„Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
Quelle: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)
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Lois McMaster Bujold
Geburtstag: 2. November 1949
Lois McMaster Bujold ist eine US-amerikanische Autorin von Science-Fiction- und Fantasybüchern.
Ihre Bücher beweisen Bujolds Beherrschung des vielfältigen Science-Fiction-Genres. Frühere Titel folgen hauptsächlich der Space-Opera-Tradition , mit einer Menge von Schlachten, Verschwörungen und überraschenden Wendungen. Jedoch folgt sie dabei nur scheinbar den Klischees des Genres.
Ein zentrales Thema, das in ihren Romanen immer wieder auftaucht, sind Beziehungen unterschiedlichster Spielarten. Sei es die Liebe zwischen normalen und durch Genmanipulation körperlich veränderten Menschen , die Liebe zwischen Feinden , Homosexualität oder auch nur der Hang kleinwüchsiger Männer zu großen Frauen. Auch wenn es häufig ein Happy End gibt, wird in keiner Weise so getan, als ob diese Art von Beziehung das einzig Wahre für jeden oder auch nur normal wäre. Stattdessen schildert sie einfach vorurteilsfrei, aber durchaus liebenswert diese Eigenarten ihrer Protagonisten und tritt auf diese Weise für mehr Toleranz ein.
Sie hat den angesehenen Hugo Award für den besten Roman viermal gewonnen . Den Nebula Award erhielt sie bisher zweimal für den besten Roman. Für ihren Kurzroman „The Mountains of Mourning“ und den Roman Paladin of Souls bekam sie sogar beide Preise sowie den Locus Award.
Bujold ist geschieden, hat zwei Kinder und lebt in Minnesota.
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„If you can't be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, buch Labyrinth
Quelle: Labyrinth
„All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business creator. In the service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves.“
Cordelia's Honor (1996), "Author's Afterword"
Kontext: All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business creator. In the service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. Becoming a parent is one of these basic human transformational deeds. By this act, we change our fundamental relationship with the universe — if nothing else, we lose our place as the pinnacle and end-point of evolution, and become a mere link. The demands of motherhood especially consume the old self, and replace it with something new, often better and wiser, sometimes wearier or disillusioned, or tense and terrified, certainly more self-knowing, but never the same again.
„Interim reports tend to elicit orders. Which you must either then obey, or spend valuable time and energy evading, which you could be using to solve the problem.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)
Kontext: No, no, never send interim reports. Only final ones. Interim reports tend to elicit orders. Which you must either then obey, or spend valuable time and energy evading, which you could be using to solve the problem.
„Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)
Kontext: You must kill if you expect to survive."
"No you don't," Miles put in. "Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.
„The loonies who sought a glorious death in battle found it very early on. This rapidly cleared the chain of command of the accumulated fools.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)
Kontext: The loonies who sought a glorious death in battle found it very early on. This rapidly cleared the chain of command of the accumulated fools. The survivors were those who learned to fight dirty, and live, and fight another day, and win, and win, and win, and for whom nothing, not comfort, or security, not family or friends or their immortal souls, was more important than winning. Dead men are losers by definition. Survival and victory. They weren't supermen, or immune to pain. They sweated in confusion and darkness. And … they won.
„Adulthood isn’t an award they’ll give you for being a good child.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)
Kontext: Adulthood isn’t an award they’ll give you for being a good child. You can waste … years, trying to get someone to give that sort of respect to you, as though it were some sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just … take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, "I’m sorry you feel like that", and walk away.
„The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)
Kontext: Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.
„His mother had often said, "When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action."“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)
Kontext: His mother had often said, "When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action." She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.
„Which is just a fancy way of saying, "I think about it a lot, day and night."“
"Publishing, Writing, and Authoring", p. 67
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)
Kontext: I attack both from the logic-side, scribbling outline after outline, and the long-walk relaxed-visualization-side, and while neither alone is enough, the combination synergizes. Which is just a fancy way of saying, "I think about it a lot, day and night."
„Reading is an active and elusive experience. Every reader, reading exactly the same text, will have a slightly different reading experience depending on what s/he projects into the words s/he sees, what strings of meaning and association those words call up in his/her (always) private mind.“
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)
Kontext: Reading is an active and elusive experience. Every reader, reading exactly the same text, will have a slightly different reading experience depending on what s/he projects into the words s/he sees, what strings of meaning and association those words call up in his/her (always) private mind. One can never therefore, talk about the quality of a book separately from the quality of the mind that is creating it by reading it, in the only place books live, in the secret mind.
"'A Conversation With Lois McMaster Bujold", an interview with Lillian Stewart Carl, p. 52
„Organization seemed to be the key.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Kontext: Organization seemed to be the key. To get huge masses of properly matched men and materials to the right place at the right time in the right order with the swiftness required to even grasp survival — to wrestle an infinitely complex and confusing reality into the abstract shape of victory — organization, it seemed, might even outrank courage as a soldierly virtue.
„If you're trying to keep it a secret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone"?“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)
Kontext: Marta blinked at him with manufactured innocence. "Kareen had it from Mark. I had it from Ivan. Mama had it from Gregor. And Da had it from Pym. If you're trying to keep it a secret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone"?
„Acting or reacting, we carry him in us. You can't walk away from him any more than I can. Whether you travel toward or away, he'll be the compass.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Kontext: Acting or reacting, we carry him in us. You can't walk away from him any more than I can. Whether you travel toward or away, he'll be the compass. He'll be the glass, full of subtle colors and astigmatisms, through which all new things will be viewed. I too have a father who haunts me, and I know.
„Leadership is mostly a power over imagination, and never more so than in combat.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)
Kontext: Leadership is mostly a power over imagination, and never more so than in combat. The bravest man alone can only be an armed lunatic. The real strength lies in the ability to get others to do your work.
„It's important that someone celebrate our existence… People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)
Kontext: It's important that someone celebrate our existence... People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture.
„They weren't supermen, or immune to pain. They sweated in confusion and darkness. And … they won.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)
Kontext: The loonies who sought a glorious death in battle found it very early on. This rapidly cleared the chain of command of the accumulated fools. The survivors were those who learned to fight dirty, and live, and fight another day, and win, and win, and win, and for whom nothing, not comfort, or security, not family or friends or their immortal souls, was more important than winning. Dead men are losers by definition. Survival and victory. They weren't supermen, or immune to pain. They sweated in confusion and darkness. And … they won.
„The trick is to try and know as much as possible.“
A Girl's World interview (2006)
Kontext: I don't take information and experience into my mind in that organized a fashion, but when I want to bring it out, somehow it's there. You write what you know because — like there's another choice? The trick is to try and know as much as possible.
„The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)
Kontext: The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present — they are real.
„I suppose my determination to be a soldier stems from that date.“
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)
Kontext: I suppose my determination to be a soldier stems from that date. I mean the real thing, not the parades and the uniforms and the glamour, but the logistics, the offensive advantage, the speed and surprise — the power. A better-prepared, stronger, tougher, faster, meaner son-of-a-bitch than any who came through that door.
