What is Lee and Miller's BEST Work? You decide!

[rolanni]

OK! Here's some fun. Far more often than seldom, a review will appear -- either in a professional venue, or in a blog, or on Amazon, which states, "While X is not up to Lee and Miller's BEST work..." (robotech_master, yours is only one in a long line). This sort of thing has always seemed...like a bit of a cheat...to me, because, yanno, here's this reader who knows what Lee and Miller's BEST work is -- and they're not going tell you!

Dirty pool, I say.

So, here's your chance. Below is a list of longer Liaden works. Which is the Best? Choose one and only one, then! Defend your choice in comments.

Have at it.


[Poll #1538793]

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Gah, 'best' in what sense? Character introductions? (AoC has to take that for the very first line.) Character development? Plot? Overall progression of the story arc? Quality of language use? (The later ones are inevitably better than the first, as with all writers I know.) Most satisfying to me?

It's like "my favourite book", the usual answer is whatever I've re-read last (or am currently re-reading -- if I've only read a book once then it is unlikely to be a favourite yet).

Even worse, some of those I consider a "work in many parts". Fledgling and Saltation, and Crystal Soldier+Dragon, definitely, I wouldn't read the second without the first (they can be read separately but I much prefer not to do so).

And then there's ambiguity even about the term "their best work". Most of the books contain sections or even phrases of your "best work" (as I mentioned, the first sentence in AoC, even though you have written "better boks" since then). I suspect that if I went through them I could find examples of what I would term your "best work" in each of the books. So if I ever said something like "not up to their best work" about an author (and I hope I never have) it would simply mean that there were more sections which I remember as 'best' from their other books taken as a whole, not that I have any concept of a single 'best' book.

(I really can't decide, looking at the list. Every time I tried to tick one box I immediately decided that there were other 'better' contenders based on some other criterion. I'll play safe and go for "Ghost Ship" *g*...)