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New Miles book announced

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Dave Roy

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Jul 20, 2006, 2:25:09 AM7/20/06
to
Well, the fact that Bujold is writing one, anyway.

Just received a Baen newsletter email, and it talks about "Cornerstone
Acquisitions" from some of Baen's biggest names: Ringo, Weber, Flint,
and Bujold.

Apparently, Bujold has now been contracted to write a new Vorkosigan
book as part of this program.

Weber will have a new Honor Harrington book, Ringo will be writing
three more Posleen books, and Flint is contracted for three solo
novels in his "1632" universe.

Good reading all around, but it'll be nice to see a new Miles story.

The release is dated "for immediate release" for July 20, so it should
be up on their website soon, I would guess.

Dave

Dave Roy

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Jul 20, 2006, 2:26:27 AM7/20/06
to
Damn. Should have checked the web site first. It already is on their
site:

http://www.baen.com/cornerstone.htm

Dave

Message has been deleted

Gene Ward Smith

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Jul 20, 2006, 3:36:15 AM7/20/06
to
Dave Roy wrote:

> Just received a Baen newsletter email, and it talks about "Cornerstone
> Acquisitions" from some of Baen's biggest names: Ringo, Weber, Flint,
> and Bujold.

Anybody reading this might get the impression that these four were
peers. It just goes to show that sell-through does matter.

sigi...@yahoo.com

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Jul 20, 2006, 4:26:55 AM7/20/06
to

I wonder what brought her back to Baen?

Her last original book for them was _Diplomatic Immunity_, which was
written in 2000-2001 and published in early '02. Her last book for
them of any sort was _Miles, Mystery and Mayhem_, which I believe was
early '03 -- but that was an omnibus collection of earlier stuff.

So, assuming the new thing comes out in 2007, that's a five-year
hiatus. More likely six, though, since she only just finished the
Sharing Knife duo, and Lois doesn't usually work on two books at a
time. Her writing times are usually on-the-order-of a year, and then
it's another year to hardcover publication, so we're probably talking
early 2008.

Of course, it's also a six-year hiatus away from the Vorkosiverse.
Since 2002, she's produced the three Chalion novels and _Beguilement_.
(The second Sharing Knife book comes out next summer.)

Apparently Vorkosiverse = Baen. But I wonder why. Lois is now popular
enough to pick and choose. Did Baen bid the highest, or were there
other considerations?

Oh, well -- a new Bujold book is generally a good thing, wherever it
comes from.


Doug M.

David Goldfarb

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Jul 20, 2006, 5:27:04 AM7/20/06
to
In article <1153380854.3...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Dave Roy wrote:
>> Just received a Baen newsletter email, and it talks about "Cornerstone
>> Acquisitions" from some of Baen's biggest names: Ringo, Weber, Flint,
>> and Bujold.
>
>Anybody reading this might get the impression that these five were
>peers. It just goes to show that sell-though does matter.

Five?

--
David Goldfarb |"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | uncertainty!"
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's
| Guide to the Galaxy_

Nancy Lebovitz

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Jul 20, 2006, 5:44:56 AM7/20/06
to
In article <1153384015.0...@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,

<sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?

Is anything known about why she and/or Baen decided not to publish
her recent fantasy novels?
>
(......)

>Apparently Vorkosiverse = Baen. But I wonder why. Lois is now popular
>enough to pick and choose. Did Baen bid the highest, or were there
>other considerations?

Gratitude to her first publisher and/or that Baen still does the
best electronic publishing (which could lead to more sales even if the
deal is comparable) could be good reasons.
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com

http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".

James Nicoll

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Jul 20, 2006, 8:42:00 AM7/20/06
to
In article <e9ni98$2np0$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,

David Goldfarb <gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <1153380854.3...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
>Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Dave Roy wrote:
>>> Just received a Baen newsletter email, and it talks about "Cornerstone
>>> Acquisitions" from some of Baen's biggest names: Ringo, Weber, Flint,
>>> and Bujold.
>>
>>Anybody reading this might get the impression that these five were
>>peers. It just goes to show that sell-though does matter.
>
>Five?
>
You've missed the exciting space opera of And?
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

James Nicoll

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Jul 20, 2006, 8:45:13 AM7/20/06
to
>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
>


Astounding (John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology)
Edited by Harry Harrison
Ballantine (December 1974)
324 pages ($1.95)

John W. Campbell was one of, if the not the most, influential
editors of his day. One might argue that his day as an editor went on
too long and that many of his quirks and foibles were at best unfortunate
but in his early days, his effect on magazine SF was mostly positive.

When he died in 1971, Harry Harrison organised a memorial
anthology in his honour, featuring some of the authors JWC helped.

Of the thirteen authors who contributed to this volume, I
believe only two or three are still alive today (Harrison, Clement and
perhaps Thomas). Of the eleven who have died, three did so in the last
year (Anderson, De Camp and Dickson). Given the general air of loss in
some of these stories, rereading this collection was not what I would
call an upbeat experience.

Introduction: The Father of Science Fiction (Isaac Asimov
[1920-1992]): A short piece on the works of JWC and IA's interactions
with him.

Lodestar (Poul Anderson [1926-2001]): The story of how Falkayn
became disenchanted with capitalism as practiced by the League and how he
and van Rijn's daughter betrayed the old man. This is the point when
the Polesotechnic League died, I think. There was at least one novel
after this but the League's soul was dead in it.

Anderson's quirks are awfully distracting in this.

Thiotimoline To The Stars (Isaac Asimov [1920-1992]): Another
in this series of light entertainments about a material which dissolves
just before you add water. IMS, Asimov got a question about Thiotimoline
when he was doing his defence.

Light, mildly amusing.

Something Up There Likes Me (Alfred Bester [1913-1987]): The
tale of two nerds and their super-intelligent satellite.

Light fluff considering what Bester could do but miles better
than what was to follow. Anyone want a review of _Golem: 100_?

Lecture Demonstration (Hal Clement [1922-TBA]): CLement
returns to Mesklin for a demonstration of applied chemistry.

Better than I make it sound. I have always liked Clement's
work.

Early Bird (Theodore R. Cogswell [1918-1987] &
Theodore L. Thomas [1920-?]): A star fighter and its pilot
accidentally have sex with an alien bird and acquire the ability
to fight a bunch of intersteller mauraders.

Forced, kind of stupid. Didn't much care for it.

The Emperor's Fan (L. Sprague De Camp [1907-2001]): the ruler
of a land vaguely like the European view of Imperial China acquired a
magic fan which makes things disappear and reappear. He misuses it,
misrules his nation and eventually is betrayed but his betrayer is
himself a victim of the fan.

Set in the same world as _The Fallible Fiend_, I have a soft spot
for this setting. The ending is somewhat telegraphed but I didn't care.

Brothers (Gordon R. Dickson [1923-2001]): The story of the death
of Kensie Graeme and what his dark, rather Heathcliffish brother does
about it.

Moody and bleak. Some interesting comments about the problems
Dickson had getting long books published in the 1960s.

The Mothballed Spaceship (Harry Harrison [1925-TBA]): The
central trio of Jason, Kerk and Meta from the Deathworld series
return in this Harrison tale crafted long before he cottoned onto
the financial possibilities of anti-British hate literature thinly
disguised as lousy alternate history. They must demothball a five
thousand year old starship and have a deadline to do it in. Although
they do deduce many things about the message needed, the two men think
they don't have enough time to rattle through all the permutations of
the code (Apparently, the AI on the ship is _really_ stupid) and
try a brute force approach while Meta uses her head and saves the
two men.

This didn't stink anywhere near what Harrison's recent output
led me to expect. Points for letting Meta save the day. No stupider
a story than any of the other Deathworld stories. I am impressed by
any ship which keeps workign after five millennia in mothballs.

Black Sheep Astray (Mack Reynolds [1917-1983]): Reynolds
returns to the attempt by a number of Black Americans to modernise
North Africa. They had held power for years without achieving many
of their goals and an attempt by the son of the leader, Crawford,
to depose Crawford allows a Kleptocrat to seiize control of the
military and the government. The story ends with the older generation
preparing a suicidal guerilla war on the kleptocrat in order to
give the son a chance to grab power and make things right.

This was far better than I feared, given how completely
dreadful the last Reynold I reread was. I think Reynolds was just
plain wrong on a lot of points (He bought into the the CLub of
Rome twaddle hook line and sinker) but the story moves right
along.

Epilogue (Clifford D. Simak [1904-1988]): The immortal robot
(as all robots can be) Jenkins returns to the Earth where he was first
built. Man is gone, fled to Jupiter and transformation into something
better than Man (Or Dog). The Dogs who replaced Man have also gone, long
after losing the original Earth to the Ants and although the Dogs
had any number of parallel worlds to live in when they left Earth,
they are not merely gone but extinct. Jenkins returns to Webster
House to find it untouched by the technological culture of the Ants
He discovers that the Ants themselves are not immune to time and they
too are vanished from the world. Jenkins meets some wild robots who
millions of years ago took their leave of Man and the Earth for the
stars and comes to realise that it is time for his final farewell
to Earth, Man and the biological intelligences he knew and in some
cases, served.

Possibly the best story in the collection. How I missed how
bone breakingly depressing the City stories are when I was a kind I
do not know, but "Epilogue" is the worst in that regard.

Interlude (George O. Smith [1911-1981]): Wacky fun with the
Venus Equilateral boys and a teleportation device with undocumented
features.

Light, fluffy but at least not as sad as many of the other
stories.

Helix the Cat (Theodore Sturgeon [1918-1985]): An inventor,
having accidentally made a type of glass which can trap souls, agrees
to help one soul possess the inventor's cat, Helix. This requires
some upgrades in the cat and its mind fisrst and only the cat
ends up happy at the results.

Did the world really need a feline Moriarity? Well,
maybe not but none of the humans shows much in the way of
ethics towards the cat. Amusing fluff.

The Population Implosion (Theodore R. Cogswell[ 1918-1987]):
a puff piece misusing math to "prove" the population is rapidly descreasing.
Mostly harmless.

On the whole, I enjoyed the collection, for morose values of 'enjoy'.
Recommended, if you can find a copy.

Joe Bernstein

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 10:10:43 AM7/20/06
to
In article <e9njao$5b6$1...@reader2.panix.com>, Nancy Lebovitz
<nan...@panix.com> wrote:

> >I wonder what brought her back to Baen?

> Is anything known about why she and/or Baen decided not to publish
> her recent fantasy novels?

I'm curious too, but in the absence of knowledge have mostly assumed
it was an example of something Lawrence Watt-Evans has talked about
(the chain bookstores are less evil to new series if there's also
a publisher switch). In particular it wouldn't *shock* me if
<Diplomatic Immunity> had had mildly disappointing sales, which
would, if true, add bite to that impetus.

> >Apparently Vorkosiverse = Baen. But I wonder why. Lois is now popular
> >enough to pick and choose. Did Baen bid the highest, or were there
> >other considerations?

> Gratitude to her first publisher and/or that Baen still does the
> best electronic publishing (which could lead to more sales even if the
> deal is comparable) could be good reasons.

Or as James Nicoll pointed out by implication, could be this is an
attempt to do an "in honour of" thing for Jim Baen.

Joe Bernstein

--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/> "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."
<Glass Mountain>, Cynthia Voigt

Tony Zbaraschuk

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Jul 20, 2006, 10:28:38 AM7/20/06
to
In article <r58ub2dnjs1gt35d2...@4ax.com>,

Dave Roy <hi...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>Well, the fact that Bujold is writing one, anyway.
>
>Just received a Baen newsletter email, and it talks about "Cornerstone
>Acquisitions" from some of Baen's biggest names: Ringo, Weber, Flint,
>and Bujold.
>
>Apparently, Bujold has now been contracted to write a new Vorkosigan
>book as part of this program.

Lois has confirmed this on the Bujold mailing list, but points out
that she has to finish her current duology first, and reminds us that
she has never had the Fast Writing Merit Badge. IOW, this is an "I
just signed the contract" thing, not an announcement that the book
will be out in the immediate future.


Tony Z

--
My information does not want to be free; it wants to pay my mortgage.
--John Scalzi

dlan...@aol.com

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Jul 20, 2006, 11:19:45 AM7/20/06
to

I belive that it is usually more effective for an author to have all
the books in a single series put out by the same publisher. Indeed I
understand that on many occasions, other publishers are unwilling to
undertake a new work in an existing series if they can't also get the
rights to the backlist volumes in that series. Even though Miles is big
enough that LMB could probably get another publisher to take the series
on, the new book is probably more valuable to Baen (because it will
also spur sales of other books in the series) than it would be to any
other publisher. There may well be other reasons for this choice as
well, some of which are suggested by others in this thread.

-Don L.

Mike Schilling

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 11:26:17 AM7/20/06
to

<dlan...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1153408784.9...@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

>
> I belive that it is usually more effective for an author to have all
> the books in a single series put out by the same publisher. Indeed I
> understand that on many occasions, other publishers are unwilling to
> undertake a new work in an existing series if they can't also get the
> rights to the backlist volumes in that series.

It does happen, of course. The example that comes to mind is Vlad Taltos
moving from Ace to Tor, with Ace keeping the rights to the first seven
(though Tor is the publisher of all the Khaavren books.)


dlan...@aol.com

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 11:34:36 AM7/20/06
to

James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1153384015.0...@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> <sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
> >
>
>
> Astounding (John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology)
> Edited by Harry Harrison
> Ballantine (December 1974)
> 324 pages ($1.95)
>
> John W. Campbell was one of, if the not the most, influential
> editors of his day. One might argue that his day as an editor went on
> too long and that many of his quirks and foibles were at best unfortunate
> but in his early days, his effect on magazine SF was mostly positive.
>
> When he died in 1971, Harry Harrison organised a memorial
> anthology in his honour, featuring some of the authors JWC helped.

For the most part, authors delivered new storeis in series that had
been initiated under JWC's editorship, often ones that had been
considered long closed.

>
> Of the thirteen authors who contributed to this volume, I
> believe only two or three are still alive today (Harrison, Clement and
> perhaps Thomas). Of the eleven who have died, three did so in the last
> year (Anderson, De Camp and Dickson). Given the general air of loss in
> some of these stories, rereading this collection was not what I would
> call an upbeat experience.
>
> Introduction: The Father of Science Fiction (Isaac Asimov
> [1920-1992]): A short piece on the works of JWC and IA's interactions
> with him.
>
> Lodestar (Poul Anderson [1926-2001]): The story of how Falkayn
> became disenchanted with capitalism as practiced by the League and how he
> and van Rijn's daughter betrayed the old man. This is the point when
> the Polesotechnic League died, I think. There was at least one novel
> after this but the League's soul was dead in it.

This became the effective intro to/setup for _Mirkhiem_, the novel that
realy shoed the death of the Polesotechnic League. Note that the Van
Rijn/Falkayn sereis had been publsied under JWC's editorship.

>
> Anderson's quirks are awfully distracting in this.

I didn't find it so -- I wonder which aspects of his writing you refer
to.


>
> Thiotimoline To The Stars (Isaac Asimov [1920-1992]): Another
> in this series of light entertainments about a material which dissolves
> just before you add water. IMS, Asimov got a question about Thiotimoline
> when he was doing his defence.

And the original Thiotimoline was published in Astouinding. IA had
asked for it to be under a peusdonym, but it wasn't, possibly by
oversite, possibly by deliberate choice of JWC. There was at least one
other Thiotimoline story, but I haven't read it.
>
> Light, mildly amusing.

I agree, and it ends with a truly dreadful pun.


>
> Something Up There Likes Me (Alfred Bester [1913-1987]): The
> tale of two nerds and their super-intelligent satellite.
>
> Light fluff considering what Bester could do but miles better
> than what was to follow. Anyone want a review of _Golem: 100_?
>
> Lecture Demonstration (Hal Clement [1922-TBA]): CLement
> returns to Mesklin for a demonstration of applied chemistry.

And again, _Mission of Gravity_ was almost a prototypical Astounding
stroy, particularly with the accompanying "behind the scenes' article
"Whirligig World"


>
> Better than I make it sound. I have always liked Clement's
> work.
>
> Early Bird (Theodore R. Cogswell [1918-1987] &
> Theodore L. Thomas [1920-?]): A star fighter and its pilot
> accidentally have sex with an alien bird and acquire the ability
> to fight a bunch of intersteller mauraders.
>
> Forced, kind of stupid. Didn't much care for it.

Note that this is a direct sequel to "The Specter General" a classic
Cogswell story (included in the Scinece Fiction Hall of Fame anthology)
and published in Astounding. It is not, IMO, nearly up to the standards
of "TSG".

>
> The Emperor's Fan (L. Sprague De Camp [1907-2001]): the ruler
> of a land vaguely like the European view of Imperial China acquired a
> magic fan which makes things disappear and reappear. He misuses it,
> misrules his nation and eventually is betrayed but his betrayer is
> himself a victim of the fan.
>
> Set in the same world as _The Fallible Fiend_, I have a soft spot
> for this setting. The ending is somewhat telegraphed but I didn't care.

I am very fond of this also. Again note that _The Fallible Fiend_, and
_The Goblin Tower_ were publsihed by JWC.


>
> Brothers (Gordon R. Dickson [1923-2001]): The story of the death
> of Kensie Graeme and what his dark, rather Heathcliffish brother does
> about it.
>
> Moody and bleak. Some interesting comments about the problems
> Dickson had getting long books published in the 1960s.

Characters from this reappear in the novel version of _Soldier, Ask
not_


>
> The Mothballed Spaceship (Harry Harrison [1925-TBA]): The
> central trio of Jason, Kerk and Meta from the Deathworld series
> return in this Harrison tale crafted long before he cottoned onto
> the financial possibilities of anti-British hate literature thinly
> disguised as lousy alternate history. They must demothball a five
> thousand year old starship and have a deadline to do it in. Although
> they do deduce many things about the message needed, the two men think
> they don't have enough time to rattle through all the permutations of
> the code (Apparently, the AI on the ship is _really_ stupid) and
> try a brute force approach while Meta uses her head and saves the
> two men.
>
> This didn't stink anywhere near what Harrison's recent output
> led me to expect. Points for letting Meta save the day. No stupider
> a story than any of the other Deathworld stories. I am impressed by
> any ship which keeps workign after five millennia in mothballs.

But its programming was really lame.


>
> Black Sheep Astray (Mack Reynolds [1917-1983]): Reynolds
> returns to the attempt by a number of Black Americans to modernise
> North Africa. They had held power for years without achieving many
> of their goals and an attempt by the son of the leader, Crawford,
> to depose Crawford allows a Kleptocrat to seiize control of the
> military and the government. The story ends with the older generation
> preparing a suicidal guerilla war on the kleptocrat in order to
> give the son a chance to grab power and make things right.
>
> This was far better than I feared, given how completely
> dreadful the last Reynold I reread was. I think Reynolds was just
> plain wrong on a lot of points (He bought into the the CLub of
> Rome twaddle hook line and sinker) but the story moves right
> along.

Again note that the previous works in this series first apepared in
Astounding..

>
> Epilogue (Clifford D. Simak [1904-1988]): The immortal robot
> (as all robots can be) Jenkins returns to the Earth where he was first
> built. Man is gone, fled to Jupiter and transformation into something
> better than Man (Or Dog). The Dogs who replaced Man have also gone, long
> after losing the original Earth to the Ants and although the Dogs
> had any number of parallel worlds to live in when they left Earth,
> they are not merely gone but extinct. Jenkins returns to Webster
> House to find it untouched by the technological culture of the Ants
> He discovers that the Ants themselves are not immune to time and they
> too are vanished from the world. Jenkins meets some wild robots who
> millions of years ago took their leave of Man and the Earth for the
> stars and comes to realise that it is time for his final farewell
> to Earth, Man and the biological intelligences he knew and in some
> cases, served.
>
> Possibly the best story in the collection. How I missed how
> bone breakingly depressing the City stories are when I was a kind I
> do not know, but "Epilogue" is the worst in that regard.

Some are more downbeat than others, but this one is a very eliagiac
piece.

>
> Interlude (George O. Smith [1911-1981]): Wacky fun with the
> Venus Equilateral boys and a teleportation device with undocumented
> features.
>
> Light, fluffy but at least not as sad as many of the other
> stories.

Not sad at all, more a VEQ: The Next Generation piece


>
> Helix the Cat (Theodore Sturgeon [1918-1985]): An inventor,
> having accidentally made a type of glass which can trap souls, agrees
> to help one soul possess the inventor's cat, Helix. This requires
> some upgrades in the cat and its mind fisrst and only the cat
> ends up happy at the results.
>
> Did the world really need a feline Moriarity? Well,
> maybe not but none of the humans shows much in the way of
> ethics towards the cat. Amusing fluff.

I thought it was a bit better than fluff, albiet hardly Stuigeon's best
work.


>
> The Population Implosion (Theodore R. Cogswell[ 1918-1987]):
> a puff piece misusing math to "prove" the population is rapidly descreasing.
> Mostly harmless.
>
> On the whole, I enjoyed the collection, for morose values of 'enjoy'.
> Recommended, if you can find a copy.

I have owned a copy for years -- i think it isn't to hard to find used
online..

-Don L.

Lawrence Watt-Evans

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 12:22:29 PM7/20/06
to
On 20 Jul 2006 01:26:55 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:

>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
>

>Apparently Vorkosiverse = Baen. But I wonder why. Lois is now popular
>enough to pick and choose. Did Baen bid the highest, or were there
>other considerations?

One other consideration would be the option clause in her last
contract with them, which probably promised Baen right of first
refusal for the next novel featuring Miles Vorkosigan.

Almost every publishing contract includes an option clause saying the
publisher has first dibs on something. For a beginning author it's
usually "next book." For someone a bit more established it's "next
book in the same genre." For a name author (or someone with a good
agent or a weird track record) it's "next book in the same series."

Option clauses can be broken, but it's usually not worth the hassle.

--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
The first issue of Helix is at http://www.helixsf.com

sigi...@yahoo.com

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 3:30:25 PM7/20/06
to

Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:

> One other consideration would be the option clause in her last
> contract with them, which probably promised Baen right of first
> refusal for the next novel featuring Miles Vorkosigan.

Good point! Thank you.

BTW, it's still unclear to me whether this is a Miles book, or a
non-Miles Vorkosiverse book, like _Ethan of Athos_ or _Falling Free_.

Anybody?


Doug M.

co...@aol.com

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 3:51:12 PM7/20/06
to
Douglas Muir wrote:

I hope it's about Ethan enjoying married life.

Mike Schilling

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 4:51:33 PM7/20/06
to

<co...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1153425072....@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

"What a nice present! You always know exactly what I need."


kittent

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Jul 20, 2006, 5:12:40 PM7/20/06
to

James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1153384015.0...@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> <sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
> >
>
>
> Astounding (John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology)
> Edited by Harry Harrison
> Ballantine (December 1974)
> 324 pages ($1.95)
>
> John W. Campbell was one of, if the not the most, influential
> editors of his day. One might argue that his day as an editor went on
> too long and that many of his quirks and foibles were at best unfortunate
> but in his early days, his effect on magazine SF was mostly positive.
>
[ ]

i am confused. what did the review of John Campbell's Memorial
Anthology have to do with the question "why did Lois Bujold come back
to Baen"?

hugs,

kitten

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 5:19:52 PM7/20/06
to
In article <1153429960.4...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,

kittent <kit...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>i am confused. what did the review of John Campbell's Memorial
>Anthology have to do with the question "why did Lois Bujold come back
>to Baen"?
>
>hugs,
>
>kitten
>

Jim Baen just died, so there might be sentimental resons for Bujold to
do something for the company he founded, where she got her big break.

(The Campbell anthology was done to honor Campbell after his passing).


Ted

Mark Blunden

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 5:20:18 PM7/20/06
to
James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <e9ni98$2np0$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> David Goldfarb <gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>> In article <1153380854.3...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
>> Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Dave Roy wrote:
>>>> Just received a Baen newsletter email, and it talks about
>>>> "Cornerstone Acquisitions" from some of Baen's biggest names:
>>>> Ringo, Weber, Flint, and Bujold.
>>>
>>> Anybody reading this might get the impression that these five were
>>> peers. It just goes to show that sell-though does matter.
>>
>> Five?
>>
> You've missed the exciting space opera of And?

Ah. The legendary Fifth Baen.

--
Mark.


Gene Ward Smith

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 5:52:45 PM7/20/06
to

Mark Blunden wrote:

> >>> Anybody reading this might get the impression that these five were
> >>> peers. It just goes to show that sell-though does matter.
> >>
> >> Five?
> >>
> > You've missed the exciting space opera of And?
>
> Ah. The legendary Fifth Baen.

The really sad thing is that I think it was less than a minute between
when I posted it and when I canceled it.

James Nicoll

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 6:30:51 PM7/20/06
to
In article <1153432365....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,

Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
Cancels pretty much don't work any more. Thank Dick Depew,
among others.

Andrew Wheeler

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 7:51:31 PM7/20/06
to
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
> In article <1153384015.0...@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> <sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
>
> Is anything known about why she and/or Baen decided not to publish
> her recent fantasy novels?

She said somewhere recently (I think it was a _Locus_ interview, but I
could be wrong) that she wrote _The Curse of Chalion_ on spec, and then
had her agent put it up to auction. The impression I got was that the
auction was hotter than she (and possibly the agent) expected, and that
Eos walked away with _Curse_.

She said in the same place that would give Baen first look at any future
SF projects; it seemed clear that she does feel some loyalty to them.

It's not at all uncommon for writers to have different publishing houses
for their SF and fantasy (or SF and mystery, or any two genres/areas
that they regularly publish in).

--
Andrew Wheeler: Professional Editor, Amateur Wise-Acre
--
If you enjoyed this post, try my blog at
http://antickmusings.blogspot.com
If you hated this post, you probably have bad taste anyway.

John Schilling

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 8:30:19 PM7/20/06
to
On 20 Jul 2006 01:26:55 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:


>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?

Presumably, the desire to do another Vorkosigan novel. If the book
she writes after that is a Chalion book, I predict it will be published
by Harper Collins, if yet another Vorkosigan, by Baen.

Nothing wrong with that. Publishing houses don't own authors, and it
is fairly common for an author to use one house for one series or
genre and go with someone different for another. Baen, is interested
in publishing Vorkosigan stories and is demonstrably good at publishing
Vorkosigan stories, so why try to publish a Vorkosigan story anywhere
else?

High fantasy, OTOH, has not traditionally been one of Baen's core
competencies, so why try to publish a Chalion book there?


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

Dave Roy

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 8:50:13 PM7/20/06
to
On 20 Jul 2006 14:28:38 GMT, to...@eskimo.com (Tony Zbaraschuk) wrote:

>In article <r58ub2dnjs1gt35d2...@4ax.com>,
>Dave Roy <hi...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>>Well, the fact that Bujold is writing one, anyway.
>>
>>Just received a Baen newsletter email, and it talks about "Cornerstone
>>Acquisitions" from some of Baen's biggest names: Ringo, Weber, Flint,
>>and Bujold.
>>
>>Apparently, Bujold has now been contracted to write a new Vorkosigan
>>book as part of this program.
>
>Lois has confirmed this on the Bujold mailing list, but points out
>that she has to finish her current duology first, and reminds us that
>she has never had the Fast Writing Merit Badge. IOW, this is an "I
>just signed the contract" thing, not an announcement that the book
>will be out in the immediate future.

Oh, I certainly understand that. I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.

This was just an annoucement that there *will* be another one.
Considering I was beginning to wonder if she was tired of Miles, this
was good news. No matter how long it takes to get here.

Dave

Keith Stokes

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 8:50:30 PM7/20/06
to
On 20 Jul 2006 01:26:55 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:

>
>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?

Perhaps Baen had first right of refusal on the next Miles' book.

Keith

Dave Roy

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 8:50:56 PM7/20/06
to

The site does say that it will be a "new Miles Vorkosigan novel," so
I'm assuming that it will be a Miles book.

Dave

Keith Stokes

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 8:52:34 PM7/20/06
to
On 20 Jul 2006 14:12:40 -0700, "kittent" <kit...@gmail.com> wrote:


>i am confused. what did the review of John Campbell's Memorial
>Anthology have to do with the question "why did Lois Bujold come back
>to Baen"?

Oh good, I am not the only one baffled by that.

Keith

J Moreno

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 9:46:23 PM7/20/06
to
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:

> On 20 Jul 2006 01:26:55 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> >I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
> >
> >Apparently Vorkosiverse = Baen. But I wonder why. Lois is now popular
> >enough to pick and choose. Did Baen bid the highest, or were there
> >other considerations?
>
> One other consideration would be the option clause in her last
> contract with them, which probably promised Baen right of first
> refusal for the next novel featuring Miles Vorkosigan.

I believe the simple and obvious other consideration is the case -- Jim
Baen just died and she is promising them a book to honor his memory.

John Ringo posted to his place on Baen's bar that a bunch of Baen
authors owed Baen's memory a book, looks to me like he's not the only
one to think so.

--
JM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg

lclough

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Jul 20, 2006, 10:06:17 PM7/20/06
to
Dave Roy wrote:


And think of how many, many energetic and endless threads can be
generated in the next X years, about Where the Next Book Is, How
the Writing is Getting On, and How Come It Isn't Out Yet?!?!?

Brenda


--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/

Recent short fiction:
FUTURE WASHINGTON (WSFA Press, October '05)
http://www.futurewashington.com

FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html

lclough

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 10:10:22 PM7/20/06
to
J Moreno wrote:

> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>
>>On 20 Jul 2006 01:26:55 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
>>>
>>>Apparently Vorkosiverse = Baen. But I wonder why. Lois is now popular
>>>enough to pick and choose. Did Baen bid the highest, or were there
>>>other considerations?
>>
>>One other consideration would be the option clause in her last
>>contract with them, which probably promised Baen right of first
>>refusal for the next novel featuring Miles Vorkosigan.
>
>
> I believe the simple and obvious other consideration is the case -- Jim
> Baen just died and she is promising them a book to honor his memory.
>

Possible, but not probable. This is a -business-, you know.
Turn it around the other way -- if Lois suddenly died, would her
publisher be more anxious to acquire her manuscript?

Also, a book contract is not the sort of thing you just pop out
of the oven. The deal has probably been in negotiation all this
year.

J Moreno

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 11:00:09 PM7/20/06
to
lclough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:

> J Moreno wrote:
-snip why did Lois sign a new contract for a Miles book?-


> > I believe the simple and obvious other consideration is the case -- Jim
> > Baen just died and she is promising them a book to honor his memory.
>
> Possible, but not probable. This is a -business-, you know.
> Turn it around the other way -- if Lois suddenly died, would her
> publisher be more anxious to acquire her manuscript?

Yeah. Particularly if her publisher was Jim Baen and she left
dependents that needed the money (I remember someone saying that Baen
took his last couple of novels in order to give him money while he was
dying of cancer).

It's a business, but people are people and that has an effect on ANY
business.

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

unread,
Jul 20, 2006, 11:46:01 PM7/20/06
to
In article <dndvb2l7sjrq0p736...@4ax.com>,

John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>
>
>On 20 Jul 2006 01:26:55 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>
>>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
>
>Presumably, the desire to do another Vorkosigan novel. If the book
>she writes after that is a Chalion book, I predict it will be published
>by Harper Collins, if yet another Vorkosigan, by Baen.
>
>Nothing wrong with that. Publishing houses don't own authors, and it
>is fairly common for an author to use one house for one series or
>genre and go with someone different for another. Baen, is interested
>in publishing Vorkosigan stories and is demonstrably good at publishing
>Vorkosigan stories, so why try to publish a Vorkosigan story anywhere
>else?
>
>High fantasy, OTOH, has not traditionally been one of Baen's core
>competencies, so why try to publish a Chalion book there?
>

Redundancy is good too. I remember reading that when Lancer went
bankrupt, all the Conan books it had bought became assets tied up
in bankruptcy court, leaving them unpublished and with no royalties
coming in. It appears that Jim Baen thought things through and had
a good contingency plan to take the company past his era, but if
he hadn't, a lot of Baen authors might be in similar circumstances..


Ted

Dan Tilque

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 12:22:24 AM7/21/06
to
Tony Zbaraschuk wrote:

> In article <r58ub2dnjs1gt35d2...@4ax.com>,
> Dave Roy <hi...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Apparently, Bujold has now been contracted to write a new
>> Vorkosigan book as part of this program.
>
> Lois has confirmed this on the Bujold mailing list, but points
> out that she has to finish her current duology first, and
> reminds us that she has never had the Fast Writing Merit
> Badge. IOW, this is an "I just signed the contract" thing,
> not an announcement that the book will be out in the immediate
> future.

Note that by "current duology", she does not mean _The Sharing
Knife_ (volumes 1 and 2). That's already written and in the
process of being published. What she's currently working on is
tentatively titled _The Wide Green World_ and is a sequel to TSK.

Also note that there are a couple Vorkosiverse omnibi that Baen
will publish in the meantime: one of _Falling Free_, "Labyrinth",
and _Diplomatic Immunity_ and the other of _Komarr_, _A Civil
Campaign_ and "Winterfair Gifts" (IIRC). So it looks like 6 LMB
books published before we see this new Miles-book.

--
Dan Tilque


Robert A. Woodward

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 2:11:47 AM7/21/06
to
In article <1153409676....@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
dlan...@aol.com wrote:

> James Nicoll wrote:
> > In article <1153384015.0...@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> > <sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
> > >
> >

(in answer, James provides)


> >
> > Astounding (John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology)
> > Edited by Harry Harrison
> > Ballantine (December 1974)
> > 324 pages ($1.95)
> >
> > John W. Campbell was one of, if the not the most, influential
> > editors of his day. One might argue that his day as an editor went on
> > too long and that many of his quirks and foibles were at best unfortunate
> > but in his early days, his effect on magazine SF was mostly positive.

<SNIP>

> >
> > The Emperor's Fan (L. Sprague De Camp [1907-2001]): the ruler
> > of a land vaguely like the European view of Imperial China acquired a
> > magic fan which makes things disappear and reappear. He misuses it,
> > misrules his nation and eventually is betrayed but his betrayer is
> > himself a victim of the fan.
> >
> > Set in the same world as _The Fallible Fiend_, I have a soft spot
> > for this setting. The ending is somewhat telegraphed but I didn't care.
>
> I am very fond of this also. Again note that _The Fallible Fiend_, and
> _The Goblin Tower_ were publsihed by JWC.

? From what I can find, these books are very much post-Unknown and
I don't believe that JWC had anything to do with them. On the other
hand, I don't remember anything that tied "The Emperor's Fan"
explicitly to the _Goblin Tower_ sequence.

--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>

David Goldfarb

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 5:50:20 AM7/21/06
to
In article <1153409676....@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
<dlan...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> Thiotimoline To The Stars (Isaac Asimov [1920-1992]): Another
>> in this series of light entertainments about a material which dissolves
>> just before you add water. IMS, Asimov got a question about Thiotimoline
>> when he was doing his defence.
>
>And the original Thiotimoline was published in Astouinding. IA had
>asked for it to be under a peusdonym, but it wasn't, possibly by
>oversite, possibly by deliberate choice of JWC. There was at least one
>other Thiotimoline story, but I haven't read it.

Two others:
"The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline"
"Thiotimoline and the Space Age"

--
David Goldfarb |"In the fifties, people responded well to
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | authoritative disembodied voices."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- MST3K

David Goldfarb

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 5:54:34 AM7/21/06
to
In article <e9p06r$gfs$1...@reader2.panix.com>,

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <1153432365....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Mark Blunden wrote:
>>
>>> >>> Anybody reading this might get the impression that these five were
>>> >>> peers. It just goes to show that sell-though does matter.
>>> >>
>>> >> Five?
>>> >>
>>> > You've missed the exciting space opera of And?
>>>
>>> Ah. The legendary Fifth Baen.
>>
>>The really sad thing is that I think it was less than a minute between
>>when I posted it and when I canceled it.
>>
> Cancels pretty much don't work any more. Thank Dick Depew,
>among others.

Even so. The original article is still accessible on usenet.berkeley.edu
(I just checked). I will say that I usually read the rest of a thread
before responding to any messages on it, and I wish I'd done so here.

--
David Goldfarb |"Backward, turn backward, O time in your flight!
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | I've thought of a comeback I needed last night."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dorothy Parker

ringman

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Jul 21, 2006, 7:13:52 AM7/21/06
to

sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Of course, it's also a six-year hiatus away from the Vorkosiverse.

Winterfair gifts - Novella 2004

James Nicoll

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 8:48:49 AM7/21/06
to
In article <1hisezh.jj2qry1wliac1N%pl...@newsreaders.com>,

J Moreno <pl...@newsreaders.com> wrote:
>lclough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>> J Moreno wrote:
>-snip why did Lois sign a new contract for a Miles book?-
>> > I believe the simple and obvious other consideration is the case -- Jim
>> > Baen just died and she is promising them a book to honor his memory.
>>
>> Possible, but not probable. This is a -business-, you know.
>> Turn it around the other way -- if Lois suddenly died, would her
>> publisher be more anxious to acquire her manuscript?
>
>Yeah. Particularly if her publisher was Jim Baen and she left
>dependents that needed the money (I remember someone saying that Baen
>took his last couple of novels in order to give him money while he was
>dying of cancer).
>
Keith Laumer benefited from Baen's generosity for something like
20 years. If you track who was buying Laumer's material after the stroke(s),
it was fairly consistantly Jim Baen, at various companies.

sigi...@yahoo.com

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 8:56:52 AM7/21/06
to

ringman wrote:

> > Of course, it's also a six-year hiatus away from the Vorkosiverse.
>
> Winterfair gifts - Novella 2004

Written in early '03 IMS, but your point is well taken.

So, a four-year hiatus.


Doug M.

Sea Wasp

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 9:05:17 AM7/21/06
to
James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1hisezh.jj2qry1wliac1N%pl...@newsreaders.com>,
> J Moreno <pl...@newsreaders.com> wrote:
>
>>lclough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:

>>>Possible, but not probable. This is a -business-, you know.
>>>Turn it around the other way -- if Lois suddenly died, would her
>>>publisher be more anxious to acquire her manuscript?
>>
>>Yeah. Particularly if her publisher was Jim Baen and she left
>>dependents that needed the money (I remember someone saying that Baen
>>took his last couple of novels in order to give him money while he was
>>dying of cancer).
>>
>
> Keith Laumer benefited from Baen's generosity for something like
> 20 years. If you track who was buying Laumer's material after the stroke(s),
> it was fairly consistantly Jim Baen, at various companies.
>

Yes. Jim was known for being an irascible SOB to some people. But he
was also a loyal man and a generous one. There are quite a number of
people who can give similar stories of Jim's generosity.

In this case, there's ANOTHER reason. Notice the large public
announcement of multiple new big acquisitions.

Jim's death is a major blow and to help keep confidence high it was
important that Toni and company demonstrate that with Jim gone they
were still going to go ahead as if he was still alive, and that they
still had all the big moneymakers. With this as an opening shot, all
the involved parties will feel much more comfortable.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/

Dex

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 10:07:18 AM7/21/06
to
The Baen announcement is, at least indirectly, the result of a
metaphorical asskicking rendered by John Ringo to himself and fellow
authors, shortly after Jim Baen's death. The post in question has aged
off of Ringo's Tavern at the Bar, but I can more-or-less paraphrase.
This is a very condensed and minimal gist of what he said.

Quoth John: Jim Baen, and Baen Publishing, helped all of us
immeasurably. We owe him, and them. I OWE Baen a new series of Mike
O'Neill stories. David Weber OWES Baen a new Honor Harrington. Eric
Flint OWES Baen more 163x stories. And Lois Bujold OWES Baen another
Vorkosigan".

Again, John phrased it a little more diplomatically, and a lot better,
than I did.


sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
>

> Her last original book for them was _Diplomatic Immunity_, which was
> written in 2000-2001 and published in early '02. Her last book for
> them of any sort was _Miles, Mystery and Mayhem_, which I believe was
> early '03 -- but that was an omnibus collection of earlier stuff.

Mike Schilling

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 10:17:33 AM7/21/06
to

"Dex" <3FgB...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1153490838....@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...

>
> Quoth John: Jim Baen, and Baen Publishing, helped all of us
> immeasurably. We owe him, and them. I OWE Baen a new series of Mike
> O'Neill stories. David Weber OWES Baen a new Honor Harrington. Eric
> Flint OWES Baen more 163x stories. And Lois Bujold OWES Baen another
> Vorkosigan".

One of these is not like the others. Posleen and HH are those authors'
bread and butter. 163x is an active series, even being sharecropped. OTOH,
Bujold has, to all appearances, moved on from Miles. Not that I'm
complaining about a new Miles book, mind you.


Joe Bernstein

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 11:44:04 AM7/21/06
to
In article <1153432365....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,

Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The really sad thing is that I think it was less than a minute between
> when I posted it and when I canceled it.

Um, gosh. Panix was honouring cancels just a few months ago - there
was a big nasty attack on news.groups that I had to go to
readfreenews to work around. (It was actually a combination attack,
rogue cancels *and* spews, just so there would be no one usable server,
but anyway.) Things change, I guess.

My experience has been that cancelling my own posts stops being
effective within a fairly narrow time window; it's been years, but
I think the last time I tried, a minute was rather too long.

Joe Bernstein

--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/> "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."
<Glass Mountain>, Cynthia Voigt

Joe Bernstein

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 11:55:13 AM7/21/06
to
In article <1hisbuf.yp2tob1nzx679N%pl...@newsreaders.com>,
J Moreno <pl...@newsreaders.com> wrote:

> I believe the simple and obvious other consideration is the case -- Jim
> Baen just died and she is promising them a book to honor his memory.

Well, this *is* the obvious consideration (and sheesh, I can't imagine
that LMB's agent can't negotiate a Baen contract in her or his sleep,
so frankly I don't think "this happened too fast" is a good answer).
But I'm intrigued by how it ties into something she's been quoted
as saying.

Supposedly she's said on her mailing list that the next logical
Miles Vorkosigan book is the one in which his father dies. [1] And
that she didn't feel ready to write that book.

So. Does she feel ready - well, not *now* exactly, but as if she'll
feel ready in a year or two? Is she just plunging ahead regardless?
Or has she found something else she thinks she can write instead?

At "worst", she could always do something vaguely <Borders of Infinity>-
like, take "Winterfair Gifts" and give the rest of us access to it
and write a couple more novellas to make a book. I don't *know*
that there are obvious non-Aral-lethal novella-sized Miles stories
waiting to be told *either*, but I'd be mildly surprised if just
considering the idea didn't offer at least possibilities.

Joe Bernstein

[1] I find myself wondering if the context of her saying this had
anything at all to do with criticisms of <Diplomatic Immunity>;
if for example she was answering a remark along the lines of "C'mon
Lois, you *can't* let DI be the last Miles book!" It's fairly easy
to make a case that DI is all *about* birth and parenthood; wrong,
but fairly easy. It's no problem at all to think that it's what
happened when she sat down to write 'the Miles fatherhood book' -
at *that* point the next logical Miles book - without inspiration
striking hot.

Steve Simmons

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 12:28:08 PM7/21/06
to
Nancy <nan...@panix.com> wrote on 07/20/06 at 9:44:

> In article <1153384015.0...@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,


> <sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?

> Is anything known about why she and/or Baen decided not to publish
> her recent fantasy novels?

I don't know why Baen didn't do the fantasy novels, but can think of a
good reason to go with Baen for the new Miles book.

Miles is a series. When you bring out a new book in a series, it usually
stimulates some interest/sales of the earlier books. It could well be that
Baen, which hold the publishing rights to the earlier books, cut her a
nice deal to ensure that all of the books will be available when the new
one comes out. That kind of synchronized publishing would be very
difficult with multiple publishers - especially since the new publisher
wouldn't make a dime off of the reprints. Have a single publisher is a
win for Lois and a win for the publisher.
--
"While you may be at your core 'tenderhearted.' I do not doubt your, or any
womans, ability to reach in, wrench out a mans heart and talk him into taking
a bite. I mean that in a good way." -'fortunecookie', to Hillary at
http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=82531

dlan...@aol.com

unread,
Jul 21, 2006, 12:28:16 PM7/21/06
to

Robert A. Woodward wrote:
> In article <1153409676....@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> dlan...@aol.com wrote:
>
> > James Nicoll wrote:

<snip>


> > > Set in the same world as _The Fallible Fiend_, I have a soft spot
> > > for this setting. The ending is somewhat telegraphed but I didn't care.
> >
> > I am very fond of this also. Again note that _The Fallible Fiend_, and
> > _The Goblin Tower_ were publsihed by JWC.
>
> ? From what I can find, these books are very much post-Unknown and
> I don't believe that JWC had anything to do with them. On the other
> hand, I don't remember anything that tied "The Emperor's Fan"
> explicitly to the _Goblin Tower_ sequence.
>

_The Goblin Tower_ dates from 1968, and _The Fallible Fiend_ from 1972.
I was very much under the impression that JWC was involved with at
least the first, but this may have been a mistake. However their style,
and the "rationalist" way they handle magic, is very much influenced by
the "Unknown school" of Fantasy, as sponsored by JWC.

As for the conection with "The Emperor's Fan" it is explictly stated
in the author's intro, and the magician who sold the fant to the
emperor came from Mulven (sp?), the India analog which is visited in
_Goblin Tower_. The setting of "The Emperor's Fan" is the correspondig
Japan-analog, not otherwise seen in the series IIRC.

-Don L.

James Nicoll

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Jul 21, 2006, 12:39:20 PM7/21/06
to
In article <slrnec20f...@lokkur.dexter.mi.us>,

Steve Simmons <s...@not.di.these.org.words> wrote:
>Nancy <nan...@panix.com> wrote on 07/20/06 at 9:44:
>
>> In article <1153384015.0...@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>> <sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>I wonder what brought her back to Baen?
>
>> Is anything known about why she and/or Baen decided not to publish
>> her recent fantasy novels?
>
>I don't know why Baen didn't do the fantasy novels

As I understand it, the first fantasy was put up for open
bid and EOS had deeper pockets than Baen.

Michael S. Schiffer

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Jul 21, 2006, 2:31:57 PM7/21/06
to
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote in
news:e9qtd1$qnh$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>...

> Supposedly she's said on her mailing list that the next logical
> Miles Vorkosigan book is the one in which his father dies. [1]
> And that she didn't feel ready to write that book.
>...

Though back in the 90s, she was saying that there would be one book
where Miles would get married and Aral would die. (While I have
that thirdhand, there are mulitple reports by different people
saying that Bujold was saying that at cons starting in the mid-90s;
search for the phrases "Miles gets married" "Aral dies" in Google
Groups.) Sometimes it was quoted as "Aral dies and Miles has to
get married", which obviously doesn't resemble what actually
happened in either respect. She evidently had a better idea on
that. (Or at least couldn't bring herself to kill Aral off--
removing Aral and Cordelia to Sergyar does take them largely out of
the picture most of the time.)

I can see where it's a logical development in the story of Miles'
character. But by the same token the medical technlogy she's
allowed to develop in that series could plausibly keep Aral going
as long as she wants him around, especially given that Mark has his
finger on all the latest advances. Piotr had less to work with,
and if Aral lived only as long as his father then Miles would be in
his fifties before Aral died.

Whatever happens to Aral, I'll be interested to see Bujold finally
confound Kareen and actually write a book about a married person
with kids, rather than treating that period in characters' lives a
the cue for them to fade into the background until they're safely
widowed. (Though I could imagine the experience writing Ista
leading Bujold to do something with a post-Aral Cordelia-- assuming
she can be distilled from a benificent font of wisdom back down
into a human. :-) )

Mike

--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu

David Tate

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Jul 21, 2006, 2:44:39 PM7/21/06
to
Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>
> Whatever happens to Aral, I'll be interested to see Bujold finally
> confound Kareen and actually write a book about a married person
> with kids, rather than treating that period in characters' lives a
> the cue for them to fade into the background until they're safely
> widowed.

If she continues the loose Wimsey/Vane analogy, now that we've had
_Busman's Honeymoon_ (i.e. _Diplomatic Immunity_) the next story in the
canon is "Talboys", with kids in the 8-12 range. I wouldn't mind
something like that, even if it's only a short story.

David Tate

Steve Simmons

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Jul 21, 2006, 5:28:14 PM7/21/06
to
Michael <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote on 07/21/06 at 18:31:

> Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote in
> news:e9qtd1$qnh$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>>...
>> Supposedly she's said on her mailing list that the next logical
>> Miles Vorkosigan book is the one in which his father dies. [1]
>> And that she didn't feel ready to write that book.
...

> I can see where it's a logical development in the story of Miles'
> character. But by the same token the medical technlogy she's
> allowed to develop in that series could plausibly keep Aral going
> as long as she wants him around, especially given that Mark has his
> finger on all the latest advances.

It all depends on the mechanism she wishes to use. Spaceship explosions
would be rather final.

Robert Hutchinson

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Jul 21, 2006, 6:35:39 PM7/21/06
to
Dex says...

> The Baen announcement is, at least indirectly, the result of a
> metaphorical asskicking rendered by John Ringo to himself and fellow
> authors, shortly after Jim Baen's death. The post in question has aged
> off of Ringo's Tavern at the Bar, but I can more-or-less paraphrase.
> This is a very condensed and minimal gist of what he said.
>
> Quoth John: Jim Baen, and Baen Publishing, helped all of us
> immeasurably. We owe him, and them. I OWE Baen a new series of Mike
> O'Neill stories. David Weber OWES Baen a new Honor Harrington. Eric
> Flint OWES Baen more 163x stories. And Lois Bujold OWES Baen another
> Vorkosigan".
>
> Again, John phrased it a little more diplomatically, and a lot better,
> than I did.

This is not meant as a slight of your paraphrasing abilities, but I
certainly hope he did--assuming, of course, that he did not already know
that such stories were in the pipeline.

"I owe Jim Baen something tangible" is a fine statement. "We owe Jim Baen
something tangible", not necessarily so much.

--
Robert Hutchinson | "Audiences won't soon forget when the
| thing-we-didn't-know-what-it-was was put into
| the helicopter by the guy we didn't know."
| -- Servo, MST3K, 810, Giant Spider Invasion

Michael S. Schiffer

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Jul 21, 2006, 8:34:16 PM7/21/06
to
Steve Simmons <s...@not.di.these.org.words> wrote in
news:slrnec2i1...@lokkur.dexter.mi.us:

> Michael <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote on 07/21/06 at 18:31:

>> Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote in
>> news:e9qtd1$qnh$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>>>...
>>> Supposedly she's said on her mailing list that the next
>>> logical Miles Vorkosigan book is the one in which his father
>>> dies. [1] And that she didn't feel ready to write that book.
> ...
>> I can see where it's a logical development in the story of
>> Miles' character. But by the same token the medical technlogy
>> she's allowed to develop in that series could plausibly keep
>> Aral going as long as she wants him around, especially given
>> that Mark has his finger on all the latest advances.

> It all depends on the mechanism she wishes to use. Spaceship
> explosions would be rather final.

Oh, *killing* him is trivial if she wants to do it, by natural
causes, accident, or deliberate act, and always has been. It's
just not something she's locked into in the near future if she
decides she wants to do something else.

Gene Ward Smith

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Jul 21, 2006, 8:37:03 PM7/21/06
to

Robert Hutchinson wrote:

> "I owe Jim Baen something tangible" is a fine statement. "We owe Jim Baen
> something tangible", not necessarily so much.

You're not suggesting Ringo could be lacking in tact, I hope?

Peter Meilinger

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Jul 21, 2006, 9:33:50 PM7/21/06
to
Michael S. Schiffer wrote:

> Whatever happens to Aral, I'll be interested to see Bujold finally
> confound Kareen and actually write a book about a married person
> with kids, rather than treating that period in characters' lives a
> the cue for them to fade into the background until they're safely
> widowed. (Though I could imagine the experience writing Ista
> leading Bujold to do something with a post-Aral Cordelia-- assuming
> she can be distilled from a benificent font of wisdom back down
> into a human. :-) )

I'd be much more interested in stories set post-Cordelia,
personally. Partly because I'm not particularly fond of
her benificent font of wisdom act, and partly because it
would be much more unexpected and more difficult for
the characters to deal with. And I just think Aral grieving
would be much more interesting than Cordelia grieving.

Pete

Gene Ward Smith

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Jul 21, 2006, 9:50:31 PM7/21/06
to

Peter Meilinger wrote:

> I'd be much more interested in stories set post-Cordelia,
> personally. Partly because I'm not particularly fond of
> her benificent font of wisdom act, and partly because it
> would be much more unexpected and more difficult for
> the characters to deal with. And I just think Aral grieving
> would be much more interesting than Cordelia grieving.

Cordelia could handle it easily enough; I don't think Miles (and Mark)
get their lunacy from that side of the family. Anyway, she'd just
figure it was time for Aral's soul to go on, to whereever souls go on
to.

Aral would have a tougher time. I don't suppose he'd flip out
completely and secretly retire to Athos, so we could have that story
someone wanted about Ethan's home life, but I hope he could manage to
do something better than being grim and morose.

Robert Hutchinson

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Jul 21, 2006, 11:27:35 PM7/21/06
to
Gene Ward Smith says...

Suggesting that he could be? No, not at all.

Joe Bernstein

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Jul 22, 2006, 1:31:15 AM7/22/06
to
In article <1153533031.9...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,

Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Peter Meilinger wrote:

> > And I just think Aral grieving
> > would be much more interesting than Cordelia grieving.

> Aral would have a tougher time. I don't suppose he'd flip out
> completely and secretly retire to Athos, so we could have that story
> someone wanted about Ethan's home life, but I hope he could manage to
> do something better than being grim and morose.

Um, guys, you *have* read <Shards of Honor>, <Barrayar>, and
<The Warrior's Apprentice>, right?

I mean, Cordelia grieving and Aral grieving are both things we've
actually *seen*. And yes, you're right, Aral's form of it *is*
more interesting, but actually Cordelia's in <Shards of Honor>
and <Barrayar> was not the placid thing her roles in more recent
books suggest it would be.

Anyway, yes, Aral probably would do something "better" than "grim
and morose", but we have the difficulty here that he's now had
several decades of relative emotional stability provided esp.
by Cordelia in her ben*e*ficent-font-of-wisdom aspect. It's not
clear that it would actually be more spectacular than, notably,
his grieving for his father was, though without Cordelia handy
at least he'd have latitude to slip back into drunkenness.

What might be interesting, actually, that would fufill all of
these demands, would be a book in which Cordelia's death sets
off a grieving process in Aral that increases his performance of
risky and interesting behaviours enough that by book's end he
is also dead. (This being the Miles-becomes-Count moment which I
assume is *why* Bujold sees Aral's death as the next logical book.)
Problem is, I'm not seeing the likelihood of Aral taking it that
way. Maybe if she were assassinated, though.

If the risky and interesting behaviours began, at least, in the
form of official acts by the Viceroy of Sergyar, then I can easily
imagine that they could draw Auditorial attention. I assume Miles
himself would not be permitted to participate, at least initially,
though if Aral died early enough in the book then we could see
"he bullies his way into the investigation" for the third time
(Mark in <Mirror Dance>, Miles in <Memory>). (Um, at least.)

Joe Bernstein
now recording my decision to put this post in the public domain,
because I sure as hell don't want my having written it to *prevent*
books along these lines from being considered.

Michael S. Schiffer

unread,
Jul 22, 2006, 2:20:02 AM7/22/06
to
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote in
news:e9sd73$a5e$1...@reader2.panix.com:

> In article
> <1153533031.9...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>, Gene
> Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Peter Meilinger wrote:

>> > And I just think Aral grieving
>> > would be much more interesting than Cordelia grieving.

>> Aral would have a tougher time. I don't suppose he'd flip out
>> completely and secretly retire to Athos, so we could have that
>> story someone wanted about Ethan's home life, but I hope he
>> could manage to do something better than being grim and morose.

> Um, guys, you *have* read <Shards of Honor>, <Barrayar>, and
><The Warrior's Apprentice>, right?

> I mean, Cordelia grieving and Aral grieving are both things
> we've actually *seen*.

>...

We've never had Aral as a viewpoint character, which a book
centered on Aral grieving Cordelia would presumably be. I don't
know if Bujold could *do* Aral as a viewpoint character, honestly,
but it might be interesting to see her make the attempt.

Though I'm not in a hurry for Cordelia to die. (I *would* like to
see her step down from the pedestal on which the younger generation
seems to have placed her.)

Taki Kogoma

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Jul 21, 2006, 11:50:33 AM7/21/06
to
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 21:22:24 -0700, "Dan Tilque" <dti...@nwlink.com>
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>Also note that there are a couple Vorkosiverse omnibi that Baen
>will publish in the meantime: one of _Falling Free_, "Labyrinth",
>and _Diplomatic Immunity_ and the other of _Komarr_, _A Civil
>Campaign_ and "Winterfair Gifts" (IIRC). So it looks like 6 LMB
>books published before we see this new Miles-book.

Hrm.

"Labyrinth" was already included in the _Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem_
omnibus. Seems to me that Lois really ought to write a new Quaddie
short. ;-)

--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.

paranormalized

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Jul 23, 2006, 2:34:05 AM7/23/06
to
Dave Roy wrote:
> On 20 Jul 2006 12:30:25 -0700, sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>
>>> One other consideration would be the option clause in her last
>>> contract with them, which probably promised Baen right of first
>>> refusal for the next novel featuring Miles Vorkosigan.
>> Good point! Thank you.
>>
>> BTW, it's still unclear to me whether this is a Miles book, or a
>> non-Miles Vorkosiverse book, like _Ethan of Athos_ or _Falling Free_.
>>
>> Anybody?
>
> The site does say that it will be a "new Miles Vorkosigan novel," so
> I'm assuming that it will be a Miles book.
>
> Dave

Too bad it didn't just say "Vorkosigan novel". Because then she could
go *backwards* to Piotr Vorkosigan and his courtship of Xav Vorbarra's
half-Betan daughter Olivia. Unless it was totally Political, but I
don't see how you could ever get a half-Betan to be *that* devoted to
the State over the individual. Unless, of course, Olivia is also
insanely Vor, in which case, the relationship might work out anyways...
LMB also might get to dabble in the 1st Cetagandan War, and all the
moral issues that a Guerilla War/Insurgency brings up.

OTOH, getting into Piotr and his wife leads into... yep, Mad Emperor
Yuri. And I dunno *how* LMB could ever give her signature
uplifting-ending-in-the-face-of-all-that-came-before. She's darn good,
though, so whenever she's ready to tackle it, I'm there.

Tricky part would be making Olivia Vorbarra something recognizably
different from Cordelia. Stress the Barrayaran aspect of her
upbringing, her being the Elder Daughter? I dunno, that gets rid of the
fun of ol' Conservative Piotr dealing with a Radical Liberal. Or is
Radical Liberal always relative? And was Piotr a Conservative Before or
After Yuri? How much was he changed by that insanity? Whew, hefty
issues...


Jonathan Fisher
my ideas are public domain, and I really want Piotr novels...

Gene Ward Smith

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Jul 23, 2006, 2:42:32 AM7/23/06
to

paranormalized wrote:

> OTOH, getting into Piotr and his wife leads into... yep, Mad Emperor
> Yuri. And I dunno *how* LMB could ever give her signature
> uplifting-ending-in-the-face-of-all-that-came-before.

It doesn't get much more uplifting than Yuri's execution scene.
Probably that needs opera, however.

Chris Thompson

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Jul 23, 2006, 11:15:54 AM7/23/06
to
In article <4iaacnF...@individual.net>,

Mark Blunden <markATmarkdb...@address.invalid> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> In article <e9ni98$2np0$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>> David Goldfarb <gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>>> In article <1153380854.3...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,

>>> Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Dave Roy wrote:
>>>>> Just received a Baen newsletter email, and it talks about
>>>>> "Cornerstone Acquisitions" from some of Baen's biggest names:
>>>>> Ringo, Weber, Flint, and Bujold.
>>>>
>>>> Anybody reading this might get the impression that these five were
>>>> peers. It just goes to show that sell-though does matter.
>>>
>>> Five?
>>>
>> You've missed the exciting space opera of And?
>
>Ah. The legendary Fifth Baen.

So ... what _is_ the right wa to pronounce "Baen" (the man, or the publishing
house)? I've always been (sorry) a bit uncertain about that.

"bean" ? "bane" ? "bine" (to rhyme with "mine") ?

--
Chris Thompson
Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk

Lawrence Watt-Evans

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Jul 23, 2006, 1:18:03 PM7/23/06
to
On 23 Jul 2006 15:15:54 GMT, ce...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Chris Thompson)
wrote:

>So ... what _is_ the right wa to pronounce "Baen" (the man, or the publishing
>house)? I've always been (sorry) a bit uncertain about that.
>
>"bean" ? "bane" ? "bine" (to rhyme with "mine") ?

Bane.


--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
The first issue of Helix is at http://www.helixsf.com

Gene Ward Smith

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Jul 24, 2006, 10:54:16 PM7/24/06
to

Joe Bernstein wrote:

> Supposedly she's said on her mailing list that the next logical
> Miles Vorkosigan book is the one in which his father dies. [1]

I would say the one where Taura dies has that beat for logic.

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