A review by melissaaw
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold

emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I can hardly imagine a better ending to this series. This was my first time reading it, as my previous rereads of the series predated its release. This whole series is very much about life as a series of phases, often divided by death, and finding one's way through to something new and satisfying with that hard-earned experience.

Ending the series with Cordelia's POV--who kicked off the series by stepping into a hard phase, herself--highlights the parallels between her life and Miles', even if the pacing of her changes reflects a Betan life expectancy rather than Miles'.

This book also brings a relatively mature-for-once Miles (

instead of Miles taking Ivan's "um Simon"-ing approach

), a robust passel of family like the Naismiths and Vorkosigans have never seen, and a reveal that no, the senior Vorkosigans haven't just been sitting on a political shelf biting their nails over their boys' adventures. There's a broader shift in the image of the entire family than is portrayed in many of the middle books, and yet there's still forward momentum running off the final page.

If the action-packed books from Miles' era are the only ones you really like in the series, this one might be a snoozer. But the series as an entire body of work actually begins and ends with Cordelia, and this is a fitting send-off.