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many thanks to eh and elizabeth etc, because i would never never never have read a book with a cover like this, but i did it for youse, and it has been wonderful, really.

but so if i am understanding this correctly (and i hope that i am not) ms. bujold created one of the most interesting and likable-while-still-being-flawed characters ever and then abandoned her to write books about this character's son?? and all the rest are about him??

so lame.

because i loved this book. i love cordelia. i love bujold's writing, too, so i am sure the other books are equally good, but come on! you got a good thing going here, don't deviate right when you got me interested! this is a five-star character here, she is all good things. i am not ready to start over with someone else.

i did not expect to find such focus on well-rounding the characters in a piece of genre fiction. usually the focus is on the events, not on the psychology of the characters. this one is very character-driven, with plenty of action at the same time. there is humor, there is very close attention paid to details, and the focus is on mature, reasonable adults making decisions based on carefully considered facts.

this pretty much sums it up; a character who assesses the situation, and manages to be self-sacrificing and unwhiny even though she has so much cause to be.

"And what is your current complaint?"

I don't like Barrayar, I want to go home, my father-in-law wants to murder my baby, half my friends are running for their lives, and I can't get ten minutes alone with my husband, whom you people are consuming before my eyes, my feet hurt, my head hurts, my soul hurts...

It was all too complicated.The poor man just wanted something to put in his blank, not an essay."Fatigue," Cordelia managed at last.

love.

because she is not a passive angelic beth type. but she understands what each situation calls for, she is eminently capable, and i admire that more than anything else in a human and in a written character. i love her dignity and that fact that she can also be frail. i want to say i will read more of these, but i feel like cordelia broke up with me before i was ready for her to do so, and i kind of want to prostrate myself before her and beg her to come back to me.

she will, won't she?
someday??