I'm still processing it, but...

[elfs]

The difference between Weber and Bujold is that Bujold never stopped trying to figure out how to destroy the little lord.

Comments

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Cryoburn, the latest book. It's 300 pages of set-up for one sentence of severe emotional impact, although I knew what was coming three paragraphs before Miles did (although maybe that's in character). I will say this, Bujold managed after a dozen novels to deliver a single sentence as hard, demanding, and affirming of the Motherhood Statement, as Banks managed to deliver its counterpoint at the end of Feersum Endjinn.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

I suspected that was it.

FYI: At the end of the book, Miles is 39. At the end of "At All Costs" Honor is about 62.

The difference, in my opinion, is that it gets harder and hard to throw them into these death defying situations over and over and not be repetitive or to have the audience start saying "How stupid do you have to BE to go into these situations in the first place?"