Oooh, a nascent VK Lexicon! And other Bujoldian musings
Someone just posted on lmbujold that she's started the beginnings of a Vorkosigan resource on the idea of the HP Lexicon. Other people are popping up ideas such as turning it into a wiki using http://pbwiki.com/ or http://www.seedwiki.com/ .
Meanwhile, Techie Dude is looking into getting himself into the webhosting business. I've already suggested I might be interested in something that could host an archive, as people have been making noises for awhile about how it'd be nice to have such a thing. He almost had a panic attack, at which I remembered he has a friend who is a (former? not sure on that point.) admin at an HP archive site. I pointed out that a)I know next to nothing about what is involved so yes, it could be way beyond the scope of what he's planning to offer but b)whatever she may have told him, I'd estimate bandwidth usage would be at most 1/10th of said HP archive, and probably quite a bit less even than that. It's a much, much smaller fandom, even if you include the Chalionverse and the Sharing Knife-verse. We shall see whether anything pans out with that and whether I regain my sanity and run screaming from the prospect even if he does decide to give it a whirl. Or perhaps see if something more along the lines of an organized rec collection might be more manageable. Well, yes, it'd obviously be more manageable, but it also might be rather redundant. There is already The Bujold Overflow Site which has links to fanfic, fanart, and filk, though it's not comprehensive and there's only a couple of things more recent than 2005.
Finished The Sharing Knife: Beguilement last night and started into The Sharing Knife: Legacy. Why did I wait to read these? Well, the second's only been out for under two weeks, so I could make excuses about waiting for part 2 to come out. Except it really was that I was wishing TSK:B had been either a VK or a Chalion book. Very foolish. I love what she's doing so far in TSK: L. It's sort of what she did at the end of Shards and in Cordelia's talk with Mark and Kareen (and Kareen's parents) in A Civil Campaign, but much expanded, in which she says, "Yes, I've shown you this whole other society with a very egalitarian (Beta) or matrilineal, matrilocal, and arguably matriarchal (Lakewalker) bent, but that's no paradise either. People are people, and there will always be problems, just different ones." And honestly, Fawn's patriarchal, dismissive, and even emotionally abusive family is currently looking leaps and bounds more open-minded than Dag's Lakewalker community. I've seen people compare Fawn to Ekaterin, and I can see why, but if I were going to compare her to a VK character I'd say more like Cordelia. It didn't take her anywhere near as long to reach her "not gonna take it anymore" threshold. How she manages having married into Lakewalker culture remains to be seen, of course. I'm rooting for a second malice-slaying to buy her the sort of "she may not be from here, but don't mess with her" cache that beheading Vordarian gave Cordelia. There are, at least, practical considerations that make some sense. But (and here's my American individualism piping up) it's Dag's life, and who he chooses to marry and have kids with is up to him, whether they'll have as strong of Lakewalker abilities or not.
I got a little more written for my bujold_fic entry, too. Not as much as I'd like. As there're now 19 days remaining before it's due, it'd be nice if it'd "catch" and start flowing sometime soon.
Meanwhile, Techie Dude is looking into getting himself into the webhosting business. I've already suggested I might be interested in something that could host an archive, as people have been making noises for awhile about how it'd be nice to have such a thing. He almost had a panic attack, at which I remembered he has a friend who is a (former? not sure on that point.) admin at an HP archive site. I pointed out that a)I know next to nothing about what is involved so yes, it could be way beyond the scope of what he's planning to offer but b)whatever she may have told him, I'd estimate bandwidth usage would be at most 1/10th of said HP archive, and probably quite a bit less even than that. It's a much, much smaller fandom, even if you include the Chalionverse and the Sharing Knife-verse. We shall see whether anything pans out with that and whether I regain my sanity and run screaming from the prospect even if he does decide to give it a whirl. Or perhaps see if something more along the lines of an organized rec collection might be more manageable. Well, yes, it'd obviously be more manageable, but it also might be rather redundant. There is already The Bujold Overflow Site which has links to fanfic, fanart, and filk, though it's not comprehensive and there's only a couple of things more recent than 2005.
Finished The Sharing Knife: Beguilement last night and started into The Sharing Knife: Legacy. Why did I wait to read these? Well, the second's only been out for under two weeks, so I could make excuses about waiting for part 2 to come out. Except it really was that I was wishing TSK:B had been either a VK or a Chalion book. Very foolish. I love what she's doing so far in TSK: L. It's sort of what she did at the end of Shards and in Cordelia's talk with Mark and Kareen (and Kareen's parents) in A Civil Campaign, but much expanded, in which she says, "Yes, I've shown you this whole other society with a very egalitarian (Beta) or matrilineal, matrilocal, and arguably matriarchal (Lakewalker) bent, but that's no paradise either. People are people, and there will always be problems, just different ones." And honestly, Fawn's patriarchal, dismissive, and even emotionally abusive family is currently looking leaps and bounds more open-minded than Dag's Lakewalker community. I've seen people compare Fawn to Ekaterin, and I can see why, but if I were going to compare her to a VK character I'd say more like Cordelia. It didn't take her anywhere near as long to reach her "not gonna take it anymore" threshold. How she manages having married into Lakewalker culture remains to be seen, of course. I'm rooting for a second malice-slaying to buy her the sort of "she may not be from here, but don't mess with her" cache that beheading Vordarian gave Cordelia. There are, at least, practical considerations that make some sense. But (and here's my American individualism piping up) it's Dag's life, and who he chooses to marry and have kids with is up to him, whether they'll have as strong of Lakewalker abilities or not.
I got a little more written for my bujold_fic entry, too. Not as much as I'd like. As there're now 19 days remaining before it's due, it'd be nice if it'd "catch" and start flowing sometime soon.