The members of the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list were delighted to present a special present to Lois on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first book in the series:
A Reader’s Companion to A Civil Campaign (PDF)
As John Lennard, co-editor of ARCACC wrote:
Ladies, Gentlemen, and all other persons, cats, dogs, squirrels, elephants, and butterbugs.
Yestermonth the Vorkosigan Saga turned 25 glorious years old. Yes, despite their own convictions on these matters, and relative fictional aliveness or otherwise, Aral, Cordelia, Konstantin Bothari, Barrayar itself, and even Miles (dating from a twinkle in Lois’s and Cordelia’s eyes) have hit their quarter-century. It also means that Lois has been putting up with our readerly burbles and spats for longer than seems possible.
[Fanfare. Extraordinary and prolonged fireworks spelling out an enormous THANK YOU, LOIS draw admiring oohs and aahs from all present.]
And by way of a less ephemeral thank-you to Lois for thus entertaining, challenging, amusing, delighting, instructing, and generally vivifying us all, I the Birthday Tixie hereby present to her on behalf of everyone who has been, is, or will be a member of this List, A Reader’s Companion to A Civil Campaign. This work of scholarly erudition and critical acumen has been compiled by many members, that they and the hordes of future Bujold readers may better understand the art, craft, wisdom, allusion, quotation, generic engineering, neologisms, and incomparable one-liners that make a Vorkosiverse novel an endless delight ; and it is presented with warm and fuzzy feelings of gratitude laced with admiration, awe, and a beverage of choice now held high in approbation.
Lois, legentes te salutant!
