Meanwhile in Echo Bazaar

This game gets way more interesting once you start getting your scores up to the 70-80 range. :D

(I'm still sad that I accidentally terminated the jewel thief subplot, though. I wonder if there is any way to get that back.)

Something I can say about the Vorkosigan books that's not a spoiler!

One of the things I love about these books is that it feels like the characters really live in this world, this universe. A lot of sci-fi, especially the more space-operatic sort, focuses on the big-picture stuff -- it's all about starship captains and space marines. Bujold's cast of characters includes starship captains and space marines, but also includes space accountants and supply clerks, and the starship captains spend most of their time worrying about things like where the money to operate the big space fleet comes from, or what happens to the family members of space marines killed in action. I was thinking about this reading "Cryoburn"; I just hit a scene in which the main character, who's hiding out on an unfamiliar-to-him planet, has wandered into one of the areas where low-income people go:

( Cut for basically non-spoilery snippet of book )

It really has that communal-kitchen feel ... and how many sci-fi authors actually think about where people eat or how they live, let alone note all those little details that evoke a sense of "shared hostel kitchen", anyway? A lot of sci-fi novels go for "gritty", but I haven't read too many that capture a lived-in, everyday feeling the way these do.