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Interview by Lali Rico.
Bibliography in Spanish.
She has won Hugo and Nebula awards many times, and she feels supported
not only by the readers but for her colleagues -the other sci-fi
writers. She is a native of Ohio, though she is settled in Minneapolis
since 1995. We can say she is a courageous woman who knows how to
combine the family life with the professional success.
CDK: As many other writers in the history of literature, you
have created your own universe in which all the characters are linked.
Do you consider it essential to have a liaison between novels, above
all if we talk about science fiction -where the sagas, sequels and
prequels are abundant?
LMB: Linked sagas and sequels are a property of literature in general
-- in no way are they special to science fiction. They go back to
the Illiad and The Odyssey, the tales of Amadeus of Gaul and the
whole Arthurian cycle in the Middle Ages, the 19th Century novel
-- The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas had five sequels. People
like to read linked stories, and writers like to write them.
However, I don't think they are essential to science fiction --
many
classic sf tales don't admit of a sequel, especially books with
a great deal of cosmic or temporal scope, or stories that concentrate
on exploring an idea -- 1984, Childhood's End, and so on. But character
centered adventure stories do tend to gravitate to the saga form
naturally, almost biologically.
There are sales advantages to having a body of recognizable work
-- in bookstores packed with abundant and sometimes overwhelming
strangeness, people tend to buy what they know and trust. To a great
extent, people will buy an author whose "voice" they like.
That said, there are artistic effects one can create with a series
of books that can't be done in a single novel; where each book comments
on, subverts, or augments each of the others. I find this cross-commentary
the most delicious aspect of writing series. Series also allows
the room for much more detailed and complex world-building -- and
character-building.
 CDK:
It is unavoidable asking you about Miles Vorkodigan, but I would
like to know something about Ethan de Athos before. (This is one
of our favorites).
Do you really think Men are from Mars and Woman are from Venus as
John Gray
suggests?
LMB: Ethan of Athos is really a comedy of gender role reversal,
but it is also one of the most science fictional of my novels, in
that the premise (an all-male planet where children are gestated
in artificial wombs) absolutely depends on the hypothetical new
technology, and goes on to explore some of the consequences of that
new technology. I think men are from Earth and women are from Earth,
but the planet Athos was presumably settled by men who thought it
should be otherwise, and went on to make it so. The book is also,
on another level, a parody or subversion of all those dreadful Amazon
Planet stories that appeared in my youth in the early 60's, presumably
written by their male authors in reaction to the social stirrings
of feminism just getting started then.
CDK: Vorkosigan has been with you during all your professional
career. Is there any person comparable to Milos in the nowadays
real world?
LMB: Not that I've met.
 CDK:
Could we, the Spaniards, enjoy your science fiction series on audiocassette?
Talking a bit about Spain, 'Falling Free' was the first book you
published in a language different from English and it was published
in Spanish, Do you have any relation with Spain or South America?
LMB: As far as I know, my series is only available in audio in
English. Legally, anyway. I believe you may order English-language
tapes and, now, CD-ROMs over the Internet from www.thereaderschair.com.
They have produced nine of my titles. No Spanish audio publisher
has yet offered to do my works in Spanish.
I have no Spanish family background -- my ancestors were English,
Scottish, German and French. Children are taught very little about
Spain in American schools (to be fair, they are taught very little
about any other country), and so I grew up with Spanish history
as a big blank spot in my internal map of the world. (Ohio is in
the far north of the USA, bordering Canada, and had very few Spanish-speaking
immigrants at that time.) In the American media, South America is
presented as all people living in cardboard boxes in vast slums
who hate us, plus drug dealers. Again, almost no South American
history is taught, except for a brief mention of the Conquistadors,
and maybe a paragraph on Simon Bolivar. Granted, if I had taken
Spanish instead of French as a language in high school, it might
not have seemed quite so blank.
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Lois, at Hispacon-AstuCon 2000
Courtersy of BEM
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Spain and South America are therefore late discoveries of mine,
in my adult reading (I actually haven't got to South America much
yet.) But I did sign up, a few years ago, for a course on Spanish
medieval history at the local university which not only dispelled
a lot of my ignorance, but gave me ideas for my new fantasy novel,
The Curse of Chalion, just published here in the States by Eos/HarperCollins
this past August (2001). I will be very interested to see how Spanish
readers respond to that book, since I would expect them to recognize
more of the sources for some of the characters and
situations than most American readers will.
My first trip to Spain was last year, for Semana Negra and Hispacon,
and I loved it. Three weeks was not enough! It was all after I had
finished Chalion, though, so the trip had no chance to influence
that book. There will be a sequel, however…
CDK: Do you think the consumption of sci-fi books has changed
a lot in the latest years or on the contrary it is for an specific
target yet?
LMB: More science fiction books are being bought and read than
ever before. However, many more writers are writing SF and fantasy
than ever before, too, so an average writer's sales per title add
up to about one-quarter of the numbers of books sold that an SF
writer of, say, the 60's or 70's might have expected. The audience
is wide, but could stand to be much wider. A lot of
people who don't read SF have incorrect ideas about what the genre
really
is, but that's true of all genres.
CDK: Can you please talk to us a bit about your incursion in
other genres?
LMB: I regard science fiction and fantasy as a continuum, rather
than two discrete boxes, so I wouldn't exactly describe my foray
into fantasy as an incursion. Nevertheless, I have now written two
fantasies: The Spirit Ring_ (Baen Books, 1992) and The Curse of
Chalion_ (Eos/HarperCollins 2001). The Spirit Ring was set in an
alternate history Renaissance Italy where magic really worked. I
really enjoyed doing the research reading for that one. Chalion,
despite its Spanish inspiration, is set in its own world, with its
own gods, culture, and history, which gave me a lot more elbow room
for creativity. Chalion had sample chapters up on the HarperCollins
website at www.eosbooks.com,
at one point; they may still be up, although finding
things on that site can be tricky.
If I had to distinguish between SF and fantasy, I would say that
a work is fantasy if it posits that the supernatural is real.
CDK: Do you believe in the power of being award? Have prizes
changed your perspective?
LMB: Awards and the award system are mainly a distraction to a
working writer, but winning a Hugo or a Nebula does seem to help
foreign rights sales. The awards do not, alas, automatically turn
one into a best-seller, although they may help keep one's books
in print a little longer (but not always).
Still, winning is better than not winning, if only because it allows
the writer to work through all the illusions surrounding the awards.
Ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that the meaning of
any award is embodied in the books that have won it. In other words,
the books create the significance of the award, not the other way
around. This is similar to how I feel about critics: that in the
long run, books will not be judged by what critics said about them,
but rather, the critics will be judged by what they've said about
the books.
CDK: If there is any particular characteristic in Vorkosigan's
adventures, that is irony. Is the sense of humor compulsory to continue
being human?
LMB: "Compulsory" is probably too strong a word. But
I do believe that humor is a way for humans to cope with pain. And
I think that a book that is totally humorless cannot claim to be
truly realistic, because humor is found almost everywhere in human
society.
 CDK:
And last but not least, we would satisfy our readers' curiosity.
What will we find in Diplomatic Inmunity?
LMB: Well, it is the next book in the Vorkosigan saga, and follows
in the series timeline after A Civil Campaign. It chronicles a mission
of Miles as an Imperial Auditor. The American hardcover is due out
in May 2002; Spanish rights have not yet been sold. A small free
sample from Chapter One is now up on Baen's website at http://www.baen.com/press.htm
If you want know more about Lois Bujold, you can visit her website:
www.dendarii.com.
And to finish this interview, we leave you with a message from
the author:
"Hi Folks --
For those who have been campaigning to have my work in e-book
format, here we are: starting today with _Shards of Honor_, Fictionwise
will be presenting five of my titles in e-book format -- _Shards
of Honor_, _Barrayar_, _The Warrior's Apprentice_, _The Vor Game_,
and _Falling Free_.
The Fictionwise home page is at:
http://www.fictionwise.com/home.html
The entry for _Shards of Honor_ may be found at
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook1173.htm
or by a search on "Bujold".
Enjoy!
Bests, Lois."
@ 2001 Lali Rico for cyberdark.net
Reproduction of material from any cyberdark.net pages without permission
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