Five+ Books & a new tag

Meme from hamsterwoman:

Comment and I'll give you a letter, and you will need to name five favorite books starting with that letter.

I got the letter B. It was surprisingly hard; the letter B seems under-represented in my favorite authors' bibliographies. Perhaps this is a sign that I should read Peter Watts's Blindsight, which sits on my shelf. Also, if you want a letter, comment with a comment that includes "Meme me!" or something to that effect.

Alphabetized by author and then title:
Barrayar, Lois McMaster Bujold
Borders of Infinity, Lois McMaster Bujold (yes, this is a collection of short stories – it's still a book)
Brothers in Arms, Lois McMaster Bujold
Beowulf's Children, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes
Beyond the Aquila Rift, Alastair Reynolds (again, a collection of short stories)

(Stuff that didn't make the list: Bowl of Heaven, Larry Niven and Gregory Benford; Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Frederik Pohl.)

All the LMB stuff is part of the Vorkosigan saga, which anyone who subscribes to me has probably already heard about, but it's mainly planetary romance (/space opera) that spans a lot of subgenres/genre fusions. Lots of loyalty kink, and the main protagonist is a schemer who gets involved in high-adrenaline hijinks. Barrayar is about the newly married protagonist (main protag's mother) figuring out how life works on this feudalist planet and oh hey domestic intrigue plot coup thingy; Borders of Infinity spans the gamut, with one story taking place in a backwater of the feudalist planet and another in a high-tech galactic prisoner of war camp, with all the stories involving our main protag's plotting mind; Brothers in Arms has our main protag discover a clone-brother and also domestic-ish intrigue.
Beowulf's Children is mainly there because I enjoyed the worldbuilding about the ecology, way back when I read it. (Not gonna reread because I liked it but in hindsight Niven is ... creepy.) It's also better than book #1, IIRC, since it deals with slightly more complex themes than just "kill the bad things".
Beyond the Aquila Rift collects a bunch of Alastair Reynolds' short stuffs. I like him as a novelist, but I like him as a short story writer a bit more. He's got good ideas, and turns them into convincing stories.
Bowl of Heaven is Big Dumb Object SF, except the object is complex and "smart". Niven's sexism was obvious, as I only read this recently, but the BDO they were exploring was more than enough to compensate. The ending was a bit of an ass pull, but that only happened in book 2.
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon is part of the Heechee saga, which I enjoyed, though mostly due to the other books. Gateway was good, this one not so much.

Though I may enjoy novels, I like short things a bit more, I think. Less of a time investment, and often authors feel free to do more outrageous stuff in them. Additionally, one type of prose I hate – the purple prose overdescription of everything – is so fundamentally unsuited to the length that it's much rarer and I have less chances of disappointment. My favorite authors tend to be the ones that can write concisely, then bring their style to their novels (most recently, Yoon Ha Lee, who managed to fit into 8k what other people would spend a novel on: Battle of Candle Arc, not on the list only because AFAIK it's online-only and thus not a book).

Now, thanks to dreamkist, I have a month's worth of paid time. You know what that means? ALL THE POLLS.
( polls )