Re: McKinley: Physical deformities (etc!)

Well, and then of course there's the Miles
Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold.
They're nominally scifi, but most of the series
is incredibly good (my favorites are the two that
mainly follow Cordelia, and the "mysteries" -
Memory, Komarr, The Mountains of Mourning, etc.
Also, I realize that I phrased that awkwardly...
"scifi" doesn't automatically mean bad, after
all. Just not necessarily as human and deeply
affecting [or as hilarious - when I was reading
the latest one again the other day, my new
roommate kept giving me funny looks. I guess she
doesn't do much of the hysterical laughter stuff
when she reads her books. She'll no doubt get
used to it] and just plain GOOD as even the worst
of the Vorkosigan books). Now that I've finished
wandering off in enthusiasm, the connection to
the original topic is that (potential spoilers
ahoy, but after all, how could there be a series
about him if he didn't live past "Barrayar"?)
Miles's mother got exposed to a really nasty
poison gas when she was pregnant with him, and
the antidote for the gas did some serious damage
to Miles. It was repaired enough that he still
lived, but he grew up to be a foot and a half or
so shorter than he otherwise would have been,
with bones that broke easily (and are almost
entirely replaced at the "current" point in the
series), etc. Compounding his physical problems
are the prejudices of most of the people he
encounters. I'm not doing a very good job of
description, but I had to give it a shot. I know
somebody else out there has read them too, so
help me out... anyway, they're an amazing lot of
books, even though I don't reread Mirror Dance,
Brothers in Arms, or The Warrior's Apprentice
nearly as much as I do the aforementioned
favorites.

In response to the writer's workshop thing, I got
an email the other day saying as how Del Rey is
doing an online one. I don't know if it's
anything like what you're looking for, but it
sounded interesting. If nothing else, it's free.

http://delrey.onlinewritingworkshop.com/

Have a good weekend, everyone.
Danielle :)

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Received on Fri Mar 23 03:38:02 2001