Trivia / Vorkosigan Saga

• Ascended Fan Fic:
  • The series has very loose roots in Lois's history in Star Trek fanfic; you can see bits of the Klingon Empire in Barrayar, and the Federation in Beta Colony. The first part of Shards of Honor was originally a Star Trek fanfic, with the proto-Aral being a Klingon warrior and the proto-Cordelia being a Starfleet officer.
  • A Vorkosigan Fanfic story, Negri's Boys by Charles Finlay, was rewritten with the serial numbers filed off as The Political Officer, and published in The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction. It was also nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
• Bilingual Bonus: The name of the nobles on Barrayar means "Thief" in Russian. Moreover in this form of the world it would have strong connotation with the the high title in the criminal hierarchy: "Vor v zakone". That translates literally to "Thief in law", meaning the criminal living in accordance with the criminal "law" that is the rules like "one should never do honest work" (it's actually considered a serious taboo), "one should never collaborate with the law enforcement", etc. Furthermore, such person can be "crowned" (the same term as for the king) by tattooing particular symbols on the shoulders. Interestingly, in Russian translation the word Vor was changed to For, so Miles is Forkosigan. By the way, even that change has some grounds: for example Volkswagen is pronounced and written Folksvagen in Russian, so For can look like a legitimate substitution following the same principle.
• Epunymous Title:
  • Several novels have had Miles to Go as a working title, but it's never made it to publication. "Miles to Go" does happen to be the title for the Bujold section of the Baen Books webforum. But the one Baen author who actually did use it was David Weber in one of his Bolo short stories, who was quoting Robert Frost rather than referencing Miles Vorkosigan.
  • During its writing, Diplomatic Immunity narrowly avoided being titled Diplomatic Impunity - to the vocal disappointment of many in the fandom.
    • Frankly, given that a large portion of the book deals with a bioweapon, Diplomatic Immunity is an even better pun.
  • A Civil Campaign was going to be Rules of Engagement (suggested by John M. Ford), but when Bujold suggested it to her publisher she was told that Elizabeth Moon already had a book of that title in the pipeline at Baen; while titles aren't copyrightable, the issues involved with having their mutual publisher ship two different books with the same title at (almost) the same time meant that Bujold had to find a new title.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Thanks to...certain demographics, it's difficult to take the name "The Vor Game" seriously in the internet age.
• Hypothetical Casting: According to Bujold, Cordelia's looks are modeled after a young Vanessa Redgrave.
• Shoutout: Athos, the planet of men, shares a name with Mount Athos, a Greek peninsula with many monasteries and a prohibition on women.
• Technology Marches On: The late-'80s/early-'90s worldbuilding shows particularly in the lack of mobile communication/computing. Nearly all personal communication — albeit with holographic display technology — is done via fixed desk-sized comconsoles (which also serve as the primary computing/entertainment hubs). Portable comconsoles do exist, but they seem to resemble the "luggable" portable computers of the '80s. Personal wristcoms and battlefield communicators are typically dedicated circuit devices, as opposed to 21st century cellular or wireless broadband technology. Very little resembling 21st century smartphones or other mobile computing devices are evident, even on the most technologically advanced planets (Earth, Beta Colony, Eta Ceta, etc.). However, one might interpret "lugging" around a portable comconsole the same way one "lugs" around their smartphone, as a virtual ball-and-chain rather than a real heavy object.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Bujold's original plan was to follow up The Warrior's Apprentice with a novel about Arde Mayhew, but her editor didn't like it and convinced her to write about quaddies instead.
  • Another missed opportunity with Arde Mayhew comes in Winterfair Gifts, when Arde comes to Vorkosigan house for a wedding that Cordelia is also attending: Arde was the pilot who Cordelia tricked into giving her a lift to Escobar at the end of Shards of Honor.
  • Elena Bothari's name was originally supposed to be Nile, after Nile Etland in James H. Schmitz's Federation of the Hub series, but it was too similar to Miles and likely to confuse readers. Bujold still liked the name, as it was later recycled to be used as Ekaterin's middle name.

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