I did not spend yesterday *reading* Bujold’s “Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance.”

I spent it reading Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance and laughing like a loon.  If you’re unfamiliar with Lois McMaster Bujold and her Vorkosigan Saga series, shame on you: they’re very clever, very well written space operas with a strong flavor of drawing room comedy to them, and Bujold is a favorite read of mine.  And because she publishes via Baen, her latest is available in electronic form months before it’s formally in print. Fifteen bucks now for an advance copy that I can read on multiple platforms, or fifteen bucks later for a hardcopy; I decided to go with the former.  Honestly, I expect that I’m going to just use Baen for my default SF/Fantasy genre purchasing: aside from everything else, they don’t gouge you on their ‘hardcover’ titles. If it’s not published yet, $15; if it is, $6.  If it’s now in paperback, $4. Boom.  Done.  Why should I subsidize other publishing companies’ poor business modeling decisions, anyway?

…Industry insiders, take note.

8 thoughts on “I did not spend yesterday *reading* Bujold’s “Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance.””

  2. Not her best entry in this series. There was a significant re-write (as in toss out the ENTIRE first 1/3 of the novel, everything up to the end of the first major story arc) due to the structure not working (Ivan telling that story to Miles). The fact that the story sort of took a 180 turn at the mid point also didn’t work as well. But still an enjoyable read.

  3. Yes! Having eagerly read and re-read the entire Vorkosigan series, this was my reaction to learning of CVA’s existence:

    “Ivan has his own book? IVAN finally has HIS OWN BOOK?!?!? MUST DEVOUR NOW!”

    I believe I read somewhere that Bujold’s approach to writing is to see what kind of trouble she can put her characters in. And indeed, CVA proceeds to put poor Ivan in one cascading problem after another. Is it bad that I was absolutely gleeful as I saw Ivan’s predicament get progressively worse? 🙂

  5. Don’t forget the monthly bundles, Moe … $15 gets you several e-books released serial-style, 25% per month. Some you may want, some you may not know you wanted.

    Mew

  6. My introduction to the series was Ethan of Athos, which doesn’t have Miles on stage even for a moment. I thought it was one of the funniest SF novels I’d ever read, and it’s exquisitely well plotted, too. I laughed out loud when the medical board member blurted out “We’ve been screwed!”

  7. I got it the first day and laughed hysterically through the whole thing. I’ll grant it’s for people who’ve read the whole series otherwise you’ll miss most of the funny references.

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