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?

[kate_nepveu]

At least one person whose taste I trust likes it, but my faith has kinda been shaken, you know?

[sasha_feather]

Agreed. The last book was such a disappointment.

[kate_nepveu]

Maybe. But I find it very frustrating the way that Dono's Countship skirts the issue. This is probably exacerbated by the way that I keep trying to fit Dono into my (admittedly limited) understanding of trans* individuals and foundering on the massive underwriting of the character.

A different variant on the theme: http://archiveofourown.org/works/157005

[kate_nepveu]

Not just at the end, but all throughout--exploring with Bel, all the rest.

I actually asked her about it once at a signing or dinner or something and IIRC she said something along the lines of, she had seen it was possible, but only after she'd finally finished a draft, and since she'd already blown the book up completely once, she was disinclined to do so again.

And you know I attempt not to be an asshole, but I don't think it's failing to give due consideration to the life of the writer when I say that I think it's too bad.

[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.

[kate_nepveu]

Yay, kittens. =>

[kate_nepveu]

I might almost have been okay with it if _DI_ was _Busman's Honeymoon_, but it really wasn't.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, you're quite right, I should have made clear that I was talking about it from a plot-arc level. And that's why it should have been _HHC_ instead, so that they could have really started getting to grips with how their histories and behavior patterns and society's expectations were going to interfere with them actually building something solid.

And then I get sad about the lost potential for the series.

[kate_nepveu]

Fair enough!

[kate_nepveu]

I didn't know that.

Having contemplated, I don't think it changes anything about my opinion of the book, but I appreciate the information.

[kate_nepveu]

I don't think I quite follow what you're saying. Part of what I'm complaining about is that Ekaterin was a POV character in _Komarr_ & _ACC_ and then was dropped, first as a POV character and then as a character.

And, also, I don't want to read about Miles if he's going to stay the little git all his life.

[kate_nepveu]

I didn't expect much from it and I wish I had been wrong.

[kate_nepveu]

I think one's words causing another to feel stabbed is sufficient reason to care all by itself for any decent person, which I should say that I think Bujold is based on my overall knowledge and interactions. But Dono doesn't feel like he exists in relation to anything trans* at all--I recall nothing in the text that suggests he identifies as such, or recognizing that there are other reasons for the same actions, or just *anything* beyond the surface instrumentality of it. And yet even in complete ignorance of the existence of trans* people, I think it's reasonable of me to expect that Bujold -- an SF writer deliberately writing about biology != destiny and transformation -- would recognize from simple character-building principles that this event needed to be more than just a plot device.

[kate_nepveu]

PS: if I recall your geographical location correctly, the post after this one may be relevant to your interests? Call for Papers: Ithaca NY conference on females in SFF.

[lnhammer]

And now I'm trying to imagine what the BH version of DI would have been like. Like nothing Bujold was aiming for, as there's no way obvious to shoehorn in the Cetegandan half of the plot she clearly had been planning ever since writing Cetaganda. But the honeymoon in Quaddiespace with various eccentricities -- okay, phrased like that it sounds like the Quaddies would be Quaint Local Color, but imagine if you will the the writer managed to pull this off . . .

I've just described a Yuletide request, haven't I. Oh dear.

---L.

[kate_nepveu]

Hee. I would certainly read it. Beta-read it, even.

But I wasn't imaging anything so literal, I was talking about _Busman's_ as learning how to be married.