Yes. Yes. Yes.

I'd suggest starting with Shards of Honor and Barrayar , which are also found together in Cordelia's Honor. They're really a prequel to the Miles stories, but they stand alone, so you can get a sense if you like the writing and the universe. You'll also never look at the word "shopping" the same way again.

Bujold and Willis are my current favorite authors, although I read a pretty wide range of stuff. For Connie Willis, I always recommend Bellwether , which is really more magical realism. It's very funny, particularly if you've worked in a dysfunctional office.

(edited because I apparently haven't had enough coffee to do italics)

So, question: would I like the Miles Vorkosigan books?

Yes, because they are awesome. :)

In all seriousness, I don't know if they'd be exactly your thing. They're very much character-driven books, but the first several do contain an awful lot of military SF stuff, even if it's (much) more about the politics than about the tech. The later books are more romance-y. And the characters are SO GREAT.

Here's the thing...the first few are good. After that, they get REALLY good. So if you read them in order and aren't hooked right away, you'll never get to the really amazing stuff in the middle/end of the series. (The exception being the most recent one, which was kind of incoherent.) On the other hand, if you start in the middle of the series with the REALLY REALLY GREAT ones, you'll be missing all the character backstory that makes them so good. So it's hard for me to recommend the series to someone who I think might be on the fence about them because I don't want you to be meh on Cetaganda and miss out on Memory.

PS, also read Bellwether, as per Ginger above. It is great. You will be laughing at duct tape and angels the rest of your life.

Also to be reading Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, which are also great.

You will be laughing at duct tape and angels the rest of your life.

And fairies, Barbie, team-building and Robert Browning.

Is there a firm listing of the proper story order of the the Vorkosigan books? Are they written in order?

And fairies, Barbie, team-building and Robert Browning.

I've always laughed at team-building.

I read Bellwether out loud to my husband and he almost died laughing. Except I apparently did Flip so well he kept getting annoyed with me.

Okay. Have requested Shards of Honor and Bellwether from the library.

More updates as the situation develops.

ION, I'm thrilled that Libba Bray has a third book in the A Great and Terrible Beauty series on the way. Amazon says September 25.

And I think Sarah Monette's third Melusine novel is out this summer, too. While I'm not crazy about her world-building (I think it's unnecessarily too convoluted), the characters keep sticking in my brain, and I want to know what happens to them next.

Barrayar was written later to fill in the backstory, but the rest are written in order.

Is there a firm listing of the proper story order of the the Vorkosigan books?

There's a swell timeline at the end of many (all?) of them that includes the short stories and Falling Free and things that are just alluded to. A useful reference.