Readers have awarded Lois McMaster Bujold four Hugo Awards for Best Novel, a number matched only by Robert Heinlein. Her Vorkosigan series redefined space opera with its emotional depth and explorations of themes such as bias against the disabled, economic exploitation, and the role of women in society.

Acclaimed science fiction scholar Edward James traces Bujold's career, showing how Bujold emerged from fanzine culture to win devoted male and female readers despite working in genres—military SF, space opera—perceived as solely by and for males. Devoted to old-school ideas such as faith in humanity and the desire to probe and do good in the universe, Bujold simultaneously subverted genre conventions and experimented with forms that led her in bold creative directions. As James shows, her iconic hero Miles Vorkosigan—unimposing, physically impaired, self-conscious to a fault—embodied Bujold's thematic concerns. The sheer humanity of her characters, meanwhile, gained her a legion of fans eager to provide her with feedback, expand her vision through fan fiction, and follow her into fantasy.
| Cover Title page Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Chapter 1. An Introduction to Lois McMaster Bujold Chapter 2. The Science Fiction Chapter 3. Fantasy Worlds Chapter 4. Cultural Critique Chapter 5. Character Chapter 6. Disability and Genetic Modification Chapter 7. Women, Uterine Replicators, and Sexuality Chapter 8. War, Leadership, and Honor A Lois McMaster Bujold Bibliography Stories in the Vorkosigan Universe Notes Critical Bibliography Selected Interviews with Lois McMaster Bujold Index | "A real pleasure to read. This could serve as a textbook for a class on Bujold."
—Janet Brennan Croft, editor of Lois McMaster Bujold: Essays on a Modern Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy
"James traces Bujold's career from fanzine culture to genre superstar and shows how she overcame old-school ideas that military science fiction and space opera were exclusively a boys' playground."—Kirkus Reviews
"The University of Illinois is to be commended for its series of single-author studies, Modern Masters of Science Fiction. Lois McMaster Bujold is a worthy subject of this latest addition to that series... This readable and succinct book is all the more welcome."—Times Literary Supplement
|Edward James is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at University College Dublin. He co-edited the Hugo Award-winning Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction and is the author of Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century.