alison
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Hello! A couple of questions ago you mentioned A Warrior's Apprentice as one of your evergreens, having never won awards (among some other criteria), which I'm so shocked by! I read it in high school and one of its lines is now memorialized as my senior year quote (too embarrassed to say which one). I've now graduated from college and still go back to it every year. Thanks for writing it all those years ago <3 [?]
Lois McMaster Bujold
You are welcome!
I was, I think, too new in the marketplace at time time (1986) for the book to have attracted notice from enough readers for an award. The Hugo award for The Vor Game, a couple of years later when I'd gained more visibility, was something in the nature of compensation, I feel. And the Nebula for Falling Free I attribute in part to its serialization in Analog Magazine, which brought it before a lot more reader-voters than might have encountered it otherwise. Awards are very much an intersection of skill, work, and luck -- the skill and work, which are under a writer's control, are required to put one in the pool that luck, which is not, may fall upon.
What's important, then and now, is that the book is still finding readers, which I'd always felt was the main utility of winning an award, one more bit of advertising. If the work can find its readers without same, that's just as good.
Ta, L.
I was, I think, too new in the marketplace at time time (1986) for the book to have attracted notice from enough readers for an award. The Hugo award for The Vor Game, a couple of years later when I'd gained more visibility, was something in the nature of compensation, I feel. And the Nebula for Falling Free I attribute in part to its serialization in Analog Magazine, which brought it before a lot more reader-voters than might have encountered it otherwise. Awards are very much an intersection of skill, work, and luck -- the skill and work, which are under a writer's control, are required to put one in the pool that luck, which is not, may fall upon.
What's important, then and now, is that the book is still finding readers, which I'd always felt was the main utility of winning an award, one more bit of advertising. If the work can find its readers without same, that's just as good.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Peter Lawson
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Lois, as a reader/purchaser of your work and now thoroughly enjoying the Penric novellas vie eBook - which way of purchasing (iTunes, Amazon etc.) do you get the greatest piece of the pie? I'm figuring that the various methods are not created equal for every author. Cheers from Melbourne, Australia
Kate Davenport
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Des is keeping Penric young(ish) but I'm assuming that while she might be able to slow his aging and keep him healthy, she would not be able to extend him past the assumed human maximum of 125. In the end it still feels like it would be hard on him to outlive everyone important in his life except Des. How do you imagine she will handle his feelings of loss and possible depression? And how will she handle losing him?
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