Lois McMaster Bujold ( / b uː ˈ ʒ oʊ l d / boo- ZHOHLD ; born November 2, 1949) is an American writer who creates stories in the science fiction and fantasy genres. She has won the Hugo Award for Best Novel four times, tying the record held by Robert A. Heinlein (excluding his Retro Hugos). Bujold is most famous for her Vorkosigan Saga, a series of science fiction books that follow the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan, a character with physical challenges who works as a space spy and military leader on the planet Barrayar, set about 1,000 years in the future. In 2019, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association honored her as its 36th SFWA Grand Master.
Most of Bujold’s books are part of three series: the Vorkosigan Saga and two fantasy series, the World of the Five Gods and the Sharing Knife. Her Vorkosigan novella "The Mountains of Mourning" received both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. In the fantasy genre, her book The Curse of Chalion won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the 2002 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Her fourth Hugo Award and second Nebula Award were given for Paladin of Souls. In 2011, she was honored with the Skylark Award. She has also won two Hugo Awards for Best Series: one in 2017 for the Vorkosigan Saga and another in 2018 for the World of the Five Gods.
Biography
Lois McMaster Bujold is the daughter of Robert Charles McMaster. She credits her early interest in science fiction and certain elements of the Vorkosigan Saga to his influence. Her father was an editor of the Nondestructive Testing Handbook.
Bujold has written that her experience growing up with a famous father is similar to the experiences of her characters, Miles and Fiametta, who also grow up in the shadow of a "Great Man." She has noticed this pattern in both boys and girls and has questioned why this phenomenon is called "great man's son syndrome" instead of "great man's daughter's syndrome." Her brother, who is also an engineer like their father, helped her with technical details for the book Falling Free.
She has said she was always a "voracious reader." She began reading adult science fiction at the age of nine, a habit she learned from her father. She became part of the science fiction fandom, joined the Central Ohio Science Fiction Society, and co-published StarDate, a science fiction fanzine. A story of hers appeared in StarDate under the byline Lois McMaster. Over time, her reading interests grew to include history, mysteries, romance, travel, war, and poetry.
She attended Ohio State University from 1968 to 1972. Although she was interested in writing, she did not major in English because she felt the program focused too much on literary criticism rather than creating literature.
She married John Fredric Bujold in 1971, but they divorced in the early 1990s. They have two children: a daughter named Anne, born in 1979, and a son named Paul, born in 1981. Anne Bujold is a sculptor and metal artist who is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She previously worked as a metal artist and welder in Portland, Oregon, and served as vice president of the Northwest Blacksmith Association. Lois McMaster Bujold currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Inspiration
Bujold became friends with Lillian Stewart Carl during high school. They worked together on long stories, but only part of the total was written down. At one time, Bujold helped create a Star Trek magazine called StarDate and wrote for it. In college, she wrote a Sherlock Holmes mystery. However, she stopped writing after that because she was busy with marriage, family, and a job in hospital patient care.
She did not return to writing until her thirties. Bujold said that Lillian Stewart Carl's first book sales inspired her to start writing again. She originally planned to write as a hobby, but she realized the work required was too much for anything other than a full-time job. So, she decided to become a professional writer. With help from Carl and Patricia Wrede, she finished her first novel.
Science fiction
Lois Bujold wrote three books (Shards of Honor, The Warrior's Apprentice, and Ethan of Athos) before The Warrior's Apprentice was accepted by a publisher after four rejections. This book was the first one purchased by Baen Books, even though it was not the first Vorkosigan book written or published. Because of the success of The Warrior's Apprentice, Baen Books agreed to a deal for three books, including The Warrior's Apprentice and two other books in the series. By 2010, Baen Books reported selling two million copies of Bujold's books.
Bujold is most famous for her Vorkosigan Saga, a series of novels about Miles Vorkosigan, a physically disabled space spy and military leader from the planet Barrayar, set about 1,000 years in the future. The series also includes books about Miles' parents and stories focusing on other characters. Earlier books in the series often include space battles, secret plans, and unexpected events, while more recent books focus more on solving mysteries. In A Civil Campaign, Bujold writes a story about a high-society romance, inspired by the work of Regency-era author Georgette Heyer. The story centers on a dinner party that goes wrong, with misunderstandings and conversations that match the subtitle "A Comedy of Biology and Manners."
Bujold has said her series is modeled after the Horatio Hornblower books, which follow the life of one person. The series also shares themes with Dorothy L. Sayers' character Lord Peter Wimsey. Bujold has explained that writing a series is challenging because many readers may read the books in a random order. To help readers, each book now includes an appendix that summarizes the order of events in the series. Bujold has also shared her suggestions for the best order to read the Vorkosigan Saga on her blog.
Fantasy
Lois Bujold wanted to write fantasy books but faced early difficulties. Her first fantasy book was The Spirit Ring. She wrote it without a guaranteed publisher, sent it to several publishers, and received only low offers. This led her to return to Baen Books, where Jim Baen bought the book for a fair price in exchange for more Vorkosigan books. Bujold said this experience taught her important lessons. The book received little praise from critics and had average sales.
She did not try to write fantasy books again for nearly ten years, until The Curse of Chalion. This book was also written without a guaranteed publisher and offered at a book auction. This time, it was well-received by critics and readers, as it appealed to fans of both fantasy and romance. The world of Chalion was partly inspired by a University of Minnesota course she took about medieval Spain in the mid-1990s. Later, she expanded this setting into the World of the Five Gods series, which includes Paladin of Souls, The Hallowed Hunt, and the fifteen books, novellas, and short stories in the Penric and Desdemona series.
Her next fantasy world was the tetralogy The Sharing Knife. She borrowed ideas for its landscapes and the dialect of the "farmers" from her childhood in central Ohio. She said readers who helped her proofread the book recognized features and dialects from Ohio in the descriptions.
Relation to fan fiction
Lois Bujold usually supports fan fiction written about her characters and stories. Amy H. Sturgis, in her essay "From Both Sides Now: Bujold and the Fan Fiction Phenomenon," explains that this is rare for writers of Bujold's generation, as most oppose fan fiction. Sturgis connects this to Bujold's own early writing of fan fiction about Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes, which she saw as training for her career as a professional writer.
Bujold believes that fan fiction shows how readers actively engage with stories. She thinks good readers are "unsung collaborators" who help bring stories to life by imagining the world and characters in their minds. To her, books only exist when readers think about them and add their own ideas. Sometimes, characters and stories grow so much in readers' imaginations that they become fan fiction. Bujold believes great literature is not "sterile" or limited to only what the original author wrote. She also thinks fan fiction allows authors to understand how readers interpret and expand on their work.
However, Bujold no longer reads fan fiction about her own characters because of legal and financial concerns, even though she finds it interesting.