Been rereading Bujold lately and got inspired. More accurately, the characters have been dancing around my head and refuse to leave -- not that I want them to. I really, really love those books.
The characters are so well-written, I feel like they're real people. And I start to care about them... My roommates laughed at me when I was reading "Cordelia's Honor", because I writhed in agony, and gasped pain, and almost cried, and laughed both joyfully and bitterly. Turns out it's worse, knowing what's going to happen before it does. Because then you know the hell these people are going through, and you can see they decisions they have to make, and you know exactly how it's going to destroy them and how inevitable it all is.
Sigh. Right now I heart Aral and Cordelia even more than I do Miles.