Anne
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Good morning! Just wanted to say hello, and mention something a friend and I were discussing. As we've grown older, fiction has begin to become less interesting, and the real world has become more and more fantastical. I'm unsure if this is an effect of age, or if reality has simply reached a bizarre enough state of technological advancement that we from the previous state are having trouble processing it. Thoughts?
Lois McMaster Bujold
Well, we are living in the 21st century now, which was always The Future. (Granted, it's not the future we ordered or expected.)
I think the real world has always been pretty fantastical, but in the Old Days (tm), people could only access a small slice of it. Due to the internet and other communications technologies, people are being exposed to way more of it than had even been possible before, and indeed way more than most of us can process.
And, yes, they keep making more. This has changed the problem from that of accessing knowledge that is scant and rare and valuable, a perpetual state of local famine, to triaging an avalanche of knowledge. I've likened it to being taken into a huge modern supermarket, and told one has to eat all the food on the shelves. Obviously, the old system of trying to know everything about everything can't work in this new environment. I'm not sure we've figured out yet what will.
Ta, L.
I think the real world has always been pretty fantastical, but in the Old Days (tm), people could only access a small slice of it. Due to the internet and other communications technologies, people are being exposed to way more of it than had even been possible before, and indeed way more than most of us can process.
And, yes, they keep making more. This has changed the problem from that of accessing knowledge that is scant and rare and valuable, a perpetual state of local famine, to triaging an avalanche of knowledge. I've likened it to being taken into a huge modern supermarket, and told one has to eat all the food on the shelves. Obviously, the old system of trying to know everything about everything can't work in this new environment. I'm not sure we've figured out yet what will.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
John Kirk
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
As an author, how do you feel about content/trigger warnings? Some of your books have unpleasant things happening to characters (e.g. Elena Visconti). I really like those books, but I've recently been adding my own warnings while recommending them to friends. Would you be happy for an editor/publisher to add official warnings at the start of a book, or would that be treading on your toes?
pauliree
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Hi Lois, your Barrayarans are some of my favourite people in the world. i loved the mix of cultures involved. Did you do much research into Russia and Greece beforehand or did you wing it? I am trying to write something set in Russia and I know scarily little about the culture. I was hoping you might have some tips on research.
Gard Evyr
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Hello Lois, Have you read Daggerspell? I am curious what you think as I've read it for the first time recently and thought it was such a wonderfully strange book, much different than so many things of that era (well of any era, really) yet I don't hear many people talk about it.
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