Damn, that woman can write

[elfs]

So, I just finished reading A Civil Campaign, the second-to-last Miles Vorkosigan novel, and I can only read in awe at the way everything in Bujold's story fit together, the complete intertwining of storylines and incidents, the way she foreshadows without telegraphing. I can tell now when I'm being set up, because she wastes not a word on things of no importance, so when she gives a paragraph of botany or history you know it'll mean something later-- but she's so damned good you have no idea what.

I wish I could write like that. Now I have to go out and find Diplomatic Immunity.

One thing that I've discovered is that Bujold uses italics too much. I didn't know this before, as I was using an e-book reader that didn't support italics. But now that I've actually read her on paper I find that I didn't enjoy it as much. She gives too much away with her italics; I like hearing the voice the authors words create, rather than the artifice of emphasis granted by italicization. Bujold is good enough she doesn't need that kind of crutch.

Comments

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Diplomatic Immunity by Bujold?

You can purchase an e-text from Baen via http://www.webscription.net/ - it's in the June 2003 listing.

http://www.baen.com/series_list.asp#VS

The italics may not be her fault

[maklyr.livejournal.com]

As C. J. Cherryh pointed out many years ago on her website, copyeditors have a lot of leeway to do "stupid" things to your manuscript. One of the incidents she recounts features a young copyeditor who consistently revised Cherryh's grammar incorrectly, to the point that she simply gave up trying with that particular sentence.

Given that I have noted an overweening abundance of italicized text in other Baen publications and that I think Bujold rocks, I'd give her the benefit of the doubt and blame her copyeditor(s). :)

[tehrasha.livejournal.com]

Miss-ing miss-ing miss-ing miss-ing...
mmMMmmm.. Thomas Dolby. Love your taste in music.
I dont remember, but do I have you to blame for turning me on to Digital Gunfire?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Not likely, as I don't recall ever having heard of them. But my music collection is pretty damned perverse. I finally replaced my vinyl copies of Laurie Anderson's United States Live with CD versions this week.

[ambar.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, _Diplomatic Immunity_ is not one of Bujold's best. Still worth reading, but don't expect an ACC or _Mirror Dance_ or _Memory_.