Borders of Infinity

The Vorkosigan Saga

Cover of Shards of Honor, the first book in the series.
Author	Lois McMaster Bujold
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction, space opera, romance
Publisher	Baen Books
Published	1986 – ongoing
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback), audiobook, e-book
No. of books	16 & 6 short works (List of books)

The Vorkosigan Saga is a series of science fiction novels and short stories set in a common fictional universe by American author Lois McMaster Bujold. The first of these was published in 1986 and the most recent in 2016. Works in the series have received numerous awards and nominations, including five Hugo award wins including one for Best Series.

The point of view characters include women (Cordelia in Shards of Honor and Barrayar; Ekaterin in Komarr and A Civil Campaign), a gay man (Ethan of Athos), and a pair of brothers, one of whom is disabled and the other a clone (Miles and Mark Vorkosigan), their cousin (Ivan Vorpatril) together with some less well educated characters (e.g., the bodyguard Roic and the runaway lad Jin).

The various forms of society and government Bujold presents often reflect contemporary politics. In many novels, there is a contrast between the technology-rich egalitarian Beta Colony and the heroic, militaristic, hierarchical society of Barrayar, where personal relationships must ensure societal continuity. Miles Vorkosigan, the protagonist of most of the series, is the son of a Betan mother and a Barrayaran aristocrat, embodying this contrast.

As in Isaac Asimov's earlier Foundation series, humanity has colonized a galaxy in which there are no competing intelligent species. The first successful colony was Beta. Since that time (at least 400 years before Falling Free or 600 years before Shards of Honor), dozens of planets now host divergent, evolving cultures.

Travel between star systems is made possible by wormholes, spatial anomalies which allow instantaneous "jumps" between widely separated locations. The systems are known collectively as the Wormhole Nexus. Typically wormholes are bracketed by space stations, military or commercial, which provide ports for jump travel. Stations may be owned by planetary governments, or by specific commercial organizations, or they may be completely independent of any planetary organization.