The Flowers of Vashnoi by Lois McMaster Bujold

[james_davis_nicoll]

Efforts to decontaminate a radioactive zone on Barrayar produce an entirely unexpected discovery.

The Flowers of Vashnoi by Lois McMaster Bujold

Comments

[thewayne]

I just re-read the entire Vorkosigan series, late last year/early this year. There's a Romance podcast called Plot Trysts that did a very good special series on these books with guest authors that included Jim Butcher, and for the last episode, Lois herself.

[bolindbergh]

Unfortunately, they ran out of steam and never made transcripts for the last few installments.

[thewayne]

Ah, pity.  I am an avid podcast listener and didn't see the transcripts, just listened to them.

[patrick_morris_miller]

Barrayar as a backward hellhole regrettably in possession of advanced weaponry, whose militaristic rulers are keen on invading other planets when they deem it necessary, which may be the same as when possible

Notably, one of those invasions was not only never intended to succeed, but carried out entirely as a means of dealing with a problem that could have much more efficiently been solved with a handful of the wrong kind of mushrooms or some other plausible tragic accident.

[bunsen_h]

IIRC, they did also need to take out the "War Party" or whatever they were called. The whole "political officer" organization. They needed the disgrace of the failed invasion.

[patrick_morris_miller]

....A lot of the wrong mushrooms?

[nineveh_uk]

A modest handful of mushrooms delivered in such a way as to frame the rest you want to dispose of.

[riderius]

The (surviving) upper classes after the reign of Mad Yuri, even the more feckless, seemed to have absorbed the background danger of political problem-solving by conventional assassination into their worldveiw enough to make any widespread success unlikely.

[(Anonymous)]

It didn't come up in the actual story, but the purple and gold colour scheme of the bugs has to match one of the Count's house colours, right? None that we know of, but it would still be funny to see their reaction.

[bunsen_h]

Vordarian was maroon and gold, close enough that they'd probably be considered the same by heraldry standards. I can imagine the discussion that might lead to the colour scheme. "We want the radiation symbol to glow gold, for visibility, so what other color should we use for contrast?" "Hmm. Use the wrong color combination and we'll get some Count making a stink." "I know, let's use Vordarian's colors! Everyone can look at the gross, gigantic bugs and think of him! The current Count Vordarian is decent enough, but he's not about to call attention to himself."

[(Anonymous)]

"What did our family do to deserve such a gross insult... oh, right."

[armiphlage]

With respect to wild chickens and flight:

Having worked on a poultry farm, I can attest that domesticated egg-laying chickens can fly short distances. They don't like to, as they can run faster and with less effort. Flight is mostly reserved to get up into rafters where underpaid, overworked farmhands can't catch them, or to get onto the roof of a vehicle so they can scratch the paint and poop all over it.

Their wild ancestor/cousin also rarely flies, spending most of its time foraging at ground level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_junglefowl

[patrick_morris_miller]

Similar roadrunners. They can fly, they'd just rather not.

[scott_sanford]

I had almost forgotten about it but yeah, chicken flight was a recurring question on Usenet. (If there was a reason I've forgotten it. Sometimes subjects just keep coming up.) Your answer aligns with what I recall of most of the reasonable answers.

Domestic chickens are clearly at the borderline of losing flight; they technically can but mostly don't and aren't very good at it.

[magedragonfire]

They can also fly over fences to explore other backyards, where they might get pounced upon and mauled by a normally very gentle, friendly dog.

…My childhood neighbours kept a couple of fancy chickens as pets, until The Incident.

[(Anonymous)]

"Ma Roga"? Any relation to Baba Roga, aka "the Croatian Baba Yaga"?


Teka Lynn

[roseembolism]

Funny how those stories about good competent nobles seem to have list a bit of their attractiveness....