My issues with the Vorkosigan books post-Komarr

[kate_nepveu]

I was having a discussion about the Vorkosigan books over on G+ (prompted by the eARC of the Ivan book becoming available) and thought I should bring these mini-rants over here for multiple cut tags and also potential interest. Don't read if you don't want spoilers or you don't want your squee harshed; I love the series but not uncritically, and if that's not your thing, have some kittens instead.

A Civil Campaign

First: Miles/Ekaterin moved too fast. Bujold invoked Sayers in the dedication, but this was Gaudy Night and should have been Have His Carcase. Where, exactly, is the emotional resolution of Miles overrunning her boundaries and Ekaterin wanting to be established on her own? Swept away in coming to his defense against external influences, and not actually resolved at all.

Second: I need WAY more character development to buy Dono's adjustment to the sex change, and also to buy Dono/Olivia, because there are psychological consequences all over the damn place there which are basically . . . Sir/Madam/Gentlebeing Not Appearing In This Book.

Third and relatedly: Fuck the patriarchy anyway; the proper response to the recognition that sex is a mutable characteristic is to stop enshrining it as a requirement for power. Don't join them, beat them. (That is: I think I'm supposed to think of Dono becoming Count as a big-picture victory, and I don't.)

Diplomatic Immunity

Needs to have had a parallel Ekaterin POV, the space for which is clearly visible.

Cryoburn

Hey, remember in A Civil Campaign when Cordelia asks Kareen if she sees marriage "as the end and abolition of yourself," and Kareen says "Why else do all the stories end when the Count's daughter get married?"

. . . yeah. Ekaterin doesn't even get to be physically present in this book. And this bit from Roic's POV?

Lady Vorkosigan already ran an enormous household, rode herd on four children under the age of six and a teenage son from a prior marriage, played political hostess for her husband in his roles both as an Imperial Auditor and as the Count's heir, had undertaken supervisory responsibilities for agriculture and terraforming in the Vorkosigan's District, and tried desperately, in her spare seconds, to maintain a garden design business.

I just. GAH.

Suddenly that too-quick resolution in ACC, and the lack of her POV in DI, looks like foreshadowing of the deeply unwelcome kind.

Also: other things that are interesting include: Miles raising his children (assuming that he does). [*] Miles being married. Miles being Count Vorkosigan. Barrayar changing in response to galactic tech and society. Things, in other words, with direct emotional consequences and conflicts for Miles and Ekaterin and the rest of the people we've come to know and like over all these books.

Way, way down on the list of what's interesting is Miles solving some other planet's problems, no matter how thematic those problems are. And yet that's what Cryoburn was, minus its last five hundred words—good words, granted, but not in any way sufficient.

[*] Looking at the Miles-POV vid message scene makes me want to smash things again:

Considering that he'd stuck her with four offspring in under six years, her lack of gray hairs seemed increasingly remarkable. . . . Perhaps—no, make that almost certainly—he'd underestimated how much work normal healthy children would take, even with all the help his money and position could buy.

One would like to think that Ekaterin, not a first-time parent, would have some input here, but you sure as fuck couldn't prove it from the text.

Despite, or perhaps because of, these rants, I am interested in the Ivan book, though I am so tired that I think I will probably wait on reading it for a bit.

Comments

[daedala]

100% agreed. I liked A Civil Campaign but have major issues with it (and am afraid to reread it); I pretend the ones after it don't exist. And I'm with you on waiting to read the Ivan book, because I'm worried it'll continue the trend.

[scifantasy]

Argh! DW just ate my comment. In short, I fully agree on Diplomatic Immunity (Ekaterin's POV was noticeably absent, as you say, and for that matter seeing her negotiate in the final climax would have been a very natural end to the three-book arc of her development) and Cryoburn (especially when the Imperium itself is a character, and its development is pretty interesting itself). Partly agree about Campaign; I'm more forgiving of that one because it's just so much fun.

Point 3 of Campaign, though, as much as I agree with the principle, I can't see happening in the bounds of the universe like that. The Imperium would only change gradually, incrementally. A friend of mine did a brief tripartite fanfiction about that, actually: Untitled.

[leighdb]

I find it very significant that basically the only part of Cryoburn I even remember is the last 500 words of it. The rest of it struck me as pointless.

I love ACC, personally, and really liked DI, but I certainly see your point on both fronts. And yes, there was a golden opportunity to have an entire POV section of Ekaterin kicking ass and being awesome toward the end of DI, and Bujold just... skipped it. Perhaps she was trying to make a deadline or something, but that is a crying shame, because that would have been a thing to see.

(Maybe an idea for someone to fic on, one day...)

All that said, I will all over the Ivan book. If she goes back to the domestic deliciousness of ACC I will totally forgive the irrelevance of Cryoburn.

[lnhammer]

this was Gaudy Night and should have been Have His Carcase

This is my major criticism of ACC (which I recently reread in full, for the first time in years, right after Komarr). There's several other problems, above and beyond the ones you touch on, but for me this one dwarfs all the others.

---L.

[desperance]

Kittens!

(I'm only halfway through the series and haven't read these yet so I had to skip the meat of your post; so thank you for the kittens, that was really thoughtful.)

[eruthros]

this was Gaudy Night and should have been Have His Carcase.

Yes! That is exactly what I say about ACC, too. And the worst of it, for me, is that it's not even Gaudy Night - if it were Gaudy Night it would be predominantly in Ekaterin's voice and Miles wouldn't have tried to manipulate her throughout it. If it were GN, he'd be honest with her about what he wanted and he would let her decide what to do. His manipulations there, and Ekaterin's lack of voice throughout the rest of the series (despite the fact that she saves his life) make me really uncomfortable, and I often read the story as far as Komarr and no further.

[trent_goulding]

Mostly what this is telling me is that I don't actually recall _ACC_ well enough to comment intelligently, at least as to your points 2 and 3. I mostly remember butter bugs and lots of domestic mayhem, and Miles _in extremis_ in entertaining ways (which is par for the course), but also in relatively new ways.

My "Gah, smash" reflex isn't triggered in the same way as yours by _Cryoburn_, although I share the view that all the things that Miles could/should be dealing with in your enumerated list would be ever so much more interesting than the "solve other planet's problems" that we actually end up with.

[emceeaich]

I have some sympathy for Cryoburn in that part of the genesis of the book is some HULK SMASH in response to the 2007-8 financial market shenanigans, but I wish there had been more on machinations and less of Miles-Being-Ever-So-Clever (which can get annoying.)

cynthia1960 has the advance ePub of the Ivan book, and I'll hear more about it later this evening.

[soon_lee]

Is it at least partly due to the series PoV being Miles? His narrow focus (and consequent lack of consideration for others) has been present all along; he's not "the little git" for nothing.

Stories in the same setting from other PoVs (like the latest?) or "Winterfair GIfts" might help?

[sasha_feather]

Agreed. The last book was such a disappointment.

[yhlee]

I liked A Civil Campaign at the time, but I agree with your criticisms. I have no comments on Diplomatic Immunity because I'm not even sure I can remember thing one about the story--it just left no impression on me at all.

I deeply dislike Bujold's handling of Dono, which is so "Oh gosh! Look at the shiny trans* person! Let's treat the sex change and gender role problems in Barrayar and role adjustments as an opportunity for juvenile humor!" I look at that character and mostly I feel stabbed, although I realize Bujold doesn't know I exist and has no reason to care.

[metaphortunate]

Yes, I agree with all of this.

I don't think Dono is meant to be a trans person at all. I think the character is written as a (probably) straight woman who chose to become a (presumably) straight man for explicitly political reasons and who had access to the technology to make it possible.

[dsgood]

I suspect you don't much care for John Varley's Eight Worlds stories, in which people routinely change back and forth between genders for no particular reason.

Tangent: I might consider becoming female temporarily. But not becoming righthanded.

[sartorias]

I feel like a brilliant book--on the level of Memory or Kommarr or Mirror Dance--could have happened if the last 500 words of Cryoburn had been the opening.

[thette]

The books I tend to re-read are Komarr and A Civil Campaign, mostly because the combination of them makes me happy, and I don't think it's possible to harsh my squee, but I see what you mean about the problematic trans* and feminist issues.

I would do what Donna did in the same situation, and I wouldn't even think twice about it. (I don't have a strong sense of gender, and I identify as genderqueer.) That's probably why I haven't reacted at the portrayal of Dono. I would love to hear more of her and By's backstory.

[countrycousin]

Yeah, I don't have any real objections to your points.

Counter-points - Miles is definitely not Peter. That provided a lot of the humor of ACC. ACC is a romp. It is definitely not the serious novel that GAUD is, despite the sporadic drama from dinner to Counts session.

IMHO, Dono did pretty well for Barrayar. Your points are quite valid, but when steps are too large, there is backlash.

My personal opinion: Ekaterin had a LOT of input on the number of children she's herding. That is not at all inconsistent with the thoughts Miles has. No textev, of course - I base that on previous time spent with Ekaterin. And if Ekaterin felt she was being pressured (by whom? Miles? personally doubt it, but not unthinkable. Alys? She's only got one, herself. Although valid reason therefor. Cordelia would certainly be formidable support against anyone, should Ekaterin choose to enlist her.)

But, yes, the corpus peaked at Mirror Dance and Memory. Later works have been friendly visits - and I love them - but less. I doubt that anyone wants to put the Vorkosigans through what would be necessary to reach those heights again. :-/ I await the fourth and fifth Gods books for such attempts, but we'll see.

[damerell]

All else aside, I don't think Dono is a big victory. He's not the final end of the patriarchy; he's one of Barrayar's Philippa Fawcetts, working inside the system but making it look ridiculous. It's because of Dono that the big victory will be won by the next generation.

[rivka]

There's a searing bit in Cryoburn where you find out that the kids have embroidered a whole fantasy about Miles adopting them. Then he whips out his photo album and shows them picture after picture of his impossibly privileged and adored children, and their fantasy falls apart to ashes in front of their eyes, and Miles is completely oblivious.

It's a view of the malign side of Miles' charisma. He gets people to love him and be fanatically loyal to them, and then he leaves. And what they thought he meant to them is wrecked.

I felt like Lois must be going somewhere with that, but she never did. The kids lined up a different Barrayaran daddy figure, and Miles went on being oblivious to how much he had hurt them. That struck me as... weird.

[lannamichaels]

I agree completly with all of these.

[(Anonymous)]

I waited to read this until I had devoured the Ivan book, because really I love this series, but sadly I love the pre- Miles-gets-married books more.

I thought it was just me. Reading more fanfic these days, reading on the Kindle - I thought I'd lost some necessary element to make me love these books like I love the books which lead up to them.

You were much easier on these books than I expected. I didn't have some of the problems that you did with A Civil Campaign (the rushed nature of the romance was the main thing) but the others... well, I'll still read Bujold as soon as I can get my hands on an eARC, but it's more in honor of days of glory now.

(sigh - I've tried ten times to get this comment to post with OpenID and the spamcaptcha keeps failing on me.)

--catlinye-maker.livejournal, since I don't like to post anon.