elfs | Damn, that woman can write

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.