The "worst possible thing" plot device, yes?

Yep.

Ack! It's out?

She does the thing she said she didn't want to write another Miles book because she would have to do it, didn't she? I am torn, because on the one hand, but then on the other the last couple of Miles books seemed to have Contractual Obligation written all over them, so if this one gets back to gut-ripping angst, I suppose it's a good thing... sort of...

:wibbles:

Ohhhh crap. I don't know what she said, but I can guess...ohhhh crap.

Anne, you're showing up on all my friends' journals who I didn't think you knew! :-)

Janet was one of my first imaginary Internet friends, way back in the halcyon days of Usenet!

The ARC is available as a .LIT file on the Baen site. That file type can be opened with the free Microsoft Reader.

This one is kind of funny up until the Horrible Angst. There are some marvelous moments of Miles Being Miles.

Paraphrased from memory, and not too spoilery, I don't think:

Character A: So what about me?

Miles: You're free to go. The only people I can arrest on this planet are other Barrayarans.

Character A: But what about those other guys?

Miles: I didn't arrest them, I kidnapped them.

Yeah.

I've had the print ARC for a while. And yeah. Wow. Didn't see that one coming. I hope there's less of a wait between this and the next book.

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, you should have know this was coming. It's why this book took so long. It's one of the things I like about her books, it's the thing that keeps making them "live" for me.

*cosigns this comment*

I don't really follow the Bujold list or community, so I wasn't aware of her having said that. I should have seen the foreshadowing, but I was too busy enjoying Miles Being Miles.

She said something about it in the interview she did in Pyramid for the GRUPs Vorkosigan book.

Thank you for helping unsex that insult.

You're welcome?

I'm truly sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm in a depressed state right now and I can't tell if that was sincere or sarcastic. The intellect side of the brain advises me that you don't normally do sarcasm, but the depression is busily insisting that you were criticizing me by way of a pretended compliment.

(The depression is related to having been off my OTC meds for a week; I ran out of Vitamin D and thought that it probably didn't make as much difference as the prescription antidepressant. I was mistaken. I started taking it again earlier this week, but I haven't climbed back out of the pit yet.)

no, i know what adrian_turtle is getting at - there are people who insist that "bastard" is a gendered insult, the feminine being "bitch". personally, i use it freely for either sex.

I meant it sincerely. It's extraordinarily rare to see the modern insult "bastard" aimed at a woman. (The traditional insult is "person whose parents were not married." Mercifully, that no longer seems to be an active term of abuse.) In recent decades, "you bastard!" seems to translate as "you are a man who is stretching custom in ways I don't like!" I'm happy to see it used to mean, "you are a person who is stretching custom in ways I don't like!"

I'm sorry your depression has been so bad, and I hope you feel better soon.

I'm happy to see it used to mean, "you are a person who is stretching custom in ways I don't like!"

I generally to use it as "You are a person who has done something that has hurt someone else, and that pisses me off". I can get pretty wrapped up in good stories, such that when the author does something horrible to a character, I feel angry / sad / hurt / gutted / whatever.

I get over it a lot faster when the injured party is an imaginary character, though, and can wryly agree with jhetley that the author is doing zir job and making the story compelling.

I eagerly await Ivan's turn on the butterfly pin.

Bujold also caught me by surprise, three times over. (Does no one wear a Medic Alert bracelet in her universe? It makes stunning guards so pointless ...)

Do you know, I never thought about Medic Alert bracelets. They would make sense, though.

Just doing her job . . .

Didn't we just have this conversation about Seanan McGuire? :-)

Yup. I agree entirely.

I am looking forward to reading the book as soon as I can borrow a copy. The budget is not letting me buy books (or an e-reader)at the moment. I appreciate your warning.
Here, have another hand-hold and foot-placement on digging yourself out of the depression pit. I am digging my way out of one also.

You can get both the eARC and the reader program (for your computer, not a standalone) free -- the eARC is on the Baen site as a free download, and Microsoft Reader is on the MS site as a free download.

The first five chapters of the eARC are free -- the rest are by subscription.