So, I am more than familiar with LMB’s two main series – The Vorkosigan Saga (Which is mostly a space opera), and her books set in the world of the Five Gods. (Which are a sort of semi-medieval fantasy.) What I’ve been slow to pick up though is her Sharing Knife series. Mostly because they are almost impossible to find in print! I’ve never stumbled on these books in a bookshop and had to go searching really hard across libraries to find a hard […]
New Vorkosigan Novella
I don’t think Lois McMaster Bujold has released a full-length novel since 2016’s Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, which I sort of read as a capstone to the Vorkosigan series. Since then, she seems to have been spending her time experimenting with self-publishing novellas. While I’ve found those to be mostly very good, they’ve all been set in the World of the Five Gods. So I’m really pleasantly surprised to see that she’s decided to duck back into the Vorkosigan universe after all! The […]
Unpretentious, brilliant, engaging sci-fi.
Two books into the Vorkosigan Saga, and I’m increasingly flabbergasted that it took me so long to read not only this series, but Bujold in general. These books are so competently written, and I want that understatement to be interpreted as laconic reverence, and not as an underhanded jab. The writing is uncomplicated and efficient, and is a real testament to the power of honestly good storytelling. A lot of sins can be forgiven by covering them in flowery, lyrical, and highly figurative prose. Bujold’s […]
“You should have fallen in love with a happy man, if you wanted happiness. But no, you had to fall for the breathtaking beauty of pain.”
The Vorkosigan Saga is one of those classic SF series that has been a little intimidating to me because there are so many books in the series, and the suggested reading order of the series is not the publication order, so it doesn’t naturally lend itself toward easily identifying the “next” book in the series. Cordelia’s Honor is actually an omnibus edition comprised of Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan #1) and Barrayar (Vorkosigan #7)(???) Here’s a short plot description from Goodreads for both of those: Shards […]