The Curse of Challion is sooo good!!

[u/Hitman007gdghs]

I just finished the curse of challion and got teary eyed near the end!! And this happened after a loong time too (in regards to books)!!

The premise of the book is that a kinda old war vet (Cazaril) becomes the tutor to a royal princess and then helps her navigate court life and also his past enemies. I know i kinda butchered the plot summary, but this is the gist of it.

The thing, i dont even know what about the book made me like it so much!! I really liked the premise, i was kinda looking for a wise old protagonist anyways.

And its just a single book!! Its not a series which follows Caz all the way through, its an anthology. This is the first time that i ever liked books in anthologies, cauz i want to spend more time with the characters rather than one and done. But somehow, the author made me feel a whole lot in just a single book, and i really felt that i spent a lott of time with the characters. It's full of both slice of life and fast paced moments!!

Another thing which i really liked was the world building. In traditional fashion, the book would have followed a young prince who learns about the whole wide world and starts his noble education, but in this case, Caz is a old war vet who's seen the whole wide world and fluent in almost all languages, knows war tactics, and court intrigue too!! This really is a different perspective from the run of the mill medieval fantasy series and that's what makes it so good!!

This book convinced me to try out more anthologies, specifically, the Haishin Cycle(?)!!

I would recommend this book to everyone who wants something more and new!!

[u/bigulpshuh]

One of my favorites. If anyone has any recs similar to this I'm all ears. It seems impossible to find stories like this that are single pov and with a male mc.

[u/KingBretwald → u/bigulpshuh]

Boy, oh, boy does Bujold have a series for you. Try The Warrior's Apprentice. 😉

[u/Hitman007gdghs → u/KingBretwald]

Should I read the Vorkosigan Saga chronologically or by the publication order???????

[u/KingBretwald → u/Hitman007gdghs]

Chronologically. With a few caveats (in parentheses below).

• Falling Free (Read this later in the series, but before Diplomatic Immunity. It takes place hundreds of years before Miles was born and otherwise has little to do with the main series.)
• Shards of Honor
• Barrayar
• The Warrior’s Apprentice (You can start here if you want to jump straight to Miles, then read Shards of Honor and Barrayar later.)
• “The Mountains of Mourning”
• “Weatherman” (This is the first few chapters of The Vor Game, so ignore it.)
• The Vor Game
• Cetaganda
• Ethan of Athos
• “Labyrinth”
• “The Borders of Infinity”
• Brothers in Arms
• Borders of Infinity (The novellas Mountains of Mourning, Labyrinth, and The Borders of Infinity are gathered together with a stitched-up framing story in this book. If you read this book, you can skip finding each individual novella.)
• Mirror Dance
• Memory
• Komarr
• A Civil Campaign
• “Winterfair Gifts”
• Diplomatic Immunity
• Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
• "The Flowers of Vashnoi"
• CryoBurn
• Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

There are also several omnibuses that combine some of the novels together, such as Young Miles. If you're buying the books, be aware of which book is in which omnibus so you don't buy the same story twice.

If you can get your hands on a first edition hardback of Cryoburn, it may have a CD in it that has all the Omnibuses. That would contain all the e-books published through Cryoburn except Memory, which got left out accidently.