Books by Lois Bujold

“It has a very strong mystery format, but it’s also an extremely good representation of the series as a whole. You get old world neo-feudalism meeting this new world politics of a representative republic: how do we adjust, how do we move on, how do we balance the interests of these various powers? You come away with the idea that politicians mostly suck, and that’s true, that’s the world that they live in – but they’re just doing their best to wrestle the best solutions they can out of people who are constantly fighting for power. Miles is this character who was born deformed; he’s under five foot tall with a bit of a hunchback, he was damaged in vitro by genetic weapons, and it’s a miracle that he’s alive at all. And he’s absolutely brilliant. He’s the son of a genius warlord who became a politician, a genuinely faithful regent to the upcoming Emperor, who he tried to raise as a good man… The sheer amount of kindness in these books is amazing. And that’s one of the things that I think we lack in our reading a lot of times. We read adventures, all this exciting stuff, but we often lack somebody who’s just kind, and who demonstrates what human compassion can be and what it can do. If you have lost faith in humanity, these are good books to read.” Read more...

The Best Fantasy Mystery Books

Jim Butcher, Novelist