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Legacy (LM Bujold)
Aug. 6th, 2007 09:32 amMy homework for last weekend was reading Legacy. (Next weekend it will be to start looking up all these fabulous book recs I keep getting, yay, thanks!) I... didn't hate it. Probably from the Magic of Low Expectations-- I knew not to expect much, and, well, I wasn't disappointed.
It is a romance book. Fortunately, I was warned multiple times of this in advance. And seeing as how a) romance as a genre kind of bores me, and b) Bujold doing romance presses none of my adoration buttons and many of my rant buttons (more on this in a sec), well, there was a limit to much I'd like it, and I knew that going in.
I see (and I saw dimly after the first book) what Bujold is trying to do-- because she is a Real Writer, she can't stay in stasis doing the same thing forever; she needs to experiment. And I'm glad she does, because what she did in Chalion she could never have done on Barrayar, and in that case her experimentation was a grand success. However, her experiment with romance... well, now you've done the experiment, and now I hope you go on to experiment with something else. Please. Because romance is simply not Bujold's strength, though she may believe it is from the success of ACC. Although I loved ACC, the actual romances were not its strength; the comedy of errors and the tight plotting and the weaving of romance together with ruminations on biology and politics were its strengths.
What I liked: It was nice to get more backstory and more insight into the world, although... the mysteries set up were really relatively mild, and nothing really got resolved.
( No specific plot spoilers for Legacy, though general spoilers abound; spoilers for Beguilement )
What I didn't like: The May-December romance thing really kept squicking me out, because it would not die-- characters kept commenting on it. Which on one hand is a testament to Bujold's careful writing craftsmanship, because in reality, yeah, everyone would be commenting on it. However, since I was kind of on everyone else's side and not on Fawn and Dag's side on this, it didn't really work.
What I hated so much that the margins of this post cannot contain it: Well, the ending. I was all, hey, this isn't so bad, and then the ending happened and if I had been reading my own copy I would have thrown it, well, across the bed. I have a whole other rant about Dag and responsibility and girls and Miles, but I'll post that later.
It is a romance book. Fortunately, I was warned multiple times of this in advance. And seeing as how a) romance as a genre kind of bores me, and b) Bujold doing romance presses none of my adoration buttons and many of my rant buttons (more on this in a sec), well, there was a limit to much I'd like it, and I knew that going in.
I see (and I saw dimly after the first book) what Bujold is trying to do-- because she is a Real Writer, she can't stay in stasis doing the same thing forever; she needs to experiment. And I'm glad she does, because what she did in Chalion she could never have done on Barrayar, and in that case her experimentation was a grand success. However, her experiment with romance... well, now you've done the experiment, and now I hope you go on to experiment with something else. Please. Because romance is simply not Bujold's strength, though she may believe it is from the success of ACC. Although I loved ACC, the actual romances were not its strength; the comedy of errors and the tight plotting and the weaving of romance together with ruminations on biology and politics were its strengths.
What I liked: It was nice to get more backstory and more insight into the world, although... the mysteries set up were really relatively mild, and nothing really got resolved.
( No specific plot spoilers for Legacy, though general spoilers abound; spoilers for Beguilement )
What I didn't like: The May-December romance thing really kept squicking me out, because it would not die-- characters kept commenting on it. Which on one hand is a testament to Bujold's careful writing craftsmanship, because in reality, yeah, everyone would be commenting on it. However, since I was kind of on everyone else's side and not on Fawn and Dag's side on this, it didn't really work.
What I hated so much that the margins of this post cannot contain it: Well, the ending. I was all, hey, this isn't so bad, and then the ending happened and if I had been reading my own copy I would have thrown it, well, across the bed. I have a whole other rant about Dag and responsibility and girls and Miles, but I'll post that later.
