Why Lois McMaster Bujold Is Awesome

I was having a rough week.  A really rough week.

I came home to find an email from Lois McMaster Bujold, one of my favorite authors for the last seventeen years or so.  She'd been cleaning out her work room and stumbled across something I'd given her at a signing event a couple of years ago, and she went to the trouble to write me a note and to let me know that there is a new book coming out in time for my next birthday.  (!!!!!!!!!!)  She didn't, of course, know that it was in time for my birthday, but I did.  :)

She was funny and self-deprecating and told me about her own experience with chronic pain and about a pain textbook writer who used a Miles quote in a textbook to head up a section about pain management.  Hooray!

She was responding because of an essay I wrote that was basically made possible by Miles.  I had been having trouble with my writing because chronic pain and sleeplessness were taking their toll on my concentration, and I could no longer create the longer form essays I wanted. 

With the help of "Miles Quotes" written by Lois McMaster Bujold in her Vorkosigan series and a wonderful professor who encouraged me to create my own essay form, I was able to create an essay about my helplessness and some of my experiences with pain.  It was held together by quotes about pain, most of them from Miles Vorkosigan, a wonderful con-man with a lot of experience with pain.

I included a note telling her I wasn't looking for comments or criticism; rather, I just wanted to thank her and show her how important her work has been in my life.  That's why I was so surprised to discover a response.

If I ever become an author, I will remember this.  If I can make someone as happy as this favorite author made me, I would like to do so.

Now, you should all go read her books.  They are wonderful.



Do you have a favorite Miles book?  A favorite series?