Aral Vorkosigan's Dog by Philomytha

[beatrice_otter]

It is my honor to be reccing the Vorkosigan universe--the Vorkosiverse, if you will--as a Featured Small Fandom this month.  Since it's been a while since the Vorkosiverse was featured, a lot has changed.  The overview has been updated, but I thought I'd give a short summary, anyway.

The Vorkosigan chronicles are space opera—but space opera with a twist. Lois McMaster Bujold, the author, is quite adept at drawing from and blending a variety of genres: comedy, tragedy, romance, mystery, adventure, coming-of-age, military SF, you name it, you’ll find it somewhere in the series. Bujold is a woman of wit and intelligence, and a sharp knowledge of human nature; her works are character-centered, full of vibrant and real-seeming people and places. You can read her works as adventure novels, and enjoy them immensely; they function equally as well on the “literary” level, with deeply moving and relevant themes and some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever seen. Also, her explorations of biotechnology and its implications are well-thought-out and get more relevant with time, not less, which is something few SF writers can say about their technology.  And if you've never read the books, you're in luck!  All the books but one are available for legal download for free.

There's been a lot of Vorkosiverse fanfic posted in the last few years, enough that I was very surprised to see it listed as eligible for Yuletide.  There is a thriving fandom in Russian, with some crossover; as I don't speak Russian, I won't be reccing anything from there.  There are at least one, sometimes two ficathons a year, plus a regular stream of other fic.  Unlike most fandoms, the Vorkosiverse doesn't have a gen/het divide.  Most fic is gen, or at least not focused on pairings.  LMB is known for creating fascinatingly intricate worlds and realistic characters; most of the fic explores that world and the characters in it.  Romance is a part of it; but usually in service to the characters and plot, rather than the other way around.


Fandom: VORKOSIVERSE
Characters: Simon Illyan, Aral Vorkosigan,
Lkength: 76k words
Author on LJ: philomytha , philomytha
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read:

Illyan is assigned to watch Aral Vorkosigan during the Escobaran war. Soon he has to choose between his duty and his conscience, and the consequences rapidly get beyond him.

Philomytha is one of the great authors of the Vorkosiverse.  She writes new fic pretty regularly, and they're all great.  This story is Simon Illyan's point of view of Shards of Honor (found in the Cordelia's Honor omnibus).  Barrayar is an unstable pit of vipers, filled with ruthless men.  Young Simon is an officer in ImpSec, the military secret police, which is aligned with Emperor Ezar.  ImpSec is locked in bitter rivalry with the Ministry of Political Education, the civilian secret police, which is aligned with Crown Prince Serg.  Ezar can't live much longer; Serg, (a paranoid psychopath) wants a military victory to cover himself with glory.  Simon Illyan gets thrown into the middle, assigned as bodyguard/watchdog to Commodore Lord Aral Vorkosigan, one of the few men not afraid of either Serg or the Ministry of Political Education, as the invasion of Escobar begins.  So there he is, in the middle of a power struggle within an invasion, trying to do his duty and follow orders, to survive, and to find something of goodness and honor in that mess.  Like all Philomytha's stories, this is well written and gripping.

Aral Vorkosigan's Dog

Comments

[empty-mirrors.livejournal.com]

Doubly recced. This is such an excellent story. It was the first I read in this fandom, before I'd even picked up the books, and so had no idea who was who and what was what. Still, Philomytha writing was engaging enough to suck me in and I ended up downloading the free CD and wallowing in the rest of the 'verse. I can't rec this story highly enough (or the fandom, actually).

[jirel.livejournal.com]

Wow! That was great, I hadn't really thought about book fandom before. Now I know I'll never run out of stories. :)

[beatrice_otter]

Few book fandoms are anywhere near as active as the Vorkosiverse. I'm glad you liked it!

[bustedflush.livejournal.com]

Just downloaded all the books and it's entirely your fault -- thank you!

[beatrice_otter]

You're welcome! One of the books isn't available there--Memory, which is a key volume in the middle. That, you have to get from a library or buy.

[bustedflush.livejournal.com]

Do I need to read them in order, or can I devour the rest then go get that one?

[beatrice_otter]

Well, all of LMB's books are written so that you can read them in any order. She's very big on making each one self-contained, so that if you read them in order they are enriched by their predecessors, but not dependent on them if you don't. So, yeah, you can read the rest and then go get *Memory*. However, *Memory* is a pivotal book that sends Miles' life careening off on another direction, so it would probably be better to read them in order, if possible. And from a fanfic standpoint, Memory is a key book because most of the major AU series branch off around that point in the timeline. (But, hey, you've got several books to go before you get to Memory, so you've got time to scrounge up a copy. Libraries are a good bet, and so are new book stores; you don't tend to find Bujold's books in used bookstores, as people don't tend to get rid of them.)