Bujold ’ s father and brother were engineers, and many of the technological details she incorporates are based on 20th-century engineering situations, projected into null-g or alternative solar system situations ( this is especially true of Falling Free, the most technologically dense of the novels ).

Bujold ’ s future is one in which genetic manipulation can produce almost any kind of clone or hybrid.

Bujold devised for this planet a history which allowed for “ swords ‘ n ’ spaceships .” Barrayar in the lifetime of Miles Vorkosigan commands spaceships, computers, and other high technology, but its culture remembers dueling, examines newborns for defects and practices infanticide if any are found, celebrates the Emperor ’ s birthday by handing him bags of gold, and provides liveried life-sworn servants to carry love-letters sealed with the writer's blood.

It is published in the book entitled Dreamweaver ’ s Dilemma, which is a collection of short stories and essays by Bujold that had been previously unpublished and that she gathered together in this volume prior to her appearance at a NESFA convention.

Several of Bujold ’ s scenes can be seen on the Season One DVD extras.

All five of its issues were published while the show was still on the air, and included letters from D. C. Fontana, Gene Roddenberry, and most of the cast members, and an article by future Hugo and Nebula winner Lois McMaster Bujold.

Lois McMaster Bujold ( Last name pronounced phonetically in American English as " Bu-Jold "; born November 2, 1949, Columbus, Ohio ) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy works.

Bujold is one of the most acclaimed writers in her field, having won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record.

Lois McMaster Bujold at Finncon 2012 in Tampere, Finland.

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 various forms of society and government Bujold presents often reflect 20th-century politics.

Bujold pays token attention to the variations in measurable time units from planet to planet, positing an earth-based “ standard year ” which holds through the entire Nexus.

Bujold herself has commented that her posited system is neither technologically nor economically feasible, but is rather a convenience for storytelling.

Bujold presents issues of technological obsolescence and the high rate of failure of R & D projects in personal terms, via bioengineering.

Human life requires Earth-based botanical life, and Bujold devotes a good deal of attention in some novels to this.

Bujold presents a variety of realistic food supply technologies, including hydroponics, cultured or vat-grown meat, and fish farming.

The Nexus allows Bujold, paradoxically, to imagine a world in which travel and communication require far more time and effort than in the real-life 21st century, since the wormhole jumps present a special barrier.

Although Bujold explores and satirizes many kinds of societies and prejudices, her universe lacks or fails to consider several sources of social organization and prejudice on Earth: language, skin color, and religion.

Instead, Bujold builds prejudice into the “ locale ,” i. e. planetary, economics and history.

The novels have been translated into a number of languages ; see the catalog of covers of various international editions at Bujold Cover Art Archive.

The roots of the Vorkosigan Saga lie in an early short story by Bujold, " Dreamweaver's Dilemma ", which features a planet called Beta Colony and a character with the last name of Naismith.

When beginning her first novel, Shards of Honor, Bujold incorporated these elements, but greatly expanded.

The AMPAS was originally conceived by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio boss Louis B. Mayer as a professional honorary organization to help improve the film industry ’ s image and help mediate labor disputes.

The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences defines psychological altruism as " a motivational state with the goal of increasing another ’ s welfare ".

Psychological altruism is contrasted with psychological egoism, which refers to the motivation to increase one ’ s own welfare.

One way is a sincere expression of Christian love, " motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one ’ s own life and existence ".

Another way is merely " one of the many modern substitutes for love, ... nothing but the urge to turn away from oneself and to lose oneself in other people ’ s business.

* David Firestone-When Romney ’ s Reach Exceeds His Grasp-Mitt Romney quotes the song

" Swift extends the metaphor to get in a few jibes at England ’ s mistreatment of Ireland, noting that " For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it.

George Wittkowsky argued that Swift ’ s main target in A Modest Proposal was not the conditions in Ireland, but rather the can-do spirit of the times that led people to devise a number of illogical schemes that would purportedly solve social and economic ills.

In response, Swift ’ s Modest Proposal was " a burlesque of projects concerning the poor ", that were in vogue during the early 18th century.

Critics differ about Swift ’ s intentions in using this faux-mathematical philosophy.

Charles K. Smith argues that Swift ’ s rhetorical style persuades the reader to detest the speaker and pity the Irish.

Swift ’ s specific strategy is twofold, using a " trap " to create sympathy for the Irish and a dislike of the narrator who, in the span of one sentence, " details vividly and with rhetorical emphasis the grinding poverty " but feels emotion solely for members of his own class.

Swift ’ s use of gripping details of poverty and his narrator ’ s cool approach towards them create " two opposing points of view " that " alienate the reader, perhaps unconsciously, from a narrator who can view with ' melancholy ' detachment a subject that Swift has directed us, rhetorically, to see in a much less detached way.

Once the children have been commodified, Swift ’ s rhetoric can easily turn " people into animals, then meat, and from meat, logically, into tonnage worth a price per pound ".

Swift uses the proposer ’ s serious tone to highlight the absurdity of his proposal.

In making his argument, the speaker uses the conventional, text book approved order of argument from Swift ’ s time ( which was derived from the Latin rhetorician Quintilian ).

James Johnson argued that A Modest Proposal was largely influenced and inspired by Tertullian ’ s Apology: a satirical attack against early Roman persecution of Christianity.

Johnson notes Swift ’ s obvious affinity for Tertullian and the bold stylistic and structural similarities between the works A Modest Proposal and Apology.

He reminds readers that " there is a gap between the narrator ’ s meaning and the text ’ s, and that a moral-political argument is being carried out by means of parody ".