The Vorkosigan Books
by Lois McMaster Bujold

Book review by Jaye
Copyright © 2005 by Jaye

          Relationship driven science fiction -- absolutely superb! Superb! They  center on a family, the Vorkosigans, who live by an ancient code of honor that is wearing thin as their formerly isolated planet comes into a technological age and the reasons for the rules of honor no longer apply because of technology invading their world.  The society is having to find a new internal compass to guide it.  In other words -- they do a lot of error recovery techniques, and make it into scrapes -- some comedic and some harrowing.  The first two books follow Cordelia Naismith, who is from a technologically advanced and socially egalitarian planet. She meets and then marries Aral Vorkosigan and moves from her planet to his.  The rest of the books follow their son Miles, who was damaged in utero, and has brittle bones and is dwarfed but wants desperately to be a soldier -- and actually becomes a soldier.  In fact, he becomes a admiral as a covert operations specialist in a mercenary space army.  And boy does he have to practice error recovery techniques!

          Anyway, any of these books will go a long way to helping you decide if you want to change your airplane's course that 3° (see A Little Change).  And how to do it if you do want to.  They're a lot about trusting yourself -- your judgments, your innate goodness, that part of God in you that tells you what is right for you.  Oh -- in all of them, be prepared with a few hankies.  You'll not only laugh until your sides ache; you'll cry yourself half blind.

          Be prepared for the effect to build the farther you go in the series. It doesn't matter where you start: the farther you go, the more things connect. You hit a paragraph, or sentence, or even a single word, and it harks back to something in one of the other books and something falls into place, and you realize what was happening when such and such was mentioned!

          You can read these books in any order, but I guarantee by the time you're finished, you will want to go back and read them chronologically. I've read the entire series at least seven times -- they are my comfort books -- where I go when life overwhelms me and I need Order.

          A last note: Lois has written two related books in the Vorkosiverse: Ethan of Athos and Falling Free. I highly recommend them, too.

          This is my comfort series.  This is the series I go to when life gets so hectic that I just have to have familiarity, when I have to know what comes next on some level.  The people are old friends.  I keep expecting to get letters from home from them.

Get to know Cordelia, Aral, Miles and Mark. Get to know yourself in a whole new way.

          When you have read the Vorkosiverse, expand into Bujold's fantasy books, the Five Gods universe and the stand-alone Spirit Ring.

          Blessings on you, and on your house.

The Books
Pre-Vorkosigan
Cordelia
Miles/Mark
Omnibuses




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