Cryoburn (Bujold)
Oct. 28th, 2010 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnYeah, so, I thought i had things to say about Cryoburn, and then I went and read my LJ friends' reviews and found ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lightreads had said all of them already. And somehow managed to do this without spoiling. So go read that review at DW if you want to know pretty much exactly what I think (well, okay, I'm not a lawyer, but I also did laugh at the commodified cryo contract swaps, because so true, and also so true about roving POV showing Miles' entitlement, and the title, and -- oh, just go read it before I quote the entire thing, I agree with it all).
I do think that the Miles books fall into two categories: the character-building ones (Memory, Barrayar, Mirror Dance, Civil Campaign) and the idea ones (Ceteganda, Diplomatic Immunity-- and Cryoburn). (Of course, all have elements of the other -- all have ideas and characters.) That is, I really kind of feel like Ceteganda came out of Bujold saying "Hey, I'm interested in exploring what a society with total control on reproduction would be like!" and that being the focus, rather than Miles. This book seems similar in a lot of ways -- Miles is the substrate, like a tortilla chip, whereby the guacamole or cheese dip of a cryogenics-based society is eaten -- perhaps tasty in himself, but there's so much more that's not about him. (Uh, yes, I'm hungry right now. :P)
But, of course, it's also about Miles.
And in that context, I respectfully disagree withjulianyap, who thought this book could have been more if it had centered around Aral's death. I think the timing of Aral's death is perfect (and perfectly shocking -- although D was all "oh, I saw that coming from the beginning") as-is. Other character-development Vorkosigan books have been centered around the traumatic event -- but there's a difference. All the other traumatic events in those other books have occurred as part of a larger plotline, or as the kickoff to a larger plotline (Miles's discovery of his clone-brother in Brothers in Arms, or his deformation as a fetus in Barryar as examples of the former; Miles' firing/depression in Memory and his Academy failure in Warrior's Apprentice as the latter). But sometimes traumatic things happen and... and they aren't part of a larger plotline, and sometimes a bigger event doesn't come along to shake you out of it. Sometimes it just happens. And you have to deal. And maybe, Aral being mostly retired and really extremely old for a Barraryan, the political ramifications aren't that huge, actually, any more than if, say, Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush were to die. I think maybe that's so. And if so, what a triumph for Aral, that he was able to deliver that kind of stability to Gregor.
But of course I'm being somewhat hypocritical here -- if she had written the book that julianyap wanted, I would have been excited to read that as well. I wonder also if she just wasn't equipped to write that book, which I would also totally respect. I can't imagine that would be an easy book to write.
And I do agree I would love to see an Ekaterin-as-hero-mom book. It's totally hard to do. Connie Willis did manage it in a short story, "And Come from Miles Around," which I love.
lightreads had said all of them already. And somehow managed to do this without spoiling. So go read that review at DW if you want to know pretty much exactly what I think (well, okay, I'm not a lawyer, but I also did laugh at the commodified cryo contract swaps, because so true, and also so true about roving POV showing Miles' entitlement, and the title, and -- oh, just go read it before I quote the entire thing, I agree with it all).I do think that the Miles books fall into two categories: the character-building ones (Memory, Barrayar, Mirror Dance, Civil Campaign) and the idea ones (Ceteganda, Diplomatic Immunity-- and Cryoburn). (Of course, all have elements of the other -- all have ideas and characters.) That is, I really kind of feel like Ceteganda came out of Bujold saying "Hey, I'm interested in exploring what a society with total control on reproduction would be like!" and that being the focus, rather than Miles. This book seems similar in a lot of ways -- Miles is the substrate, like a tortilla chip, whereby the guacamole or cheese dip of a cryogenics-based society is eaten -- perhaps tasty in himself, but there's so much more that's not about him. (Uh, yes, I'm hungry right now. :P)
But, of course, it's also about Miles.
And in that context, I respectfully disagree with
julianyap, who thought this book could have been more if it had centered around Aral's death. I think the timing of Aral's death is perfect (and perfectly shocking -- although D was all "oh, I saw that coming from the beginning") as-is. Other character-development Vorkosigan books have been centered around the traumatic event -- but there's a difference. All the other traumatic events in those other books have occurred as part of a larger plotline, or as the kickoff to a larger plotline (Miles's discovery of his clone-brother in Brothers in Arms, or his deformation as a fetus in Barryar as examples of the former; Miles' firing/depression in Memory and his Academy failure in Warrior's Apprentice as the latter). But sometimes traumatic things happen and... and they aren't part of a larger plotline, and sometimes a bigger event doesn't come along to shake you out of it. Sometimes it just happens. And you have to deal. And maybe, Aral being mostly retired and really extremely old for a Barraryan, the political ramifications aren't that huge, actually, any more than if, say, Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush were to die. I think maybe that's so. And if so, what a triumph for Aral, that he was able to deliver that kind of stability to Gregor. But of course I'm being somewhat hypocritical here -- if she had written the book that julianyap wanted, I would have been excited to read that as well. I wonder also if she just wasn't equipped to write that book, which I would also totally respect. I can't imagine that would be an easy book to write.
And I do agree I would love to see an Ekaterin-as-hero-mom book. It's totally hard to do. Connie Willis did manage it in a short story, "And Come from Miles Around," which I love.
