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This chapter focuses on Bujold's fantasy novels. Since the turn of the millennium Bujold has produced seven fantasy novels and just three science fiction novels. Her first fantasy novel was The Spirit Ring (1992), inspired by Agricola's treatise on metallurgy and the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, both written in the mid-sixteenth century. Her next fantasy venture was the Chalion trilogy (2001–2005), modeled on fifteenth-century Europe. Chalion is a disorienting version of Castile, in the generation before a queen of Castille set about the unification of Spain through a marriage alliance. With many fantasy novels, the way the author has developed a unique magical system is often the major point of interest; with Chalion, however, it is Bujold's imaginative theological system that sets it apart from its rivals: Chalion and its neighbors worship five gods who form a family.

This chapter argues that reading sainthood in Bujold’s novel Paladin of Souls requires forcible recognition of the social constructions of gender, power, and normal life in Chalion, through their eventual disruption by the Bastard, fifth god of the Chalionese pantheon. Reading the novel through Ista dy Chalion’s first and second sainthoods result in comprehensive transfigurations of both the individual and her social contexts, through reconfigurations of gender, family, sexuality, and devotion, which cohere in a rereading of Ordol’s Sermon of the Cups. These lenses together mark sainthood as a form of queer failure, an inability to reproduce or represent normative life narratives or biographies, and centralizes this queering as the primary mode of divine presence throughout the novel.

This chapter explores the nature of prophecy, fate, and the ‘destined hero’ in Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls. These motifs, dominant in modern heroic epic fantasy, imply that if a hero lives according to their destiny, they are incapable of acting of their own free will. The chapter explores how the hero and heroine of the two novels, Cazaril and Ista, make choices when faced with prophecy and destiny, and this allows Bujold to combine the paradox of fate and free will in such a way as to create a narrative with open possibilities and interpretations. In both novels, the chapter argues, Cazaril and Ista can only fulfil destiny by asserting their free will.

Through an examination of the experiences of Castillar Lupe dy Cazaril, protagonist of Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion, this chapter argues that the novel mirrors academic and advocacy agendas on the topics of passing, sexuality, and care, while ultimately relating to emerging perspectives from queer disability studies critiques of normalcy. The chapter engages with The Curse of Chalion as a text that illustrates and contributes to theoretical and activist work on disability in relation to vulnerability and cure, through the multiple meanings of Cazaril’s ‘holy pain’. The chapter shows how, in its overarching concern with embodiment through Cazaril’s physical suffering, fatigue, chronic illness, and rehabilitation, Bujold’s speculative narrative aligns with recent disability studies and disability justice frameworks that hold space for multiple, nuanced perspectives on these issues, inviting examination of the connections between the bodily and social dimensions of disability.

This chapter focuses on the relationships that two of Lois McMaster Bujold’s fantasy heroes – Cazaril (The Curse of Chalion) and Ingrey (The Hallowed Hunt) – have with divine and supernatural beings in the world of the Five Gods. The chapter opens by focusing on two specific definitions of queerness which underlie a subsequent stylistics analysis of the visions experienced by both heroes. The chapter explores the impact of these visions on the heroes’ able-bodied heterosexual male bodies, leading to the conclusion that Bujold’s Holy Family, especially the Bastard, deconstructs the gender constructions of the patriarchal nuclear family structure and its attendant ‘family values’ to create queer spaces. The chapter ends with a brief consideration of the potential for even greater subversion found in Bujold’s recent ‘Penric and Desdemona’ novellas.

This chapter examines the role of the Bastard, one of the gods in Lois McMaster Bujold’s ‘Worlds of the Five Gods’ series, and his contribution to her depiction of an inclusive Queer Theology. Drawing on the queer theology of Marcella Althaus-Reid, the chapter considers the distinctive set-up of the five-fold Quintarian pantheon that Bujold establishes, and how it creates and subverts dualistic ideas. The chapter provides close readings of interactions with the Bastard, particularly in Paladin of Souls and the ‘Penric and Desdemona’ series, where the Bastard is the patron god, and analyzes how the idea of the Queer God becomes essential to an inclusive dialogue within religious identity and society. The chapter demonstrates how these novels and novellas afford Bujold the opportunity to reflect upon many of the vital social functions performed by real religions throughout history while challenging those dualistic theological systems that remain prevalent, particularly in Western culture.