I am being too much so I err on the side of brevity, so I really enjoyed reading you formulate your opinion!
> "Some of them are visibly fused. Some idiot must have welded them.”
> “Welded, yes. But not by some idiot. By the sun.”
> “Leo, it doesn’t get that hot—”
> “Not directly. What you’re seeing is spontaneous vacuum diffusion welding. Metal molecules are evaporating off the surfaces of the pieces in the vacuum. Slowly, to be sure, but it’s a measurable phenomenon. On the clamped areas they migrate into their neighboring surfaces and eventually achieve quite a nice bond. A little faster for the hot pieces on the sun side, a little slower for the cold pieces in the shade—but I’ll bet some of those clamps have been in place for twenty years.”
-- Falling Free (1988) by Lois McMaster Bujold