Talk:Vorkosigan Saga

Talk page edits from 2004
I'm confused as to what is the intention of this page (bear with me, I'm new here :-). Is it supposed to be the life story of Miles Vorkosigan, or an extended synopsis of the books in which he, or his family, appears? There are several episodes which are missing (in fact an entire book's worth): should I painstakingly include them, or is that TMI? Should there be more editorialisation or "just the facts"? Where should I look for examples?

It's odd - google/wiki search for vorkosigan fails to turn up this page. Why would it do that? The page has been around for over a year.

---As of November 7, 2006, this page is the fourth hit on Google for Vorkosigan

Yes, I'd expect to find a biography of Miles Vorkosigan here. Perhaps the chronological list of books should be on a separate page for the Vorkosigan Series.

Alternatively, if each book had its own page, the list could be incorporated into the Lois McMaster Bujold page. Why is it that Ethan of Athos rates its own page but none of the other books do? Ethan of Athos is one of the least significant books in the series, IMHO. Ekaterin 13:21, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

P.S. I have just added some chronological information about Miles' life, for the benefit of people who have never read a Bujold book. I hope you don't mind. Ekaterin 15:34, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Yep, that looks OK. Part of the problem is that the series doesn't have any official name: it's always been called "The Vorkosigan Saga" (see the Baen site or some such. So we don't have a consensus name which we could use for an article on the series as opposed to the character, although we could use that one if no-one objects. HTH HAND (gotta rush) --Phil | Talk

I've made lots more changes today. Did I get the order of events in Mirror Dance straight?


 * Mark pretends to be Miles and goes to Jackson's Whole to rescue clones.
 * Miles goes after him and gets killed.
 * Mark is taken home to meet his family.
 * Mark goes back to Jackson's Whole to look for Miles.

(Meanwhile, Miles has been picked up by House Fell and is recovering.)


 * Mark and the Dendarii find Miles, who is still suffering from cryo-amnesia.
 * Mark is captured by Baron Ryoval's thugs and tortured.
 * Miles recovers his memory and tries to escape with Rowan but is recaptured. He helps Rowan and Lilly Junior to escape.
 * Mark beats Baron Ryoval to death, flies over to the Durona Group and makes a Deal with Baron Fell.

I may flesh out A Civil Campaign more later, but I have to go now. Ekaterin 16:07, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Bolding
Is all the bolding of terms near the beginning of the article really necessary? AnonMoos 15:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
 * No, and they should be removed. --Fang Aili talk 18:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Story ordering
Should Diplomatic Immunity be read after Cetaganda? There are several references to how Cetaganda operates, and it seems like Cetaganda might make them easier to understand. Ealex292 05:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Content Question
Hello, I have a story content question I can't figure out. In Shards of Honor, it is revealed that Negri, Ezar, Aral schemed to assinate the Prince and such via the Escobar Invasion. Cordelia learns of this from Aral. During that conversation she says "I see why the other agent must have been the chief surgeon." Does anyone know why the surgeon had to be in on it, and how Cordelia figured that out? Thanks,  Dachande 21:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi. Generally, talk pages are for discussing the article, not the subject of the article. That said, I'm assuming that the surgeon needed to make sure that Serg died if he was brought back injured.--SarekOfVulcan 21:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for answering my "illegal" question. If anyone else has a better answer please post for my curiosity and for the sake of wikiRules, it may help improve the article.  Dachande 04:11, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The surgeon was also the (essential) source of various drugs used on Sgt. Bothari, and on Elena Visconti, without which various skullduggery, then and especially later, would have been impossible (or nearly so).


 * Remember, too, that Illyan was part of it. It's one of those things that only the reader knows when one gets to Memory, and the medical team is trying (per interim director General Haroche [Lois sneaks in one of her Heyeresque name-clues to character here]) to preserve the data on it. Of course, the only other people besides Illyan (whom we know to be still living; the surgeon hasn't appeared since Barrayar) who know the stuff that needs to stay buried are Aral & Cordelia, on Sergyar. In saving Illyan (but not an independent record of his memories), Miles is doing final cleanup for the Escobar Invasion plot. By the way, Aral was not one of the plotters; he was brought in as Ezar's instrument, not partner.


 * This is only one instance where points which make a telling impression on the reader who has read all of the early books. The reader who hasn't done so will be completely oblivious to it. In my opinion, one of the most delicious added pleasures of later books in any series by Lois is the complex layering. Readers who have read all the series see a real "squid on the mantel" (to use the term now long-used by people on the LMB maillist) in the scene in Memory where Miles has his first conference with Illyan's medical team. --Tygerbryght 21:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There is a problem here. Illyan didn't know about the plan to eliminate Serg and Vorrutyer.  Vorkosigan specifically states to Cordelia "You are quite right in deducing that Simon knows nothing."  Illyan didn't know, at least not at the time of the statement.  And also, Cordeila mentions that only five people knew of the plot while on Beta Colony:Ezar, Negri, Aral, Cordelia, Surgeon.  So, I am pretty convinced that if Illyan knew, he found out later, after the plot, most likely during vordarian's war, when he became Chief of ImpSec.  I know we aren't supposed to forum on here, but since most of the content of these pages is plot based, any better understanding of content we as a wikicommunity can get, will help improve the articles we make, I think.  Dachande 00:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

One of those snazzy boxes
Can anyone develop one of those snazzy boxes that goes at the bottom of an article with links to the main important things related to the article? YOu can find one at the bottom of Predator or at the bottom of any US state. I would include Main Characters, Saga/Universe Concepts (Vor, Auditor, ImpSec), Planets, etc. I got this idea from the Russian version of the Mark Vorkosigan Page. I don't know how to do this, and so feel ill equipped. Though, I may try to learn how in the near future. Dachande 23:18, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Serbian, Croatian
Reverted since I see know reason to show the Serbo-Croation names of the novels, since it isn't done for other languages or in other articles Vgranucci 13:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Reading Order
This section of the article is at best unencyclopaedic, at worst confusing and written like a review to boot. It needs either to be heavily re-written or completely removed.

I propose it to be removed and replaced with a "Chronology" section organizing the series according to its internal chronology of events. --The Fifth Horseman (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hah! I came here to comment on the same thing. I agree that it has to go. I recall seeing a chronology in the back of one of the books. I'll see if I can find it. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No need for a chronology, since the sections are organized that way (as noted in the intro). Clarityfiend (talk) 22:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be great if there was a clear list showing the order in which the books were written Bilz0r (talk) 08:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Vorkosigan Wiki!
New Vorkosigan wiki! - help me seed it! JAF1970 (talk) 23:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Walton retro-reviews at Tor
I started adding links to individual reviews in the body of the article, forgetting I'd put a link to the review series in the external links section, months ago. I'll let the additions stand (unless someone objects), but probably won't add the rest of them.

It's an interesting series of reviews -- I'd suggest starting with her summary comments here if you're new to them. Sample: "I’ve been re-reading them non-stop for a fortnight now. I’ve done 13 posts about them in 15 days. (I’ve been so entirely immersed in them I had a terrific dream about the Third Cetagandan War the other night.)...

I find them remarkably easy to be entirely absorbed in, and surprisingly hard to stand away from and analyse. Some of these posts I’ve managed it, others I’ve just burbled. Gossiping about the characters is easy."

As you can probably tell, I'm a great admirer of Jo Walton's reviews. She has a running key to them at her LiveJournal. Happy reading-- Pete Tillman (talk) 22:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Completely confusing
This article is way too in-universe and confusing. It needs re-ordering around a real world publication history. --87.194.194.215 (talk) 10:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll see what I can do about the confusing part. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:45, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm working on this too. I'm going to split out most of the books into their own articles; they certainly have the right to do so with all the award nominations etc. that they've earned. Eventual goal would be for this page to have no individual plot summaries, with instead an overall description of the series and then a list of the books with links. Princess Lirin (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks guys, what's critical is that it reflects the actual real world not the internal chronology. --87.194.194.250 (talk) 10:13, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Just a note to anybody who read the above discussion back in February—I am still working on splitting out the books into articles, basically along the lines of what I mentioned above. Obviously though, it's been taking a while; I've got a really full load at college and as much as I wish it could, Wikipedia doesn't always win out over, say, studying for Piano Literature. Eventual goal is still to have that section much shorter, as I described. There's already been a lot of progress: the article hasn't been this short and manageable since 2006! (Article size over time) Princess Lirin (talk) 01:36, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Series order
Since Bujold wrote the Vorkosigan books partially out of order of internal chronology, there are two different possible orderings of the series—publication order and internal chronological order. As many of the books now have their own articles, the question must be raised: which of these orderings do we use for "preceded by" and "followed by" in the infoboxes? I've been waiting to fill those in because I was unsure which choice to make, but I miss having that navigational tool available.

I found examples of how this is handled in the only two other series with this situation that I could think of off the top of my head: Redwall and The Chronicles of Narnia. The Redwall individual book articles use publication order, as you can see on the article for Lord Brocktree, the earliest in terms of internal chronology. They also have a nifty sortable table listing the books with publication date and chronological order at Redwall; I wonder if something like this might be nice in this article.

The Chronicles of Narnia books, which have had a controversial renumbering on their latest published editions (which is why I bought my set used) are also in publication order, with 6th-published The Magician's Nephew linking to the 5th- and 7th- published books.

After putting together all this evidence, I noticed that Wwoods' lovely Bujold navbox has the books and stories in order of publication. So that would seem to be another point in favor of this ordering...on the other hand, that means that the Vorkosigan Saga article would be the only place that the books would be listed in their internal chronological order, and not anywhere on the individual articles. Of course, for the books where that made a difference (e.g. Barrayar, which is a pretty direct sequel to Shards of Honor), that could be added in the text of the article.

Those are my thoughts—basically, although I personally read them for the first time in order of internal chronology and I think that's a great way to experience the series, it would appear that precedent indicates that the infoboxes should use publication order. Comments? Agreement? Disagreement? I'll leave this open for discussion for a while before I start adding this to the infoboxes. Princess Lirin (talk) 21:57, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Good points. I think they should be in publication order, not internal chronological order. Partly due to precedent, partly due to the fact that re-ordering them based on internal chronology is an editorial opinion when such an ordering differs from precedent and from an independent method used for all other series, such as publication order. The order of how to read them is up for debate, and that's the only reason why internal order matters. But Wikipedia isn't telling people how to read them, we're just providing encyclopedic information about them. Plus, it ends up being confusing to put it in chronological order since at least one of the books is a collection of novellas, I believe, which take place at different times within the internal chronology. So do you put it in the infoboxes multiple times?  Only once based on the story that takes place earliest in internal chronology or most recent? Bujold herself has said that people can pick up the story at any place they want and she has no preference. There are other precedents, too: The Dragonriders of Pern series is in publication order. In other media: The Indiana Jones movies and the Star Wars movies go by year of production in the boxes at the bottom.  I feel obligated to mention that the Horatio Hornblower book infoboxes go by internal order not order of publication.QuizzicalBee (talk) 23:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input, and for pointing out examples of other series. I went and took a look at the discussion at the Hornblower page, which basically amounted to "I prefer to read them in the internal chronology." "So do I!" without any real arguments given (none were needed since they were in agreement) except that the omnibuses use internal chronology. This is also the case for Vorkosigan, but I don't think that's nearly a strong enough argument to overcome our arguments above.
 * I'm going to go ahead and start adding preceded_by and followed_by entries where the articles exist. I'm not sure what to do about the novellas and short stories—I guess they should be treated just like the full-length novels once they get split out into their own articles. Princess Lirin (talk) 08:34, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Bujold has posted an essay on the order she suggests to read the books: "The Chef Recommends" --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

How about a separate article for Vorkosiverse?
The Background section -- as thorough and as detailed as it is -- has grown (to approx. 6 printed pages), threatening to dominate this whole article. Perhaps we should move that whole section to its own page, tentatively titled, say Vorkosiverse. Then, in its place within this article, create a "Setting" section which would just briefly talk about the Vorsogian Saga setting and refer readers to the new main Vorkosiverse article for more info.--BobC32 (talk) 00:56, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A very good idea, IMHO. I wouldn't name it Vokosiverse, but the concept would split the article nicely, and leave the Saga about, well, the Saga. Iglam (talk) 20:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Adding "Aftermaths"
Since that short story wasn't already mentioned in this article, I've just aded it in. In internal chronology, it falls between Shards of Honor and Barrayar (and appears between them in the Cordelia's Honor omnibus). Researching the publication order, I found -- much to my surprise, but per Michael Bernardi's listing -- the story saw print (in Far Frontiers volume V) just before Baen's first edition of Shards.--BobC32 (talk) 20:51, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Myspace 404
Note 24 (Bujold on series order) is a 404: ^ Lois McMaster Bujold (June 11, 2011). "The chef recommends". Myspace. Retrieved October 30, 2011. 72.196.110.11 (talk) 15:18, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Works - header
The header of the section Works states that "short story by Bujold, "Dreamweaver's Dilemma", which features a planet called Beta Colony and a character with the last name of Naismith". I have just finished reading that short story and there is no character named Naismith in it. Some editor can correct the header? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.33.46.93 (talk) 11:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

A question
I've done a lot of work on vorkosigan.wikia.com (mentioned above); would it be a useful reference for the work being done here on Wikipedia? (For example, its list of planets is more complete than the one at Wikipedia, and there's a list of space stations as well.) I'm not sure that I'm up to actually editing Wikipedia itself, but with some mentoring/guidance I might be willing to do so. I can be reached by email at huntkc at gmail.com. 173.79.35.170 (talk) 14:48, 12 January 2014 (UTC) (KarenHunt)

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Sub-article deleteion
There are pending nominations to delete articles associated with this subject. See: ~Kvng (talk) 20:51, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) Articles for deletion/Barrayaran Imperial Military Service
 * 2) Articles for deletion/District Count of Barrayar
 * 3) Articles for deletion/Haut (Cetaganda)
 * 4) Articles for deletion/Jackson's Whole
 * 5) Articles for deletion/Ghem (Cetaganda)
 * 6) Articles for deletion/Sergyar
 * 7) Articles for deletion/Dendarii Mercenaries
 * 8) Articles for deletion/Koudelka (Barrayar)
 * 9) Articles for deletion/Simon Illyan
 * 10) Articles for deletion/Ezar Vorbarra
 * 11) Articles for deletion/Gregor Vorbarra
 * 12) Articles for deletion/Vorbarra
 * 13) Articles for deletion/Ivan Vorpatril
 * 14) Articles for deletion/Aral Vorkosigan
 * 15) Articles for deletion/Piotr Vorkosigan
 * 16) Articles for deletion/Cordelia Naismith

List of characters?
I missed the entire debate about deleting articles, but I can understand the deletion. However, other works with a large amount of characters have their own lists of characters, like Glee ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Glee_characters ) or Angels and Demons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Angels_%26_Demons_characters ) even if the second one has a much smaller cast than the Vorkosigan series. So I was wondering if it would be relevant, convienient and necessary to create a list of characters for this saga. Probably much more concise than these list, they seem too verbose for my taste.

Any opinions?

Not A Superhero (talk) 01:33, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Two Questions
1. External References: I noticed the external references does not include Lois's blog on goodreads; seems that might be useful. It does have the dendarii site, but that one hasn't been updated in some years. I'd kind of like to add my own site (vorkosigan.fandom.com), is it suitable?

2. I see the mention of attractive women having milk/ivory arms is still in the article, though with some qualifications added. I'd say it is not very accurate and should just go. Even in the early tales, this was incomplete at best: Ethan of Athos has Ethan admiring the looks of Bharaputrans whose skin color was coffe-and-cream, which he thought was very elegant, and Brothers in Arms has a very attractive woman who is "chocolate" (she also has a "zaftig pulchritude, like a very enticing mattress"). Later tales we have Tej who is a very attractive cinnamon color and her father (not terribly attractive, admittedly) is mahogany.

KarenCHunt (talk) 00:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)