Re: McKinley: Physical deformities (etc!)

Yes, I love the Vorkosigan books too. Like you, my favorites are the two
books following Cordelia--I think they just came out with the omnibus
edition called Cordelia's Honor. A pretty close third is Warrior's
Apprentice, dealing with Miles' early years. I love the whole series
though, and Miles Vorkosigan is one of my favorite characters in sci-fi.
Bujold never lets you forget that Vorkosigan's drastically physically
flawed, but like the characters around him you feel his energy so strongly
that the physical flaw is a pale and insignificant thing in comparison.
He's not perfect--he could be manipulative (in a relatively benign way) and
self-centered, for instance, but he's also funny, self-deprecating,
honorable, and amazingly perceptive.

Anyway, enough gushing.....

Tawen
p.s. I suppose this could be a mild spoiler, but -- I am totally envious
of Ekaterin! :-)

At 03:37 AM 3/23/01 -0800, you wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>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 08:33:58 2001