Road Trip: Lois McMaster Bujold

A friend and I took off after work on Thursday to drive to the Twin Cities for an author signing and reading with SF author Lois McMaster Bujold. Immersing ourselves in rush hour traffic was an unwelcome sensation for both of us but we did manage to find the venue without difficulty. And right across the street (almost) was a Cheesecake Factory. After a great dinner, we wandered over to the Galleria Barnes and Noble.

My friend stopped upstairs to buy her copy of Cryoburn and I made my way downstairs to find seating. I had pre-ordered my copy from Amazon and brought it with me to the signing. So I grabbed two seats in the back row. There were about 20-25 people there when we arrived at 6:50. At 7 the representative who was to introduce Lois suggested the audience move to the front to fill in the empty seats. My friend and I ended up in the front row!


Lois took questions and then read for about 40 minutes from her work in progress which focuses on Ivan. Ivan has been a continuing character throughout the Vorkosigan series. Fans have been clamoring for years for Lois to tell us more about him. Lois read two scenes. The crowd, mostly old fans of Lois's work, were laughing frequently as we heard two scenes. The first was from Ivan's point of view; the second was from the point of view of the female lead who is, I hope, Ivan's love interest and the woman who is right for him. It is always interesting to hear Lois talk about her writing process and the genesis of ideas. It was also interesting to hear about the current tour and the different interviews that she had. She did a lot of interviews with non-SF readers and spent a lot of time talking about cryonics - frozen frogs and Tad Williams' head. In fact her book spends more time within the story considering the social and societal implications of cryogenics. 


Cryoburn has the added bonus of including a CD with most of Lois's previous Vorkosigan books available for download in a variety of formats. If you haven't met Miles Vorkosigan or visited his world, this would be a great opportunity to meet him and see his world. These are some of my all-time favorite books. The storytelling is masterful and engaging.


We were lucky enough to be at the front of the line for the book signing which followed the reading. And then, we came home. Our hour and half drive were filled with discussions of books, life, etc. We also planned our next road trip. Richelle Mead is coming to the Mall of America on Dec. 11 as a stop on her Last Sacrifice tour. It is on our calendars!