Vorkosigan Saga
| International Focus Request: Help! Editors need some assistance with including international and/or non-English perspectives on this page. |
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Vorkosigan Saga |
| Abbreviation(s): | Vorkosigan, Vorkosiverse (for fanfic) |
| Creator: | Lois McMaster Bujold |
| Date(s): | 1986 - present |
| Medium: | Novels originally in English |
| Country of Origin: | United States of America |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Vorkosigan Saga refers to the series of books written by Lois McMaster Bujold that feature the character Miles Vorkosigan or his parents. The series is also referred to as the Barrayar novels after the home planet of most of the main characters. The first novel was published in 1986, and the series is ongoing. The early novels are rollicking adventures in the space opera genre, but later books incorporate elements of the detective and romance genres.
In a 2011 fic rec post on Crack Van, Beatrice Otter described the series thus:[1]
The Vorkosigan chronicles are space opera—but space opera with a twist. Lois McMaster Bujold, the author, is quite adept at drawing from and blending a variety of genres: comedy, tragedy, romance, mystery, adventure, coming-of-age, military SF, you name it, you’ll find it somewhere in the series. Bujold is a woman of wit and intelligence, and a sharp knowledge of human nature; her works are character-centered, full of vibrant and real-seeming people and places. You can read her works as adventure novels, and enjoy them immensely; they function equally as well on the “literary” level, with deeply moving and relevant themes and some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever seen. Also, her explorations of biotechnology and its implications are well-thought-out and get more relevant with time, not less, which is something few SF writers can say about their technology.
Fandom
English-language Fandom
More than one fan community is available for fans of Bujold's work:
- Lois McMaster Bujold or (LM Bujold for short) is based on LiveJournal. This community focuses on discussion of the novels.
- Lois McMaster Bujold Fanfic Community (link) (or bujold-fic for short) is also based on LiveJournal. This community provides a place for sharing fanfiction set in any of Bujold's universes, of which the most popular is the Vorkosiverse.
- The Bujold Nexus Mailing List has been active since October 1994 and was the first resource available on the Internet for fans of Lois McMaster Bujold.
- The Bujold Ficathon (or Fest) ran from 2006-2016.
The fandom is fairly small, but the series is still being written, so there are always new fanworks produced and new meta discussions held.
Russian-language fandom
This article or section needs expansion. |
There is a huge segment of fandom within the Russian community and there have been frequent ficathons ran since 2005.
http://lavka.lib.ru/bujold (or http://lavka.lib.ru/bujold/buj_eng.htm in English)
http://barrayar.slashfiction.ru (main archive in Russian)
Rock Opera
Fan music videos have been made using audio from the rock opera. For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQtYgLoABHk and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCSIF0BP5ag
Giant Russian Barrayaran Cosplay Events
Fanfiction
There is a wide range of fanfic: gen, slash and het and stories ranging from drabbles to novel-length fiction. One of the most well-known stories is the novel-length Miles/Gregor story A Deeper Season.[2]
The Miles/Gregor pairing is popular with fans, as are stories exploring more minor characters and expanding on canon relationships. There is a small clutch of Ivan Vorpatril/Byerly Vorrutyer stories and several exploring the relationship of Miles' parents, Aral/Cordelia, as well as Simon Illyan/Alys Vorpatril and Gregor Vorbarra/Laisa Toscane.
The canon text lends itself to fanworks exploring gender identity, sexuality and sexual mores. The repressed, sexist and isolationist culture of Barrayar is contrasted with the futuristic, open and egalitarian society of Beta in the marriage of Aral and Cordelia. The Betan "hermaphrodite" character Bel Thorne, the character Dono Vorrutyer who has undergone sex reassignment surgery, and the canonically bisexual Aral Vorkosigan have all featured in works exploring these issues. Some fans feel that the treatment of homosexuality and bisexuality in the original sources is problematic, that Aral Vorkosigan is written as het now! once he has married Cordelia, although this is addressed to some extent in Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2016).[citation needed] There is also criticism of Dono Vorrutyer, with fans questioning whether the character can accurately be termed a trans man, since the motivation for Donna Vorrutyer to undergo sex reassignment is written as wholly political and economic. These perceived flaws have led fans to write stories that examine or illuminate the issue, or just fix-it.[3]
Crossovers are comparatively rare and are most common with Doctor Who and Harry Potter.
Example Fanfiction
A few prominent authors & sample works include:
- AJ Hall: crossovers eg Time Shall Not Mend, Can't Trace Time
- A T Rain: Byerly, CVA eg A Bit Too Much Good Work, Hostage Negotiation Is the Family Business
- Avanti_90: clever AUs, Gregor eg From the Old to the New, Lord Gregor AU series
- Bracketyjack: The Peaceful Vorkosiverse AU series
- Dira Sudis: prolific; Aral, Gregor eg The World That You Need, Shelter and Solace
- E H Smith: HP crossover series Marks and Scars
- Ellen Fremedon: Twenty-Year Man (Ivan/Byerly)
- Elvaron/hazelator: Simon eg Aletheia, Into the Void
- Glishara: Guerilla AU, The Morning Coffee
- Gwynne: eg Mission Reports
- hedda62: The Emperor's Garden, Imperial Bedrooms, crossovers
- Jeff Melcher: humour eg Project Goldfish
- jetta_e_rus: prolific Russian fanwriter eg Owner
- jmtorres: Second Son
- Josan: eg Night Visit series
- keswindhover: BtVS crossover, The Taura/Tara Nexus
- Lanna Michaels: eg The Petyaverse, Barrayar Expects That Every Fan Will Do Their Duty: Excerpts From A Fandom
- Lightgetsin: eg The Long Con, Shorten the Distance
- Lightgetsin & Sahiya: A Deeper Season series (Miles/Gregor)
- linman: eg Anamnesis, Five Fast-Penta Interrogations from the Works of William Shakespeare
- Loneraven: eg Lilies of the Field, the winter here is cold, and bitter
- Mamadeb: eg Lies
- Molly eg A Maze of Twisty Passages, All Alike, light from a lonely window
- Minutia_R: eg Five Strays Elizabeth Naismith took in (and One That Got Away), The Family Expert, poetry
- Miss Lanyon: eg A Charity Case
- Parhelion: The Councils of Despair (Aral/Simon)
- Philomytha: prolific; Simon/Alys, Aral eg Aral Vorkosigan's Dog, Vorkosigan's Day
- Quietann: gapfillers, vignettes eg You Believed Me, ADS-verse works
- Sahiya: eg Five Ways Ekaterin Never Met Miles at Twenty
- Salable Mystic: Refugees of War
- Tel: Tides of Stars AU series
- Tevildo: By Any Means Necessary
Yuletide and Winterfair
Until 2010, Vorkosigan fandom was nominated for and accepted into Yuletide each year, generating a handful of fics each round. In October 2010, Vorkosigan fans discovered the number of extant fics had grown too large for the series to be considered a 'rare' fandom.[4] Though this decision was soon reversed,[5] fans took note of the fact that the Vorkosigan universe had consistently been one of the more popular Yuletide fandoms since the exchange's inception, and began making alternative plans for a gift exchange roughly coinciding with Christmas/New Year, but not competing with Yuletide. These plans were initiated on bujold-fic[6] and led to the first year of 'Winterfair'. The concept behind this exchange is that everyone who writes a fic will get a fic. Prompts were submitted in late December with initial fic posted in January to early February. The Winterfair exchange also integrated the English and Russian language sides of the fandom into one event.
Winterfair ran again in 2012.[7]
Impact on Other Fandoms
The Vorkosigan Saga was a likely influence on Avoliot's popular original slash novel The Course of Honour, which began as a WIP posted anonymously to Fail-Fandomanon and, several years after its publication on Archive of Our Own, was pulled to publish under the title Winter's Orbit. The Course of Honour shares a number of setting and thematic similarities with the Vorkosigan Saga, and Avoliot (under her professional pseudonym Everina Maxwell)[Note 1] has described Miles/Ekaterin as one of her SFF OTPs.
Resources
Archives
- Vorkosigan Saga at the Archive of Our Own
- Vorkosigan Saga Archived version at Yuletide Treasure
- Miles Vorkosigan works at fanfiction.net
Canon Resources
- Vorkosigan Wiki (a.k.a. VorWiki) on Fandom.com
Fanfic Prompts
- Vorkosigan Saga lonely & filled prompts Archived version at fic_promptly
Fanfic Recs and Reviews
- Reviews of several notable Vorkosiverse fics at AO3 Archived version by facetofcathy (4/2011)
- Favourite Vorkosigan fics Archived version (2/2010) & Recs for a dozen Vorkosiverse fics Archived version by Philomytha (10/2010)
- Rec for a Vorkosiverse fic Archived version by thefourthvine (7/2007)[8]
- Recs for various Vorkosiverse fics Archived version; page two at Crack Van (2005–2013)
- Recs at Fancake (2011–)
- Recs Archived version by Espresso Addict (2008–)
- Recs Archived version by The RCK (2004–2006)
Fanzines
- Samizdat Barrayar -- anthology zine (early to mid 1990s)
Notes
- ^ Avoliot has publicly connected her fannish and professional pseudonyms. E.g., her professional Tumblr is under the username avoliot Archived version and the bio begins with "Everina Maxwell."
References
- ^ Crack Van: Aral Vorkosigan's Dog by Philomytha (accessed 24 June 2016) (archive link)
- ^ A Deeper Season at the Archive of Our Own
- ^ e.g., Complicated by schemingreader, accessed March 29, 2011 (archive link)
- ^ No Yuletide on Barrayar Accessed 07 January 2011.
- ^ Hey! We're Yuletide-able again! Accessed 07 January 2011.
- ^ Request for Comment Accessed 07 January 2011
- ^ Winterfair Mark Two (Dec 16, 2011)
- ^ "The One That Proves That My Childhood Wish to Live in a House with Secret Passages and Rooms and Dungeons Would Probably Not Have Worked out All That Well in Reality. Oh, the Pain of Disillusionment. A Maze of Twisty Passages, All Alike, by Merry, aka merryish. Vorkosigan series, gen.