Biology and Manners: Essays on the Worlds and Works of Lois McMaster Bujold

320 Pages·2020·2.28 MB·English

by  Regina Yung Lee (editor), Una McCormack (editor)

BIOLOGY AND MANNERS
Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies, 64
Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies
Editor David Seed, University of Liverpool
Editorial Board
Mark Bould, University of the West of England
Veronica Hollinger, Trent University
Rob Latham, University of California
Roger Luckhurst, Birkbeck College, University of London
Patrick Parrinder, University of Reading
Andy Sawyer, University of Liverpool
Recent titles in the series
42. David Seed (ed.), Future Wars: The Anticipations and the Fears
43. Andrew M. Butler, Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s
44. Andrew Milner, Locating Science Fiction
45. Joshua Raulerson, Singularities
46. Stanislaw Lem: Selected Letters to Michael Kandel (edited, translated and
with an introduction by Peter Swirski)
47. Sonja Fritzsche, The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film
48. Jack Fennel: Irish Science Fiction
49. Peter Swirski and Waclaw M. Osadnik: Lemography: Stanislaw Lem in
the Eyes of the World
50. Gavin Parkinson (ed.), Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics
51. Peter Swirski, Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future
52. J. P. Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay, Science Fiction Double Feature:
The Science Fiction Film as Cult Text
53. Tom Shippey, Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction
54. Mike Ashley, Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction
Magazines from 1981 to 1990
55. Chris Pak, Terraforming: Ecopolitical Transformations and Environmentalism
in Science Fiction
56. Lars Schmeink, Biopunk Dystopias: Genetic Engineering, Society,
and Science Fiction
57. Shawn Malley, Excavating the Future: Archaeology and Geopolitics
in Contemporary North American Science Fiction Film and Television
58. Derek J. Thiess, Sport and Monstrosity in Science Fiction
59. Glyn Morgan and Charul Palmer-Patel, Sideways in Time:
Critical Essays on Alternate History Fiction
60. Curtis D. Carbonell, Dread Trident: Tabletop Role-Playing Games
and the Modern Fantastic
61. Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, Final Frontiers: Science Fiction
and Techno-Science in Non-Aligned India
62. Gavin Miller, Science Fiction and Psychology
63. Andrew Milner and J.R. Burgmann, Science Fiction and Climate Change:
A Sociological Approach
BIOLOGY AND MANNERS
Essays on the Worlds and Works
of Lois McMaster Bujold
Edited by
REGINA YUNG LEE
and UNA MCCORMACK
LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS
The cover image is a detail from Buissons ardents (lit. ‘ardent bushes’,
although it could also be translated as ‘fervent’ or ‘burning’). This
tapestry, which depicts botanical and entomological themes, was
woven at the Gobelin factory from a design by the French Benedictine
monk Dom Robert (Guy de Chaunac-Lanzac, 1907–1997). We chose
the image because its vivid and fertile depiction of the natural world,
rendered in a stylized, highly decorative, and often feminized medium,
seemed to us to encapsulate some of the major tensions enlivening
Bujold’s work, the ‘biology and manners’ of our title.
First published 2020 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZU
Copyright © 2020 Liverpool University Press
The right of Regina Yung Lee and Una McCormack to be identified as
the editors of this book has been asserted by them in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
A British Library CIP record is available
ISBN 978-1-78962-173-0 cased
epdf ISBN 978-1-78962-753-4
Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Editions and Abbreviations x
Section 1: The Emergence of Bujold Studies
Introduction: The Emergence of Bujold Studies 3
Regina Yung Lee and Una McCormack
The History of Scholarship on Lois McMaster Bujold’s Science
Fiction and Fantasy: A Feminist Bibliographic Essay 13
Robin Anne Reid
Section 2: Bujold’s Women
Untimely Graces: Gender, Failure, and Sainthood in Lois
McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls 35
Regina Yung Lee
You Wish to Have the Curse Reversed? Traditional Narrative
Motifs of Gender Reconfigured in Bujold’s Chalion Novels 55
Caitlin Herington
In Quiet Converse: The Intertextual Speaking of Madame
Vorsoisson and Miss Price 71
Katharine Woods
vi BIOLOGY AND MANNERS
Section 3: Heroes’ Journeys
The Shape of a Hero’s Soul: Exploring the Paradox of Fate and
Free Will in The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls 97
C. Palmer-Patel
The Road and the River: Genre-Neering a Future in The Sharing
Knife Series 113
Sylvia Kelso
Pain Made Holy: Narratives of Disability and Pain in The Curse
of Chalion 131
Joanne Woiak
Section 4: Potential Futures and Imagined Pasts
Queering Barrayar: The Uterine Replicator in Gentleman Jole and
the Red Queen 153
Jey Saung
‘What you need is a liege lord’: Futuristic Feudalism in
The Warrior’s Apprentice 171
Sarah Lindsay
Womb with a View: Ectogenesis in Ethan of Athos and
Brave New World 187
Ally Wolfe
Section 5: Holy Families
The Holy Family: Divine Queerness in The Curse of Chalion and
The Hallowed Hunt 209
Robin Anne Reid
The Bastard Balances All: The Essential Other in Bujold’s
Queer Theology 229
Meg MacDonald
CONTENTS vii
Section 6: Beyond the Books
The Naismith Stratagem: Authenticity and Adaptation in
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga: Sourcebook and
Roleplaying Game 249
Jennifer Woodward and Peter Wright
Canon Compliance and Creative Analysis in Vorkosigan Saga
Fan Fiction 269
Kristina Busse
Appendix 1: Conference Proceedings 287
About the Contributors 291
Index 295

Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
We extend our grateful thanks to Janet Brennan Croft and Edward
James, trailblazers in the field of Bujold Studies, who have supported
this project from the outset in ways too numerous to count.
Regina gratefully acknowledges the faculty of Gender, Women
& Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, for
their support in feminist scholarship and pedagogy throughout the
development of this manuscript. Special thanks go to Shirley Yee,
for provision of the Chair’s funds for permission fees, and to Larin
McLaughlin at the University of Washington Press, for her advice on the
editorial process throughout. Una would like to thank Anne Wilson, who
provided advice on the original proposal, Duncan Barrett for guidance
on indexing, and Harriet Monkhouse for help with proofs.
Both of us would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to our
anonymous reviewer for their hugely encouraging response to the
manuscript and their sharp editorial eye.
Thank you, also, to Lois McMaster Bujold – long may she too rule.
While this volume was in production, we learned of the death of our
colleague David Oberhelman. David, an inspiring writer and teacher,
had been a generous and enthusiastic presence both at the conference
on Bujold held in 2014 in Cambridge and during the early stages of
assembling this book. We are saddened not to be able to present his
essay on ‘The Body, Deformity, and Divinity in the Vorkosigan and
Chalion Series’ which would surely, as with all his work, have informed
and delighted.
ix
Editions and Abbreviations
Editions and Abbreviations
There is no standard edition of Bujold’s books. Most have been released
in many different editions with different paginations, some in multiple
versions including omnibus editions.1 Following the convention
established by Janet Brennan Croft, we have kept references to the
editions used by individual authors. We indicate date of first publication
in the main body of the text. In addition, again following Croft, we have
standardized titles to the original novel rather than to omnibus titles.
We have provided a list of contents of omnibus editions for reference.
Quotations from The Sharing Knife (Beguilement, Legacy, Passage, and
Horizon), ‘Penric’s Demon’, ‘Penric and the Shaman’, ‘Penric’s Mission’,
and ‘The Prisoner of Limnos’ are used with the kind permission of
Spectrum Literary Agency, and Lois McMaster Bujold.
Quotations from The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and The Hallowed
Hunt are used with the kind permission of HarperCollins publishers,
Spectrum Literary Agency, and Lois McMaster Bujold.
Quotations from The Warrior’s Apprentice, The Vor Game, Ethan of Athos,
‘The Mountains of Mourning’, Brothers in Arms, Memory, Komarr, A Civil
Campaign, ‘Winterfair Gifts’, Diplomatic Immunity, and Gentleman Jole and
the Red Queen are used with the kind permission of Baen Books.
1 The crucial novella ‘The Mountains of Mourning’ (1989), for example, was
first published in the magazine Analog, and has been subsequently collected
in the short story collection Dreamweaver’s Dilemma (1995), and the omnibus
Young Miles (1997).
x