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.

All I know about Miles Vorkosigan is that AJ Hall wrote some crossover fic between her HP Lopiverse and the Vorkosiverse. Which were good.

That... is a very unhelpful answer, huh?

My literary ventures of the week have consisted of Uglies, a young adult SF dystopia along the lines of The Giver, and, now, Party Princess (the seventh book in the Princess Diaries series). Uglies was excellent, and i need to read the sequel stat. Party Princess is... pretty much exactly the same as the other PD books, which means silly and addictive as hell if you're into that very pink genre.

Uglies was ok. I haven't read The Pretties yet. But there are a lot of westerfield's other books that I really really like. Including Peeps , the vampire book.

The Vorkosigan novels are not written in chronological order. Or not published, anyway. It's a bit frustrating.

Steph: Shards is a romance-with-politics-and-battles. Barrayar, which follows it immediately, is a political thriller with rich character details. (And battles, but those are mostly offstage.) If you don't like those two, you won't like the rest; but even if you're kind of meh on Shards, stick it out to Barrayar, which -- shopping, yes. Sigh.

After those two, the order is:

The Warrior's Apprentice, (space battles! adventure! fun and angst!, thus setting the tone for the series)

The Vor Game, (somewhat disjointed but it has some fun stuff in it)

Borders of Infinity (a short story collection, some of them awesome),

Cetaganda (a political intrigue/mystery which I found kind of meh),

Brothers in Arms (politics/intrigue, and necessary, as it sets up the next few),

Mirror Dance (politics and adventure),

Memory (Miles hits 30; 30 hits back),

Komarr (a mystery, mostly),

A Civil Campaign (a Sayers/Heyer tribute, which works better in theory than in practice, but is often very fun: primarily a romance),

Diplomatic Immunity (a mystery, which was also quite meh).

That's the main line: there's also Falling Free and Ethan of Athos, which are set in the same universe but the Vorkosigans do not appear onscreen.

(Did I miss any?)

Shards of Honor (1986)

Barrayar (1991)

The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

"The Mountains of Mourning" (1989) (short story in Borders of Infinity)

The Vor Game (1990)

Cetaganda (1995)

"Labyrinth" (1989) (in Borders of Infinity)

"The Borders of Infinity" (1987) (in Borders of Infinity)

Brothers in Arms (1989)

Mirror Dance (1994)

Memory (1996)

Komarr (1998)

A Civil Campaign (2000)

Diplomatic Immunity (2002)

Ethan of Athos rules.

You know, it's been years since I read it. I don't even own a copy.