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Aug. 3rd, 2010 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
opusculusCryoburn is out! \o\ At least if you're willing to pay $15 for an unedited electronic copy, which I so am.
It's better than Diplomatic Immunity, and I was genuinely fascinated by aspects of it. A planet where most people choose to freeze themselves in the hope of future life rather than risk dying is very Bujold, and she does a good job of sketching it out. Miles is 39, and with several years as an Auditor and raising kids under his belt, he's settled in a way that he never has been before. He has gravitas in a way he hadn't quite gotten even by the time he reached Diplomatic Immunity, and...there's times it doesn't quite work for me, in comparison to the old Miles? I mean, I'd rather have him making his superior officers pull their hair out than pulling his subordinates into incredibly illegal plots for obvious reasons. But overall, I enjoy it.
I really enjoyed the first half. But the second half fell into a similar trap as Diplomatic Immunity, where it just kind of trailed off before we hit the ending, except possibly even more frustrating. And considering how frustrated I was at missing out on Ekaterin's triumph, that says something. In a sense, I suppose there were two climaxes. The first concluded the main plotline, although it felt inconclusive enough to me that...idk. The problems were mostly solved, but it didn't feel resolved, you know? The resolution felt way too small for the buildup. The second climax was Miles' father's completely unexpected death at the very, very end of the book.
When you look back at it from another perspective, the whole book is about dealing with death, so it's not as jarring as it could be. The other narrator character's father is dead and mother was revived from cryo-death over the course of the story, so...in a sense, it was very definitely foreshadowed? I mean, death's the theme of the book, when it comes down to it. And I called Aral dying shortly after Diplomatic Immunity, since it seemed like that would be the only horrible thing left to do to Miles.
But it just felt incomplete in the most frustrating fashion. Now what? Seriously, it's two sentences, 5 100-word reaction drabbles from 5 major characters (and man, it's weird seeing something that fanfic-y in a published novel) and the book ends. I WENT AUGH A LOT AT IT. And knowing Bujold, the sequel won't be around for a couple years minimum so. DOUBLE AUGH. I mean, it really is...it's not a cliffhanger exactly? I mean, death is not innately a cliffhanger. But you know it's a complete set-up for the next book and I hate those, especially in a series that's historically been pretty standalone.
It...also kind of feels like Bujold's moving more towards writing pure emotional exploration in general rather than action adventure combined with emotional depth, and honestly, that one four book series by her in not!America is the most tedious thing I've ever read by her. I like emotional depth, but books based purely on character relations really aren't my thing. It's the same reason I rarely can read pure romance. Any book where the entire plot is focused on character's feelings very rarely works for me. And my feeling is that that's where she's going with the next one, since god knows she's willing to toss new genres into the Miles Vorkosigan series. I mean, I'm hoping I'm wrong! But bah.
On the plus side, I really did love the first half? I'm just :/ over the second part.
It's better than Diplomatic Immunity, and I was genuinely fascinated by aspects of it. A planet where most people choose to freeze themselves in the hope of future life rather than risk dying is very Bujold, and she does a good job of sketching it out. Miles is 39, and with several years as an Auditor and raising kids under his belt, he's settled in a way that he never has been before. He has gravitas in a way he hadn't quite gotten even by the time he reached Diplomatic Immunity, and...there's times it doesn't quite work for me, in comparison to the old Miles? I mean, I'd rather have him making his superior officers pull their hair out than pulling his subordinates into incredibly illegal plots for obvious reasons. But overall, I enjoy it.
I really enjoyed the first half. But the second half fell into a similar trap as Diplomatic Immunity, where it just kind of trailed off before we hit the ending, except possibly even more frustrating. And considering how frustrated I was at missing out on Ekaterin's triumph, that says something. In a sense, I suppose there were two climaxes. The first concluded the main plotline, although it felt inconclusive enough to me that...idk. The problems were mostly solved, but it didn't feel resolved, you know? The resolution felt way too small for the buildup. The second climax was Miles' father's completely unexpected death at the very, very end of the book.
When you look back at it from another perspective, the whole book is about dealing with death, so it's not as jarring as it could be. The other narrator character's father is dead and mother was revived from cryo-death over the course of the story, so...in a sense, it was very definitely foreshadowed? I mean, death's the theme of the book, when it comes down to it. And I called Aral dying shortly after Diplomatic Immunity, since it seemed like that would be the only horrible thing left to do to Miles.
But it just felt incomplete in the most frustrating fashion. Now what? Seriously, it's two sentences, 5 100-word reaction drabbles from 5 major characters (and man, it's weird seeing something that fanfic-y in a published novel) and the book ends. I WENT AUGH A LOT AT IT. And knowing Bujold, the sequel won't be around for a couple years minimum so. DOUBLE AUGH. I mean, it really is...it's not a cliffhanger exactly? I mean, death is not innately a cliffhanger. But you know it's a complete set-up for the next book and I hate those, especially in a series that's historically been pretty standalone.
It...also kind of feels like Bujold's moving more towards writing pure emotional exploration in general rather than action adventure combined with emotional depth, and honestly, that one four book series by her in not!America is the most tedious thing I've ever read by her. I like emotional depth, but books based purely on character relations really aren't my thing. It's the same reason I rarely can read pure romance. Any book where the entire plot is focused on character's feelings very rarely works for me. And my feeling is that that's where she's going with the next one, since god knows she's willing to toss new genres into the Miles Vorkosigan series. I mean, I'm hoping I'm wrong! But bah.
On the plus side, I really did love the first half? I'm just :/ over the second part.
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Date: 2010-08-04 11:52 pm (UTC)And now that the plots are focused more widely, not just on Miles and his Issues but on whole planets worth of people, it really doesn't wrap up the same way. This reminded me a bit of Ceteganda, that way. I think narrow focus in a wide context is Bujold's forte, and it felt like she was trying to get back to that by giving us Roic and Jin's povs, but she's tied Miles into the broader picture so thoroughly it kind of doesn't work any more. Not as long as he's there too.
I'm really glad I spoiled myself for the ending. Knowing it was coming, there's a lot of foreshadowing, and I could brace myself.
*thoughtful* You know, I'm not at all sure this is set up for another book. I felt more like she got to the end and realized that there was a whole nother book in Aral's funeral and people's reactions, and couldn't face writing it. So she wrote the afterword instead (which was, indeed, a bit odd, stylistically; I'd have expected /scenes/ instead of drabbles proper).
Perfectly happy to have paid for it, but yeah there are some odd aspects.
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Date: 2010-08-05 03:32 am (UTC)That could definitely be it too. I have to admit I partially read it as that because it frustrated me just that much not to get that exploration, and because it's so unusual for Bujold to not feel up to writing a major life change like that. Also because the drabbles were such a jarring and uninformative way of doing so that it felt to me like a tease rather than the real thing. I have to admit, as much as I bitch, I do hope she does a full book focusing on it next, just because I really can't stand where she left it.