Tag Archives: writer: lois mcmaster bujold

Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

Liss was clearly happier to be sent off to the stables to select the most suitable riding horse and baggage mule. One baggage mule. By midday Ista’s feverish single-mindedness resulted in both women dressed for the road, the horses saddled, and the mule packed. The dy Gura brothers found them standing in the cobbled courtyard when they rode through the castle gate heading ten mounted men in the garb of the Daughter’s Order, dy Cabon following on his white mule.

I got this almost as soon as it came out in 2004, and rather enjoyed it; but a minutely observed story of human nature, with a well-worked out system of gods and worshippers, a society where the social structure is Age of Chivalry but the landscape is the American West, and the boundary between life and death is a real feature that has to be navigated with great skill. It’s also nice to have protagonists who are middle-aged. You can get it here.

It is however very long, and I would not recommend reading it unless you first read The Curse of Chalion which establishes the parameters of the World of the Five Gods. The whole series won the second Hugo for Best Series, Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga having won the first such award.

Back in the day, I actually rated this third of the five Hugo finalists that year, behind Singularity Sky by Charles Stross and Ilium by Dan Simmons.

I’m a fervent Bujoldian, and really like this book; I just happen to think the other two are slightly better. Bujold’s third fantasy novel, and her second in the world of The Curse of Chalion, the action is set in a much smaller scale than the continent-spanning action of its predecessor; the characters are beautifully drawn, in a world where theology is an applied science; and it’s nice to have an adventure and romance story whose character is actually middle-aged.

I regret my preference for Ilium in retrospect, but I still feel that the win for Paladin of Souls was more of a reward for a body of work than for new and exciting writing.

It was the only book on both the Hugo and Nebula final ballots, and won both awards (as well as the Locus Award). The other Hugo finalists were, as noted above, Singularity Sky by Charles Stross and Ilium by Dan Simmons, together with Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson and the awful Humans by Robert J. Sawyer. The other Nebula finalists were Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow, both of which I enjoyed; The Knight, by Gene Wolfe, which I found unreadable; and Omega, by Jack McDevitt, and Perfect Circle, by Sean Stewart, which I have not read.

The other Hugo winners in the written categories that year were “The Cookie Monster”, by Vernor Vinge (novella); “Legions in Time”, by Michael Swanwick (novelette) and “A Study in Emerald”, by Neil Gaiman (short story). The other Nebula winners were “The Green Leopard Plague”, by Walter Jon Williams; “Basement Magic”, by Ellen Klages; and “Coming to Terms”, by Eileen Gunn.

The Nebula for Best Script and the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (and indeed the Osca) went to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form went to Gollum’s acceptance speech for the MTV Awards,  the only time since the Hugo Dramatic Presentation category was split that both awards went to the same franchise.

The following year saw two joint winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards in the written fiction categories, “The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link and “Two Hearts” by Peter S. Beagle. (As previously noted, I skipped a couple of joint winners after “The Ultimate Earth” by Jack Williamson.)

“The Mountains of Mourning” by Lois McMaster Bujold

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Second paragraph of third section:

The interior of the pavilion was shady and cool after the glare outside. It was furnished with comfortable old chairs and tables, one of which bore the remains of a noble breakfast—Miles mentally marked two lonely-looking oil cakes on a crumb-scattered tray as his own. Miles’s mother, lingering over her cup, smiled across the table at him.

Next in my sequence of joint Hugo and Nebula winners, this is an old favourite of mine. If you don’t know Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga, I urge you to give it a try. Most of the stories are about Miles, a nobleman from a conservative planetary empire which is only just re-engaging with the rest of the galaxy and with modernisation, who suffers from restricted growth and brittle bones in a society where disability is abhorred.

In “The Mountains of Mourning”, one of the earlier stories in the sequence, Miles investigates and judges a case of infanticide in the impoverished back-country of his ancestral fiefdom. It’s about change to an ancient way of living, and poisonous family dynamics, and about disability in society. Every character is credibly, in some cases agonisingly, drawn. I think I first read it when I was getting to grips with my own family’s situation, and it has a special place in my heart for that reason. I think also it would be a very good place to start your journey into the Vorkosigan saga. You can get it here and here as a standalone, and here as part of a larger collection.

I’d also note that apart from the “truth drug” which Miles and his henchmen use to discover the identity of the murderer, the story could be perfectly well set in other times and places, with no sfnal elements at all.

It is interesting that the cover by Alan Gutierrez for the original publication in the May 1989 Analog, and for the later Arc Manor publication (artist not known to me), both concentrate on Miles as the focal point; whereas Ron Miller’s cover for Bujold’s own version concentrates on the empty cradle.

Also on both Hugo and Nebula ballots for Best Novella were “Tiny Tango”, by Judith Moffett, and “A Touch of Lavender”, by Megan Lindholm. The other Hugo finalists were The Father of Stones, by Lucius Shepard, and “Time-Out”, by Connie Willis. The other Nebula finalists were A Dozen Tough Jobs, by Howard Waldrop; “Great Work of Time”, by John Crowley; and “Marîd Changes His Mind”, by George Alec Effinger. I can’t recall having read any of them.

The Hugo for Best Novel that year went to Hyperion, by Dan Simmons, and the Nebula to The Healer’s War, by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. The Hugo for Best Novelette went to “Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another”, by Robert Silverberg, and the Nebula to “At the Rialto”, by Connie Willis. The Hugo for Best Short Story went to “Boobs”, by the late Suzy McKee Charnas, and the Nebula to “Ripples in the Dirac Sea”, by Geoffrey A. Landis. And the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation went to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The following year there were two joint winners of both Hugo and Nebula, “Bears Discover Fire” by Terry Bisson and “The Hemingway Hoax” by Joe Haldeman, so I’ll get to them next.