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

emotional funny relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I can see why people wouldn’t like it. There’s a Typical Vorkosigan book and this wasn’t it. I was vividly reminded of some popular fanfics, and the genre is less space opera and more [REDACTED].

THAT BEING SAID, I loved it, I love Cordelia even MORE, I love Jole, I love all of the children, Miles is Miles, I can’t wait for the next book.

There was the usual amount of wailing over Vorkosigan family relationships, especially because the torch is being passed to the new generation and old family stories are told in new forms.

I feel like the book could have benefited from an external conflict: Cetegandans are all over but don’t really do much and could easily have been leveraged to produce some tension on people. That’s the biggest failing in the book, how low stakes everything is.

And this did make it a very good book to read in a day, and I did wholeheartedly love it, and the lack of tension let interpersonal relationships take the fore (which I adore), but

It’s not a book of high stakes drama, and I did miss that.