Comments on: p.266 (Chapter Nine)

By: cwDeici

cwDeici — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 10:35:47 +0000

Or they could’ve had the infected humans contact the other team. Anyway, even if they were forced to sting her it’s not her fault for reflexively swatting it, it would just mean they didn’t have proper alternatives.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:57:31 +0000

That excuses nothing, since the people ARE humans and HAVE human-based concepts of morality. By human standards, they’re being enslaved. Lets not excuse the Miesti here.

By: APStorm

APStorm — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:26:37 +0000

This is the problem with the idea of actually, truly alien aliens. What if their idea of communication isn’t the same as ours? Different concepts? Different moralities completely unrelated to our human-accepted polarities of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ …

By: Prestwick

Prestwick — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 12:26:29 +0000

Anybody notice how the map seems to show an inverted version of New Zealand?

Explains the Maori/Pacific Islander tattoos on some of the inhabitants.

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 20:57:34 +0000

Could it be poor marketing by Baen and the truly awful cover illustrations that they have inflicted on the Vorkosigan books?

By: David

David — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:03:34 +0000

Pretty amazing when one considers that no one has won more Hugo Awards for best novel than Lois McMaster Bujold (she's tied with Robert Heinlein). All in all, the Vorkosigan series has won 4 Hugo Awards, 2 Nebula Awards and 2 Locus Awards. While the Nebula Award may be American in focus (given out by the SFWA, after all) and the Locus Award is given by a California-based magazine, I'm pretty sure the Hugo is worldwide in scope.

By: Sleel

Sleel — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:28:43 +0000

Getting “used” as the “tool” at hand sounds like slavery to me. However much one might want to pretty it up. Being given a choice in the symbiosis is one thing. Having it forced on you….. them’s fighting words.

By: Owen Smith

Owen Smith — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:43:36 +0000

I was at an SF and role playing convention in Cambridge, UK (where I live) last year and there was a panel item about the Vorkosigan Saga. It was quite clear from what many people said in that panel that Vorkosigan is a lot more popular in the US than the UK. Most of the audience had turned up to find out what Vorkosigan was or a bit more about it, since most had either not heard of it at all (myself included) or if they had heard of it they hadn’t read any of the books. And that’s at an SF convention.

By: David

David — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 00:22:32 +0000

That's interesting because, within the novels, I see Beta Colony or Jackson's Whole as representing the American polity much more than Barrayar (a monarchy). They are not nearly so much about the return of a frontier as they are science fiction romances (not all of them, but many). I'd say that shows like Star Trek or Firefly are much more about the return of a frontier (or books like Resnick's Santiago). Are they much less popular in the UK?

By: Owen Smith

Owen Smith — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 23:20:21 +0000

This fascination with Vorkosigan novels seems to be a US/Canada thing. They’re nothing like as popular over here in the UK. They just don’t seem to appeal to people, maybe it’s a cultural thing that we don’t yearn for the return of a frontier since it’s so many centuries since we had one. Or maybe the books are written too much from a US cultural viewpoint?