September 12th, 2008
Mirror Dance
Finished listening to Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Audio). 4.5 of 5 stars. It took me two tries to get going. The first time, say a year ago, I stopped after ~2hr. This time I pushed through some of the (for me) uncomfortable parts. I am glad I did, this was a wonderful book. I have come to realize that Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favorite authors. Every book I have heard (and all of the books I have ‘read’ have been audio) are at least very good, and one of them, Sharing Knife: Beguilement, is a top 10. But I loved all three Chalion books, all three Sharing Knife books, and both Miles Vorkosigan books (this one, and Brothers in Arms).
What I have noticed is that for Bujold’s books, I never have a complaint about the supporting characters, or having trouble connecting / caring about the main characters. In fact, I probably get too involved, which is why I had to stop this the first time. I am not going to psychoanalyze myself, but Marc made some cringe worthy mistakes, and cringing make me want to avoid the situations. But Bujold pulled it off, and I came to learn a lot about a lot of people that makes me want to learn more about many of them. That, for me, is high praise.
(Compare this to my comments about Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series or Richelle Mead’s Storm Born).
At this point, I am tempted to start going through more of her books, but I have a back log of books sitting on my desk and in my audio library so I must wait.