Lois McMaster Bujold

Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) is an American writer of science fiction and fantasy, best known for the Vorkosigan Saga and for winning the Hugo Award for Best Novel four times, equalling Robert A. Heinlein's record.

Born Lois Joy McMaster in Columbus, Ohio, on 2 November 1949, The Warrior's Apprentice, turned down four times, became the first book she sold when Baen Books bought it together with Shards of Honor and Ethan of Athos; all three came out in 1986. These began the Vorkosigan Saga, which follows Miles Vorkosigan, a physically disabled soldier, spy and mercenary commander from the planet Barrayar. Her Best Novel Hugos went to The Vor Game (1990), Barrayar (1991), Mirror Dance (1994) and Paladin of Souls (2003), and the novella "The Mountains of Mourning" (1989) won both the Hugo and the Nebula.

She turned to fantasy with the World of the Five Gods: The Curse of Chalion (2001), which won the 2002 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, Paladin of Souls (2003), which also won the Nebula, and The Hallowed Hunt (2005), later joined by the Penric and Desdemona novellas from Penric's Demon (2015). The Sharing Knife ran to four books between 2006 and 2009. The Vorkosigan Saga won the Hugo for Best Series in 2017 and the World of the Five Gods won it in 2018, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named her its 36th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master.

For collectors. The Vorkosigan Saga began at Baen Books, which first published Shards of Honor, her debut novel, in June 1986. The Curse of Chalion was first published in the United States by Eos, a HarperCollins imprint, in August 2001.