If you prefer fantasy, give The Curse of Chalion a try, which is a secondary-world fantasy in which the gods exist, and interfere indirectly in human affairs.

That sounds like my bag! Although I keep hearing about that Miles Vorkosigan fellow. He is in a lot of books.

Part of my brain is telling me that I read that, but nothing on the wikipedia page is triggering memories.

The safest thing might be to just read them again.

Although I keep hearing about that Miles Vorkosigan fellow. He is in a lot of books.

He is! He is a hyperactive military genius who is 4'10", with bones that tend to snap easily, and a bit of a Daddy Complex, since his father is an admiral and planetary hero. So naturally he becomes, at 17, an admiral in charge of a mercenary space fleet.

There are many characters in the Vorkosigan novels, but Miles is rather the center point about whom they all revolve.

I might like the Chalion books better than the Vorkosigan, but, really, both are out in that zone of Really Good where I don't need to fine tune exactly how good they are beyond Really Good and comparisons become kind of meaningless.

I love the Chalion books the best. Not that I don't love Miles, but I find something more each time I reread the first two Chalion books. The third one, not so much.

The third one, not so much.

I liked the third one well enough, but I wanted more connections with the first two.

a bit of a Daddy Complex

Consuela, mistress of understatement.

One of the things I enjoy about Bujold's books is that mixed in with the serious or dramatic scenes, you get humor. And in the lightest one - A Civil Campaign (quite late in the series) - there's lots of it. Along with the characters, the plots, the world building ....

Although I got fed up with the Sharing Knife series - read the first two and then gave up on it.

Read Bujold!

I read one and did not care for it. I don't even think I finished it. But my book tastes don't run very geeky.

I read one and did not care for it.

Not everything is for everyone, and to be fair, she has a few clunkers (Diplomatic Immunity, Cryoburn, Ethan of Athos imo; and possibly the Sharing Knife novels). But the Vorkosigan novels, at least most of them, are on my "re-read for comfort" shelf. And they translate well to audio--I've listened to The Curse of Chalion on audiobook twice.

Right now, I'm on a (belated) Robin McKinley kick. I read Sunshine over the holidays and enjoyed it quite a bit, although it feels a bit too much like the first book in a series, what with potentially interesting but sketchy world-building.

The next was Beauty, her first take on B&B story back in the 70's. That one was a bit "eh". It was a quick read, but a bit too simple and hewed too close to the original story to make it special. I do have Rose Daughter in my possession -- not sure if it'd be worthwhile reading yet another take on the story from the same author, but the paperback is small enough to pack when I go on a vacation next week, I guess.

She's got another series, right? Sword and the Crown? Wait, Hero and the Crown, I think, is the first book. I have it somewhere at home. Is that one good?