Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackVoid
Vorkosigan series: I started with the prequels.
Falling Free is a good book
Shards of Honor is enjoyable too
Barrayar - gave up after 1/3
The Warrior's Apprentice - gave up after 1/2
These books are more suitable for teenagers in my opinion. After the first half of the Warrior's Apprentice I decided that this is not for me. Way too naive and straightforward. Then I read more of the story on Wikipedia. Wow. I am glad I gave up on the series. Yeah, he gets into trouble easily but gets out of it equally easy.
<<SNIP>>
I really do not understand how Barrayar is in the same category as Dune (as both are Hugo winners).
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Winning a Hugo is a popularity contest, not a quality assessment. That said, I love this series (and Lois McMaster Bujold's writing in general). I suspect that my main reason is shared by many others -- her characters feel real in a way that most other SF authors fail to achieve. They love, hate, fail, triumph, and interact with each other in ways that emphasize that reality.
Lois doesn't resort to literary pyrotechnics (or literary obscurity) to achieve this effect, either. Instead, she uses deceptively simple prose that is so smooth and slick that you don't notice how carefully it's crafted.
As for the "he gets into trouble easily but gets out of it equally easy", well, that's because the ostensible plot of the novel isn't where the main action is. Lois Bujold is a writer from the "what's the worst thing I can do to this character, and how can they grow by surmounting it?" school. And that "worst thing" is rarely the main adventure element of the plot. Overall, it's fine hard science fiction -- mostly on the effect very advanced biotech has on societies -- but the truly key elements of the stories (the character-based stuff) could be written nearly as well in any other genre.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
Xenophon
P.S. By giving up on
The Warrior's Apprentice you missed seeing Miles discover just how overly naive and straight-forward he's been. And his trying to cope with the human cost of his actions. And the latter part of
Barrayar shows, among other things, why it is that in the thoroughly patriarchal Barrayaran society
everybody treats Cordelia Naismith with extreme respect. It also has quite a few things to say about relationships, people, honesty, and the possible costs of one's decisions.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.