I had a real treat at
FenCon in Dallas this year because the author guest of
honor was one of my favorite authors,
Lois McMaster Bujold.
Lois is the author of the Vorkosigan science fiction series, as well as two
fantasy series, the Chalion series and the Sharing Knife series.
The big piece of news for me was that there will be another Vorkosigan book
coming in November 2010 from Baen. Lois said this one, called
CryoBurn, puts our hero Miles in mystery mode on a new
planet. I may have to start a re-read of the series to be ready for this new
release.
One thing I found interesting is the way she approaches series, trying
different kinds of series formats. The Vorkosigan saga consists of standalone
books in the arc of a person's life. With the Chalion series, she took a
thematic approach. Instead of following the same characters, each book in the
series focuses on one of the five gods in that world. There are two more books
needed to complete the pattern, but she said she isn't yet ready to write those
books. The Sharing Knife series tells one story in bite-sized chunks. "People
tell me they like the fourth book best because of its ending," she said, "but
it's the one that
has an ending."
One series structure she hasn't yet tried is the approach popular in romance
novels, with a group of characters, each of whom has his or her own story.
Her early reading influences included
The Wonderful Flight to the
Mushroom Planet, a children's science fiction book by Eleanor Cameron,
as well as the British boys' adventure stories of authors like Rudyard Kipling
and Arthur Conan Doyle. On a family trip to Europe when she was fifteen, she
found a used paperback copy of
The Fellowship of the Ring and finished reading it on the plane
on the way home but was confused by the ending because there was no indication
on the book's cover that it was part of a series. "I just thought it was one of
those British books with an ambiguous ending," she said. She later found the
rest of the series on a paperback rack in a drugstore.
Today, her "comfort" reading includes the work of
Georgette Heyer and
Terry Pratchett. To
challenge herself, she's been reading
The Worm Ouroboros by
E.R. Eddison, which is considered one of the sources for the
fantasy genre -- a classic because it was the first of its kind. She's also
discovered
Jennifer
Crusie's books from word of mouth on blogs, which she said are a good
source of book recommendations. Her publisher set up a MySpace blog for her,
which she mostly uses to post reviews of books she's read. To read her book and
movie recommendations, visit
http://blogs.myspace.com/loismcmasterbujold.
Shanna Swendson writes "Fairy Tales for Modern Times" and is the
author of the Enchanted, Inc. series about a Texan in New York City, a
magical NYC. Visit her
website or blog
for more information.
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