It took me out of the story each time and was frankly skeevy.

Like, if your almost 40-year-old protagonist is struck by the fact that the Quaddies look like children & proceed with childlike innocence one minute, perhaps don't have him checking out one of them for a hookup the next (over and over and over). He was thoroughly awful from beginning to end and it was a bit much. The resident baddie Bruce Van Atta was just a bit too on the nose. The ending is happy and left me wanting to find out what happens with them down the line.

This sets Leo off on a journey of finding his cause and undertaking the massive job of stewarding the Quaddies in their quest for autonomy and survival. As it happens, very soon after Leo's arrival, another company has come up with technology that outmodes the Quaddies and the company's solution is to eliminate the biological work product i.e. Oh and there's the not so small matter of 1000 of them ranging from babies of a few months old to teenagers. The group is called 'Quaddies', receive no payment, are strictly monitored, taught not to question anything and told when and with whom to have sex and procreate. They literally gave them an extra set of hands where legs go so that they work more efficiently in free fall and they're able to withstand higher levels of radiation all so the company doesn't need to pay for employees to go planetside for a months rotation because of things like monetary compensation and time off. Almost immediately, the hellscape alert goes off as the company he is working for has bought him out to teach welding to a group of genetically engineered slave workers. Bujold drops you right into the story with Leo Graf, the protagonist, arriving at his new assignment Cay Station. I very much liked the set up of the story. What can I say, there are a lot of books to get around to in life but I'm getting in my fair share of old science fiction in 2020. This also happened to be the first of Lois McMaster Bujold that I've read. This was another book in the box of old books we inherited and had a space station on the cover and if you've read my reviews, you know how this goes.

Falling free bujold