So this pile of books is pretty much the entire Vorkosigan saga, pieced together from various omnibuses and singletons available at my local bookstore. The only ones missing, I think, are The Vor Game and The Warrior’s Apprentice (the first two starring Miles himself), and I’ll probably just skip those.

But anyway. The purpose of this post is not to let you know what I’m reading, but rather to quote something at you from Bujold’s afterword to Cordelia’s Honor:

All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business creator. In service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. Becoming a parent is one of these basic human transformational deeds. By this act, we change our fundamental relationship with the universe–if nothing else, we lose our place as the pinnacle and end-point of evolution, and become a mere link. The demands of motherhood especially consume the old self, and replace it with something new, often better and wiser, sometimes wearier or disillusioned, or tense and terrified, certainly more self-knowing, but never the same again.

It is not coincidental that Storm Bride (coming out this winter!) contains many of these same themes.