Discussion of SFFH Literature by Female Authors

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi – by S.A. (Shannon) Chakraborty

I read this book in January, so it’s still pretty fresh for me. I like this book quite a bit and am tempted to include it in a list of favorites but, since I read it so recently, I’m holding off from doing that.

A pirate queen is pulled out of retirement to rescue the daughter of an old crew member who’s been kidnapped by an French warlord. This is a high fantasy, swashbuckling adventure set on and in the lands around the Arabian Sea during the era of the Crusades. There’s the quest for the missing girl, great sword fights, magic, monstrous creatures of land and sea, all while sailing the seven seas. Oh, and alchemical explosions and truly laugh out loud nonsense. There are themes of road trip, getting the gang back together and explorations of loyalty, honor, true friendship and individuality.

I read this as an audiobook, with Lameece Issaq narrating. I highly, highly, recommend the audiobook. Issaq did such a wonderful job with her performance that I honestly can’t imagine trying to read a text copy of the book. Truly, one of the strengths of the book for me as she took well developed characters, a tight plot with consistent pacing and a vibrant world and brought it to life. Listening to the audiobook, I didn’t feel so much that I was watching a movie as much as watching the characters through a window, feeling the wind and salt spray on my face, and growing warm under the desert sun in my cold, drizzly January apartment far from any desert.

In my last post, I listed the comedic fantasy trilogy The Tales of Pell as one of my favorites. Comedy is hard to do in writing, but Chakraborty found the key for me with this book. Outside of Discworld and The Tales of Pell, I don’t know when I last laughed so much while reading a book. That’s not to say this is a comedic story, because it isn’t. Chakraborty simply told a very well-rounded high fantasy adventure full of drama and deep tragedies, new and old, that were spaced out and enlivened by moments of perfect, character and situational-based comedy that was ridiculously perfect.

I'm still so in love with this book that I struggle to see many, if any, faults; though, I know nothing is perfect and, should someone point them out to me, I'd definitely consider them and would likely agree with at least some. The one criticism I do have is that the pacing fell off a bit during passages of al-Sirafi's introspection. These were, of course, necessary passages for development of both the character and the plot. They served these purposes perfectly, but the an otherwise fast paced story did slow down quite a bit for these moments. I never wondered when they might end, never jumped forward in my audiobook to skip through/over them. Like I said, they were one of the tools used for plot and character development, and used appropriately in my estimation. I just wish they had been a bit faster paced to better match the pacing of the rest of the book.

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This is only the second book I’ve tried from Chakraborty. I previously read her City of Brass and, honestly, I didn’t much care for it. I can see that it’s a good book, a well told story focusing on politics in a fantasy kingdom. However, where the audiobook is a must for me with al-Sirafi, I’d advise against it for City of Brass. The problem for me was that several of the names used in City of Brass were very similar sounding to my American, white-boy ear. I don’t have the greatest ear for languages and I’m not very familiar with Arabic or Muslim names or words. So political groups whose names sounded similar to me, but whose opposition to each other was at the core of the novel’s political plot… And combine that with my expectation of an exploration of late eighteenth-century Cairo, Egypt, based on my reading of the novel’s summary (I love Ancient Egypt, and the Napoleonic world outside of France and Britain is a mystery to me, so I just had to read the book), well, it didn’t work for me. Today, I am fairly confident that I would have liked the book if I had read a text copy rather than listened to the audiobook. Maybe I’ll try it again someday, with that text copy, but not today.

That said, all my personal difficulties with City of Brass were entirely absent for me from al-Sirafi. The books are completely different, with entirely different tones, themes and characters. There are those authors who write multiple books and/or series, with different characters and different plots, but who often turn out to be writing the same thing, only changing the names and details a bit. Chakraborty is not one of these. YMMV, but I’m rather (happily!) surprised they were written by the same author.
 
Oh I forgot I recently read Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower. It's a sec world pre-industrial fantasy story, her first fantasy novel. She plays with structure in the story, which she likes to do as with her SF Ancillary trilogy, but not radically so. There are parallel timelines and a semi-omniscient narrator who is a rock god, as in actual rocks, not music. The rock god is telling its story of the past in first person while also observing and commenting on current events in the present concerning Eolo, a soldier who travels to the capital city with his lord, the heir to the ruler's seat. In Eolo's country, a god called the Raven protects the people in return for prayers and for the ruler sacrificing himself when the god switches from inhabiting one raven's body to another, but the process goes awry while another country to the south threatens war.

Leckie has great fun with inhuman characters and the complicated system of gods with people and the lands was interesting. It is once again reminiscent of Le Guin and of Patricia McKillip, I'd say as well, but Leckie has her own style and it's a bit more contemporary. The novel can stand on its own, but there is enough left open in the ending that I suspect she's planning on getting to a sequel which I will be interested to read. Certainly there's a lot more to explore in this particular universe.
 
Just finished an oldie but goodie, Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ. Here's my GoodReads review,

"Plucked out of Greece in the time of Tiberius and plunked down in the far future, Alyx, whose short stories established her as a wily master thief and all around survivor, is assigned as an agent by a mysterious trans-temporal government agency to save civilians from the ravages of a corporate war on the planet Paradise. Having to trek across the planet in the throes of winter tests all of her skills, not to mention her patience with a group of people who have never endured danger and privation, who have had everything they wanted at their fingertips their entire lives, including the ability to extend their lives, and overcome disease and injury.

"This is a story about the responsibilities we take on in spite of our intentions, of resilience, loss, grief, love and redemption. You won't find many '60s sf/f novels with sharper satire or wrapped in a bigger heart."

What's interesting -- and I vaguely recall hearing this before -- is that the early short stories of Alyx are variations on Sword & Sorcery stories, though there's no magic in them. Then suddenly, viola, an s.f. novel. And, surprisingly, it works.
 
The Ivory Key -- by Akshaya Raman

Today I finished this debut book from Akshaya Raman. Published in January 2022, it is the first in her YA The Ivory Key duology. It is set in a fantasy India where magic is mined like a mineral and applied to objects from water pails to coins to weapons and walls. The series follows the four children of the previous maharani: the eldest daughter and new maharani who's trying to distinguish herself from her mother, a runaway daughter who became a thief, a son who's entering an unwanted political marriage, and another son who has been blamed for killing their mother. And all want to figure out where they can find more magic, because their mines are utterly dry.

I rather liked this book! It's a fun, fast paced fantasy set in a (literally) magical land with four distinct point of view characters who, despite growing up together, became very different people, each with their own motivations and problems. The chapters were short, so I never felt the story was dragging or getting bogged down with one character's issues while ignoring others.

I read this by audiobook (surprise, surprise). There were four narrators, one for each of the point of view characters: Dilshad Vadsaria, Anushka Rani, Ariyan Kassam, and Behzad Dabu. I first read/listened to a book with multiple narrators a few years ago. It wasn't bad, but I didn't really like having multiple narrators. It doesn't always work too well, in my opinion, as two narrators are going to give different voices to the same non-point of view character. And that can make it difficult to track who that other character is, especially if that other character is also a main, but non-point of view character. But that didn't happen too much in this book and the performance by multiple narrators benefited my reading experience.

I once tried Tasha Suri's Empire of Sand. It, too, is set in a fantasy India (inspired by the Mughal period). That was a big draw for me with both it and The Ivory Key. However, despite its fascinating setting, I found Empire to have a rather standard epic fantasy plot and, at the time, it was not what I wanted. So I didn't finish, and I really should go back... Ivory Key does not have that problem. Historical India came through in Ivory Key primarily in character and place names, titles, and customs, rather than in items such as architecture, art, food or religion. Food made only a brief--and entirely appropriate--appearance during an engagement party, while religion was not present at all. Ivory Key has its own history, which the characters must discover and investigate in their search for a new source of magic as long buried secrets hold the key to their nation's continued survival.

My criticism of this book is that it lacked some of the exploration of the setting, culture and uses of magic that I had hoped for. The four protagonists were well developed, their background and motivations and relationships with each other all fully mapped out--I feel fully sated when it comes to the characters and plot. But, whenever I pick up a book inspired by a real world historical period, and one set outside Western Europe, Rome, Greece or Scandinavia, I always hope for lots of details and instances where that culture and setting really come alive. Ivory Key was maybe 85-90% successful in this for me. A great story with a living, breathing culture, but still a black and white film when I thought it would be in color. Even so, that's a big improvement over my experience with Suri's Empire of Sand.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and recommend it. The sequel, and conclusion to the duology, The Crimson Fortress is out now.
 
Eternal Sky trilogy -- by Elizabeth Bear

I'm starting to think that I need to talk about books and series I've read which I have disliked, because here is yet another that I loved. Like the last two I noted, Elizabeth Bear's Eternal Sky trilogy was inspired by a setting outside of Europe: in this case, the Mongol Empire.

I read the first book, Range of Ghosts, for the first time maybe 15 or more years ago, maybe even 20 years ago as it was published in 2012. I've read it twice more since then, each time with the intention of reading the second and then the third within the next few months. That never happened and it's now been 2 years since I last read Ghosts, a year since the second book Shattered Pillars, and I only finished the trilogy's final entry Steles of the Sky this weekend.

As said, the book is inspired the real world places and peoples conquered by or bordering on the Mongol Empire. As such, there are many equivalents to those real world locations and peoples, including places such as Persia, Tibet, China and kingdoms in the southern Himalayas. The story follows Timur, grandson of the story's version of Genghis Khan, as he travels to all these places, finding allies in wizards, monks, and humanoid tiger warriors to aid him on his quest to reunite his people after a devastating civil war. That war is revealed to have been orchestrated by a the leader of a dark cult that is trying to return an ancient evil to the world, an evil which history tells once took the combined efforts of all these nations' chief gods to defeat and imprison.

That "return of ancient evil" may have some rolling their eyes and, yes, I often disregard books using that old trope. However, it works here as it is not the evil itself, some dark god or being, acting through mortals but, rather, the mortals invoking one of the continent's old legends--and one shared amongst all the peoples--for their own ends.

As I've mentioned with my other, recent books, settings outside of Europe--either real or inspired by Europe--are a big draw for me. In my last post on Raman's The Ivory Key, I discussed being disappointed that the author did not go quite as in depth in detailing her story's world as I had wished. In contrast, the Eternal Sky trilogy is a prime example of the kind of depth I wish for. Bear was meticulous in her attention to detail, showing and describing the cultures of her world on every page through descriptions of clothing, architecture, geology, tools and weapons, technology and more. Vast distances are covered in the book, and all on horseback rather than via our modern cars and airplanes. That is not to say the story dawdled with days of endless travel or that multiple chapters could be skipped because nothing happened. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Rather, the story takes place on a continent, one with that encompasses a large number of climates and landscapes. From steppe to mountain, forests and deserts and great port cities on the sea. Each was real and distinct to me as I read, and I was all but there and traveling with the characters.

In many ways, this trilogy has restored the love of epic fantasy I held as a teenager. So often I think epic fantasy is an old, tired genre with nothing new, and every entry in its catalogue using the same three or four elements from this category, one of the two elements in that column, four of the six in that one...and so forth. For this reason I have largely avoided epic fantasies for the last 15 years or so. Then I come across a book that uses some of the old story elements, but adds several new ideas of its own--such as each kingdom having a different sky, some with the sun rising in the east and other nations where it rose in the west. As said, I can see how much Bear researched her setting; she didn't just think of a cool place, realize how much research that could entail and decide she'd only do some of the research--or only show some of it in the course of the story. No, an entire culture cannot be detailed, all the realities of living in a specific region or climate cannot be shared with outsiders who have not lived that for themselves. But Bear did as best as can possibly be done in writing.

Again, I have lots of love for this trilogy. I'll try to be more critical in the future, so that we might have something more to discuss ;)

If you're interested in the Eternal Sky trilogy, there is a second trilogy in the same world, Lotus Kingdoms, which includes several pieces of short fiction as well as three novels. Both trilogies are complete and available now.
 
Going back to 2021, I've read 287 books, with 148 of those written by women, which is roughly 52%. I don't typically count a series as one entry, even in an omnibus.

My reading is a mix of review and not for review, with about 1/3 of the books I read generating a book review here at SFFWorld, or sometimes my blog.

I am a straight, white male knocking on the door of 50 years old.

Most of what I read is Fantasy and Horror, the last few years, about 50% of what I've been reading has been Horror with most of the remaining books being fantasy with the occasional SF and Non Fiction book thrown in.

About a decade ago, I realized much of what I was reading was very white and very male. I've consciously tried to change that and since 2015, my reading has been much more well-rounded. i.e. more than just white dudes.

I need to read beyond just white folks, too.

Rather than top 5 SFFH books of all time (a changing list for me, it seems), I'll list out some authors I've been automatically buying/acquiring upon release or playing catch up with their backlist: Chuck Wendig, Jim Butcher, Christina Henry, Seanan McGuire (although I've got a lot of catching up to do since she's so prolific), Rachel Harrison, Jonathan Maberry, Clay McLeod Chapman, Paul Tremblay, Jonathan Janz, Delilah S. Dawson, and Ania Ahlborn.
 
RedMage said:
Btw, what's her new fantasy book? Is that The Book of Ile-Rien? I see that's coming out this year (already out?) and it collects her two previously published books The Element of Fire (1993) and The Death of the Necromancer (1998), which were the first two in her 5 book Ile-Rien series. I haven't actually read anything by Wells apart from Murderbot, but you got me to google her books and there's a whole bunch more than I thought!
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Sorry, Red, I missed your question here on the first pass. Wells is moderately prolific, been doing it for thirty years and up until Murderbot was best known for her fantasy novels, especially the Ile-Rien stories. In her later years, she seems to favor novellas/short novels. In addition to the seventh Murderbot novel and a prequel novella to that series, Compulsory, and any omnibuses of Ile-Rien novels, she put out in 2023 a new sec world fantasy novel, Witch King, which is about a murdered mage whose consciousness is trapped, kind of like a genie, and has to deal with another mage trying to use his power in the future while trying to find out what happened to himself. So that sounds fun and I'm planning to check it out when I get the chance. It was put out by Tor.com, which is now called something else I think, and is available in audio book.

On Murderbot, apparently the six novel, Fugitive Telemetry, takes place before the fifth novel, Network Effect, so I will probably read them out of order to keep in chronological order. But the main overarching story is in the first four novels, with then three sequels, one prequel so far.

(For anyone confused, novellas may also be called novels when packaged as their own separate print book editions, because they are essentially short novels, the length very much in the tradition of a lot of SFFH novels in the past. Anything over 120 printed pages or so is likely going to get called a novel as a separate print edition but may also be called a novella. Anything over 180 pages, unless very spaced out in printing, is considered only a novel. For things like the Hugo or Nebula awards, they're stricter about the names, with specific word count ranges being important.)

I also finished Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher and quite enjoyed it. It is actiony but also more cuddly/buddy adventure towards the end, so if you're looking for a dark dark fantasy, Nettle & Bone is not it. It instead sits on the border between dark fantasy and humorous fantasy, the two atmospheric settings sub-genres, which for me I quite enjoy. It's probably best described as a fairy tale/fable fantasy. With a skeleton dog.
 
Westy said:
Reading this now, only about a quarter in but great so far!
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Yay! I'm glad you're enjoying it. You'll have to check back in when you finish and let us know what you think at that point.

KatG said:
Sorry, Red, I missed your question here on the first pass. Wells is moderately prolific, been doing it for thirty years and up until Murderbot was best known for her fantasy novels, especially the Ile-Rien stories. In her later years, she seems to favor novellas/short novels. In addition to the seventh Murderbot novel and a prequel novella to that series, Compulsory, and any omnibuses of Ile-Rien novels, she put out in 2023 a new sec world fantasy novel, Witch King, which is about a murdered mage whose consciousness is trapped, kind of like a genie, and has to deal with another mage trying to use his power in the future while trying to find out what happened to himself. So that sounds fun and I'm planning to check it out when I get the chance. It was put out by Tor.com, which is now called something else I think, and is available in audio book.

On Murderbot, apparently the six novel, Fugitive Telemetry, takes place before the fifth novel, Network Effect, so I will probably read them out of order to keep in chronological order. But the main overarching story is in the first four novels, with then three sequels, one prequel so far.
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I will have to start reading more Wells! Seems she has quite a bit of work to love. :) It's strange, though, that Witch King did not come up when I searched for her books after I read your previous post. I can find it now just fine. I have the audiobook on hold at the library and should have it in about a month.

A close friend has finished Murderbot (as it currently stands...) and he has not mentioned that book 6 is out of chronological order! I'm asking his advice on which I should read first and will report back.

Nettle & Bone sounds fun! I don't know that I've read any comedic dark fantasy before, so I may have to check it out. Thanks for the rec!
 
RedMage said:
A close friend has finished Murderbot (as it currently stands...) and he has not mentioned that book 6 is out of chronological order! I'm asking his advice on which I should read first and will report back.
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My friend replied quickly! Apparently they can be read in any order, internal chronology or by publishing date.
 
RedMage said:
My friend replied quickly! Apparently they can be read in any order, internal chronology or by publishing date.
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Yeah, I just prefer chronological by events rather than publishing date. I might have started with the prequel in that sense, but I didn't know she'd done it before I read Murderbot.
 
Both books are a several week, even month, wait for me as I'm getting them through my library. So probably can't read together...
 
The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, narrated by Rebecca Soler

I listened to the audiobook of this YA, contemporary fantasy novel a few weeks ago. It's the first in a duology, and has a few short stories and/or novellas set in its same world.

The story is told in first person from the perspective of Alice, a teenaged girl who has lived a vagabond lifestyle with her mother, traveling from place to place and never staying put for more than a few months. They are both estranged from Alice's grandmother, a famous novelist and recluse who once wrote a book of horrific fairytales that has garnered a cult following. After learning that her grandmother has died, Alice begins to see people following her, as well as strange, unexplainable events that seem to be right out of her grandmother's book. When Alice's mother is kidnapped, Alice goes on a quest to find her and is drawn to her grandmother's home and the fantastical lands that it serves as a gateway to.

I liked the plot of this book. The fairytales coming to life and the mystery surrounding Alice's connection to them was intriguing. That said, this is a character driven story with a slow pace and the first half devoted to character development with a few exciting incidents to keep the plot moving. The pacing does pick up about halfway through but, if you like fast paced, action packed stories, then this probably isn't for you.

My major quibble with the book is with Alice's voice. 90-95% of the time I was able to accept Alice to be exactly what she says she is: an American high school student, 16 or 17 years old. However, there were a handful of instances where she sounds rather more educated, as if she's in university or is in her mid-20s, and there was no evidence to support the larger depth and breadth of knowledge than one might expect given her history. These threw me out of the story and I often stopped to wonder where this comes from and how she knows about that. Given that her grandmother's book of fairytales is a central plot element, there's a few discussions of books (though, not as many as you may think). Alice notes a handful of times that she's a reader, and tells friends that she's read this book or that, but none are sufficient to explain her knowledge or easy familiarity with what, today, are relatively obscure historical or cultural factoids. Nor are her companion's acceptance and lack of questions on these obscure items an issue.

Again, I liked the book. Rebecca Soler provided a high quality narration, giving me a strong sense of the character through her performance. That said, I'm not sure when (or, tbh, if) I'll get to the second.
 
"Thirteens" trilogy ~ by Kate Alice Marshall

I finished this Middle Grade (MG) contemporary fantasy trilogy this week. Marshall is a recent discovery for me and, between this Thirteens trilogy and her novel Extra Normal, I'm finding myself quite the fan. I've only begun reading MG novels again in the last few years, and they're often a hit or miss for me. The books I pick up always have plots and characters that seem interesting and fun based on the book's summary, but the execution (the actual story that's told) is sometimes not what I wish them to be. I'm an adult, so that makes sense as I'm not in MG's target reader age range.

Marshall and her books exceed my expectations. The Thirteens trilogy begins when 12 year old Eleanor moves with her pregnant aunt and uncle to the small town of Eden Eld after her own mother tried to burn down their house. The new family move into an old mansion and Eleanor soon discovers that not only is her new home rather spooky, but the whole town is as well. She soon makes friends in classmates Pip and Otto, who teach her about the "Wrong Things", creatures and beings that only the three of them can see and which adults and other kids forget about moments after they witness them. Soon, the trio discover the leaders of these Wrong Things are hunting them, and mean to capture and use them as magic keys to open a portal to their homeworld and release its armies to conquer the multiverse.

The first two books, Thirteens and Brackenbeast, respectively, are both rather spooky stories as Eleanor, Pip and Otto learn about the threats and combat the Wrong Things threatening them, as well as their human allies, which include Pip's mother! By the third book, Glassheart, the story transitions to a fantasy adventure as the threats are all known and mysteries solved, leaving only a few last questions to answer. These last questions take the protagonists and their allies to strange worlds before, ultimately, leading them home for a final confrontation with the Wrong Things. That change from a spooky to adventure story was an entirely natural one to me while reading; though, in hindsight, it might rock the boat for some readers who hope for an equally spooky finale to the series.

MG stories often deal with themes of growing up, and Marshall's work is no different. In the Thirteens trilogy, she uses the power of stories to explore the changes we go through in our teen years as we transition from children to adults. Thirteens' powerful stories are carnivorous, taking over people and turning them wholly into specific characters, slowing consuming the people they once were, erasing their former memories and replacing their personalities. The protagonists find allies in some of these people before, in the end, falling victim to stories themselves. I thought this a great way to show the contradictory elements of human nature, how we often see ourselves and want to be one way and make certain plans for our futures, but that events outside our control and our reactions to them and our own failings prevent our hopes and desires from becoming reality. Yet, we continue to struggle to obtain them and, with a will and the support of good friends, we just might get there.

One of my major quibbles with MG--which is entirely, 100% due to my being an adult--is that the stories are often simplified from what I wish them to be. Because, of course, I'm both subconsciously and consciously comparing them to Adult works. YA works I read are often closer to the Adult books, but some are simpler than I prefer, too. By "simplified" I don't mean they lack twists or depth of plots or characters. Those are present, but not always to the degree I want if the work was for the Adult market.

Marshall's MG books are written for children in the MG market's target age range--9 or 10 up to 13 or 14 years old. But her stories do not balk at complexities, either in plots or characters and, for that reason, I find them relatable, fun and exciting as an adult reader. I found Eleanor and her friends to be young versions of adults, encountering some issues for the first time which adults have had multiple experiences with. One element of "simplified" characterization that I've encountered in MG is protagonists having rose-tinted glasses for family members, having what I consider an extreme and somewhat unrealistic amount of love for siblings or parents or other relatives they live with, an almost parental adoration for them as they gush over younger family members developments, like a baby learning to walk and talk. In Thirteens, Eleanor has a new infant cousin, but it hardly features apart from the rare note that it's still around and exists. Instead, the baby provides Eleanor a further source of motivation to accomplish her already established goal of defeating the Wrong Things as she learns the baby will eventually be threatened by the Wrong Things when she grows up. In this way, I found Eleanor highly relatable as, while she loves her family, it does not consume her and she remains focused on her own needs, desires and things happening to her and her friends.

The full trilogy is complete and available now, starting with Thirteens.
 
Lois McMaster Bujold

Not a book or series, but Bujold is one of my favorite authors. I've spent the last two years or so reading her Vorkosigan Saga--all the novels and novellas, and most of the short stories but I think I'm missing one or two of those... Between Bujold and Elizabeth Moon (will post separately ;) ) and some others, I've been on a bit of a military sci-fi kick since the pandemic.

I love long series. They really allow their authors and readers to dive into characters and tell big stories about families and friends, not to mention create a world or universe and populate it with a realistic number of characters, nations, technology, and magic--just to name a few. Not all long series do this equally, but Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga certainly did for me.

The Saga primarily follows Miles Vorkosigan, the physically disabled son and heir to Vorkosigan House, one of the premier noble houses in the militaristic Empire of Barrayar, which expands from one plant to several over the course of the series. The Saga also features a half-dozen or so non-Miles stories, with those mostly following either his mother or other family members, but a few don't feature any of the Vorkosigans or their relations at all. The Miles-led stories follow him from when he joins the Barrayaran military in his late teens, through special assignments and into middle age. There is lots of action in the Saga with all that you'd expect from military sci-fi, but as 20+ years are covered in the pages, there is also crime and politics and romance. It really hits on just about every aspect of human life.

Bujold also writes fantasy. I've only read her Curse of Chalion, the first book in a fantasy series. Unfortunately, it did not grip me in the same way that the Vorkosigan Saga did. I liked it in the end, but I did have to push through. I think I was expecting a similar narrative voice, perhaps a plot and storylines similar to the Vorkosigan Saga. But Bujold is not a one-trick pony. While these are the only two I've read (so far! I will change that!), her writing style and the stories she tells are entirely different in the different series she's written.

Has anyone else read Chalion? I plan to continue the series, but haven't done so yet. What of her other works and series? I see there are "Penric" novels, which Google says are part of/related to Chalion, and she also has a Sharing Knife series too.

For those who enjoy military sci-fi, or think they might, and haven't given the Vorkosigan Saga a try yet, you should do so! With so many full novels available now (it's in the mid-teens) there are a few potential starting places, each of which Google can help you find.
 
LOVE Bujold, but not read more than the first Chalion book - must admit I can't remember much of it at all, except that I enjoyed it. Sadly, sales were not too good here in the UK and the publishers dropped the series in the early 2000s.
 
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