I've got a review for Lois Bujold's 'The Vor Game' down below. It comes right in the middle of the series, but it's the first Vorkosigan books that I read so it's a good a place as any to start my reviews. It's getting a little weird to be reviewing these books that I read a long time ago. If I'd read Vor Game more recently I might have had a little more actual criticism either good or bad to lay out in a review. Having read it a few years ago the book has kind of glossed over in my mind and my review kind of lacks some specifics. I've been working on reading all the books nominated for the Hugo or Nebula Award for awhile now, and I'm not going to start doing it over just so I can write better reviews of some of those novels I read when I was a kid. Watch out for when I write a review for 'Stranger in a Strange Land,' I read that one over twenty years ago and I'm actively avoiding re-reading it so I don't damage how much I actually enjoyed the book.
So this review might the review I've written so far that I'm least happy with, but I'm still going to throw it out there for public consumption. I don't like reviews that are just plot summaries or gushing over how much a person loved the novel. You can get a review like that anywhere. I want to try and show some of the influences from previous SF impact a novel, what other authors influence this one, and why a certain work might be important to SF as a whole. Well I'll admit I just haven't done this in my review for Vor Game. I don't think it's a work in the Vorkosigan Saga that demands a lot of introspection or examination. There will be time for that when we get to 'Mirror Dance' and 'Barrayer.' Some of these works that I read a long time ago aren't going to get the most in depth reviews.
'The Vor Game' is an entertaining novel, but I think it's one of the weaker Hugo Winners. I don't know what I would place above it as far as the other Hugo Nominees, maybe 'Earth' by David Brin, and the Nebula Nominees don't really have anything else that really stands out either, maybe 'Tehanu' by Ursula Leguin, but that's more about name recognition than anything else. Maybe 1991 was just a weak year for SF, though Vor Game isn't the worst winner by a long shot. Not every year can be groundbreaking.
So this review might the review I've written so far that I'm least happy with, but I'm still going to throw it out there for public consumption. I don't like reviews that are just plot summaries or gushing over how much a person loved the novel. You can get a review like that anywhere. I want to try and show some of the influences from previous SF impact a novel, what other authors influence this one, and why a certain work might be important to SF as a whole. Well I'll admit I just haven't done this in my review for Vor Game. I don't think it's a work in the Vorkosigan Saga that demands a lot of introspection or examination. There will be time for that when we get to 'Mirror Dance' and 'Barrayer.' Some of these works that I read a long time ago aren't going to get the most in depth reviews.
'The Vor Game' is an entertaining novel, but I think it's one of the weaker Hugo Winners. I don't know what I would place above it as far as the other Hugo Nominees, maybe 'Earth' by David Brin, and the Nebula Nominees don't really have anything else that really stands out either, maybe 'Tehanu' by Ursula Leguin, but that's more about name recognition than anything else. Maybe 1991 was just a weak year for SF, though Vor Game isn't the worst winner by a long shot. Not every year can be groundbreaking.
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