I tend to have the same reaction to Bear, fwiw. She writes books that sound in general premise/outline like they should be entirely my thing - in fact, some of them are plots/premises I've thought about writing myself - but then I simply can't click with them. It's usually a combination of plotting decisions that make it go just slightly off the rails for me, and characters who are so emotionally flat that I can't connect to them. Which is interesting because I adore Cherryh and her books are also very emotionally restrained. But you get the sense that the characters are having tons of emotions right under the surface. With Bear, it's kind of like her characters are just there. They don't really seem to connect to each other or to me.