Lois McMaster Bujold

CONvergence is pleased to announce that Lois McMaster Bujold has agreed to be a Guest of Honor at our 2007 convention. Lois a Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of science fiction and fantasy, having won four Hugos in the Novel category, more than any other writer except for Robert A Heinlein. She is best known for her series of novels featuring Miles Vorkosigan, a severely disabled interstellar spy and mercenary admiral from planet Barrayar, a thousand years in our future. The Vorkosigan series incorporates a variety of genres, from space opera, to detective and even high-society romance.

Lois McMaster Bujold was born in Columbus, Ohio, and began reading adult science fiction at age nine, a taste she attributes to the influence of her father, engineer Robert Charles McMaster. "He was a professor of Welding Engineering at Ohio State and an old Cal Tech man," says Lois, "and used to buy the science fiction magazines and paperback books to read on the plane on consulting trips; these naturally fell to me. My reading tastes later expanded to include history, mysteries, romance, travel, war, poetry, etc."

After years spent starting her family, Lois began writing seriously in the early 1980s, completing her first novel, Shards of Honor, in 1983: the second, The Warrior's Apprentice, in 1984; and the third, Ethan of Athos, in 1985. Her first professional sale, however, came in late 1984 with the sale of a short story to Twilight Zone Magazine. It wasn't until a year later in 1985 when all three of Lois' completed novels were bought by Baen Books and published as original paperbacks in June, August, and December of the following year.

In 1987-1988, Analog Magazine serialized Falling Free, Lois' fourth novel and part of her Vorkosigan series, which would win Lois her first Nebula. "I was particularly pleased to be featured in Analog, my late father's favorite magazine," says Lois. "I still have the check stub from the gift subscription my father bought me when I was 13."

Lois won Nebula awards for Falling Free (1988), and for her novella The Mountains of Mourning (1989) she won both the Nebula and Hugo. Her other Hugo wins include The Vor Game (1990), Barrayar (1991), Mirror Dance (1994), and Paladin of Souls (2003).

Her fantasy novel The Curse of Chalion (2001) won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the 2002 World Fantasy Award for best novel. Her fourth Hugo was for Paladin of Souls, a sequel to The Curse of Chalion. A third book in the world of Chalion, The Hallowed Hunt, was published by Eos in June of 2005.

Lois has also edited several anthologies, starting with Women at War which she produced with Roland Green for Tor Books in 1995.

To learn more about Lois and her work, visit The Bujold Nexus, Lois's own fan-run website, at http://www.dendarii.com. Sample chapters of several of her SF titles are available at http://www.baen.com, along with a free download of the complete text of the award-winning novella The Mountains of Mourning in the Baen Free Library at http://www.baen.com/library/.