I love Bujold, I really do, but I’m starting to get tired of this. She excels at her art/craft, making it a joy to read her stories. But, but, but… I feel she spends too much time on world-building and not enough on story-building. Sure, this book explains a lot of intricacies of ground-work and concepts linked with it. Unfortunately, it makes the story watered-down (or bogged-down, even) with lengthy explanations of fictional concepts. It’s like The Hallowed Hunt, where I started skipping whole paragraphs after the first few chapters. Argh. Give me back Miles Vorkosigan and his action-filled adventures!

I have been reading this online at http://www.harpercollins.com because I cant buy it just yet. (it’s only being printed in harcover right now.