Many years ago my friend
Helen Kourous turned me on to Lois McMaster Bujold's truly great Vorkosigan
saga. Like a lot of people, I devoured them rapidly. One of the nice things
about being late to the literary party is that you get to read, read, read –
picking up one wonderful book after the next. It's binge-watching before there
was such a thing.
Several years later I re-read
the saga. Now I'm near the end of my third reading, having just finished Diplomatic
Immunity. If the epic has aged in any way, I'm certainly not sharp enough
to notice. It remains a Hall of Fame-type collection and I cannot recommend it
highly enough. Beyond the heart-palpitating adventure is the deep humanity,
pain and love, despair and exultation, and all the places in between.
To be clear, I did not love Cryoburn,
and I've yet to read Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. Nevertheless, the
saga is a wonder, and Ms. Bujold deserves all the accolades she's received for
the tales.
But did she sit on her
laurels? Of course not! She went on to produce the excellent Curse of Chalion
series, and then the Sharing Knife series. This woman is a WRITER.
She has more I-Wish-I'd-Written-That books than any other person I know.
And she's still doing it!
Just within the past half year I've caught up to her Penric novellas, set in
Chalion's world of the Five Gods. And by those gods am I having a great time.
If you haven't read Bujold,
do yourself an enormous favor and get started—now!
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