The Physicians of Vilnoc
by Lois McMaster Bujold
2020

This is the eighth (more or less) of the "Penric and Desdemona" novellas. I've been reading these somewhat out of order (as I can get them), with Penric's Fox being the most recent. This sees Penric fighting an outbreak of an unknown disease at the military compound in the town he lives in, and somewhat in danger of working himself and his demon to death. There's no excitement here, no big twist, just him running around trying to cure people with his somewhat limited magic and simultaneously trying to figure out where the disease has come from - and when that happened it felt like more of a let-down than a discovery.

I was also a bit disappointed to see that Bujold, usually a master of words, is starting to use certain turns of phrase and expressions a bit too often. By no means a bad story, it just can't compare with her best.