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.

[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.

[(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.

[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

[(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....