Good, said Des. You borrow enough trouble already you’d need a counting-house to keep your ledger.
Pen, Nikys, and Getaf together escorted the sisters to their new home. The girls had taken to Nikys—as who would not?—and Nikys to them reciprocally. They all helped haul their few belongings through the chapterhouse’s back courtyard up to their narrow room, which had a glassed casement overlooking the town and the valley that wound up into the hills behind it. Also a wardrobe, a pair of chests, a washstand with its paraphernalia, an inviting bookshelf—Pen approved—and two beds, one on either side; Seuka promptly sat and bounced on hers, consideringly. Lencia stared around in both curiosity and trepidation, but Pen fancied the first was winning.
Then it was time to see Getaf off in turn. The man was plainly torn between concern for Lencia and Seuka, and worrying about what might be happening to his year’s worth of work waiting in a Lodi warehouse. And Jedula Corva’s daughters, Pen was reminded, were not Getaf’s only children that he had left to hope and the care of others while he journeyed, though he tactfully did not speak much of his other family in Zagosur.
It was a short walk from the chapterhouse to Vilnoc’s harbor. The skies had regained the deep blue of summer, and the gulls flashed almost painfully white against it. There were hugs, there were tears, there were probably futile admonishments against the risks of life in Vilnoc and on ships. Then the merchant pressed his coin into the hand of the oarsman and was rowed out to his waiting vessel. Getaf climbed the net and waved one last time before the crew urged him out of their way.
“Will he be safe?” fretted Seuka. All too aware, now, not just of the hazards of the world, but of the fragility of grownups.
“The storm season is over in these waters,” said Penric. “And I don’t think pirates will be attacking ships under Orban flags again so soon. He’s as safe as anyone alive and moving in the world can be.”
Nikys put in, “We can stop at the Vilnoc temple and pray for him, if you like.”
Lencia looked down at her sandals, up at Penric. “Does it help?”
“For a certainty… only at the very end of all journeys,” said Penric, his god-sworn honesty wrestling down more soothing platitudes. “But at least there we don’t travel alone.”
Lencia, after a sober moment, nodded.
They turned into the city’s streets. Bumping companionably between Penric, Des, and Nikys, the Corva sisters climbed undaunted.
Author’s Note:
A Bujold Reading-Order Guide
My fantasy novels are not hard to order. Easiest of all is The Spirit Ring, which is a stand-alone, or aquel, as some wag once dubbed books that for some obscure reason failed to spawn a subsequent series. Next easiest are the four volumes of The Sharing Knife—in order, Beguilement, Legacy, Passage, and Horizon—which I broke down and actually numbered, as this was one continuous tale divided into non-wrist-breaking chunks.
What were called the Chalion books after the setting of its first two volumes, but which now that the geographic scope has widened I’m dubbing the World of the Five Gods, were written to be stand-alones as part of a larger whole, and can in theory be read in any order. Some readers think the world-building is easier to assimilate when the books are read in publication order, and the second volume certainly contains spoilers for the first (but not the third.) In any case, the publication order is:
The Curse of Chalion
Paladin of Souls
The Hallowed Hunt
In terms of internal world chronology, The Hallowed Hunt would fall first, the Penric novellas perhaps a hundred and fifty years later, and The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls would follow a century or so after that.
The internal chronology of the Penric novellas is presently
“Penric’s Demon”
“Penric and the Shaman”
“Penric’s Fox”
“Penric’s Mission”
“Mira’s Last Dance”
“The Prisoner of Limnos”
“The Orphans of Raspay”
The short story collection Proto Zoa contains five very early tales—three (1980s) contemporary fantasy, two science fiction—all previously published but not in this handy format. The novelette “Dreamweaver’s Dilemma” may be of interest to Vorkosigan completists, as it is the first story in which that proto-universe began, mentioning Beta Colony but before Barrayar was even thought of.
Sidelines: Talks and Essays is just what it says on the tin—a collection of three decades of my nonfiction writings, including convention speeches, essays, travelogues, introductions, and some less formal pieces. I hope it will prove an interesting companion piece to my fiction.
Many pixels have been expended debating the ‘best’ order in which to read what have come to be known as the Vorkosigan Books (or Saga), the Vorkosiverse, the Miles books, and other names. The debate mainly revolves around publication order versus internal-chronological order. I favor internal chronological, with a few adjustments.
It was always my intention to write each book as a stand-alone, so that the reader could theoretically jump in anywhere. While still somewhat true, as the series developed it acquired a number of sub-arcs, closely related tales that were richer for each other. I will list the sub-arcs, and then the books, and then the duplication warnings. (My publishing history has been complex.) And then the publication order, for those who want it.
Shards of Honor and Barrayar. The first two books in the series proper, they detail the adventures of Cordelia Naismith of Beta Colony and Aral Vorkosigan of Barrayar. Shards was my very first novel ever; Barrayar was actually my eighth, but continues the tale the next day after the end of Shards. For readers who want to be sure of beginning at the beginning, or who are very spoiler-sensitive, start with these two.
The Warrior’s Apprentice and The Vor Game (with, perhaps, the novella “The Mountains of Mourning” tucked in between.) The Warrior’s Apprentice introduces the character who became the series’ linchpin, Miles Vorkosigan; the first book tells how he created a space mercenary fleet by accident; the second how he fixed his mistakes from the first round. Space opera and military-esque adventure (and a number of other things one can best discover for oneself), The Warrior’s Apprentice makes another good place to jump into the series for readers who prefer a young male protagonist.
After that: Brothers in Arms should be read before Mirror Dance, and both, ideally, before Memory.
Komarr makes another alternate entry point for the series, picking up Miles’s second career at its start. It should be read before A Civil Campaign.
Borders of Infinity, a collection of three of the five currently extant novellas, makes a good Miles Vorkosigan early-adventure sampler platter, I always thought, for readers who don’t want to commit themselves to length. (But it may make more sense if read after The Warrior’s Apprentice.) Take care not to confuse the collection-as-a-whole with its title story, “The Borders of Infinity”.