Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
So, I've now read the eARC of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, the latest (and I suspect last) in the Vorkosigan series, as it's up at Baen books.
It was quite a weird experience. I think Lois McMaster Bujold has started writing her own fanfiction. No, really. And I don't just say this because it's an uncorrected manuscript. I say this because I've read the story.
Basically, this is a novel pretty much giving the fans something they've wanted for ages, which is a book for Ivan, in which he gets a love interest, and ends up nicely tidied up and settled down. Just like his mother (and a lot of readers) wanted. It's a very cosy love story, set in space, with a section on Komarr that has no Komarrans (as per usual. Komarrans aren't really cool and if you look at them too closely raise some awkward questions about the benign Barryan Imperium, and dear old Emperor Gregor) and in which nothing really bad happens to anyone.
The heroine is, I think, possibly the ultimate Vorkosigan Mary Sue. She's nothing very special in and of herself and her personal qualities, and slightly self conscious of this (and I can sort of forgive this, as I suspect that's what Ivan wants in a woman) but goodness, is she a snowflake girl for all that. She's the daughter of the head of a Jacksonian Baron (but the fluffiest one ever) and she's part haut Cetagandan as well! She's pretty and sweet and everyone loves her, although she largely just bimbles around being useless and actually relatively thoughtless at times.
Her family are a bizarrely nice bunch, it seems. They run a major House on Jackson's Whole, but are lovely really and their various shenanigans on Barryar don't really hurt anyone. When Tej (the love interest) first turns up, she thinks her family are all dead - slaughtered in a hostile House takeover on Jackson's Whole. I actually quite liked that back story. It was sad, it gave her real problems, and some depth in her sorrow. But no, they are all alive, because nothing very bad can happen ever. Man, I miss the days when Padma Vorpatril could get gunned down on a pavement and Princess Kareen slaughtered as she tried to save her baby.
Simon Illyan and Alys turn up to be coupley, which is nice, and I am happy that Ivan ended up settled down. In general, it was comfortable, it was readable, and I ploughed through it all in a single night so I must have enjoyed it. I just wish it wasn't quite so cosy and I wish there was a little more in the way of real character problems. That used to happen, I'm sure.
But then, I think maybe this is why the series is coming to a close. Komarr was the last novel which felt like the world was changing around the characters, to me. A Civil Campaign was really cute, but it was really Miles' retirement piece in which he said goodbye to being a space adventurer and settled down to being a Barryan politician and aristocrat. Hrm. Actually, Diplomatic Immunity was fun. Cryoburn felt entirely pointless until the last chapter and the drabbles. And this feels...
...like fan service.
The series, I think, is wrapped up now.
All the lead characters are grown up, and getting settled. There's nowhere hugely more for them to go and I kind of feel as if Miles has found the life he'll still be leading when he's 60. And I'm glad I was along for the ride, but I don't need anything more.
Unless Lois McMaster Bujold wants to write some prequels set during the Cetagandan occupation/civil war and show us poor dead Countess-and-Princess Vorkosigan dying horribly at the hands of Mad Yuri's troopers. That might reinvigorate me.
It was quite a weird experience. I think Lois McMaster Bujold has started writing her own fanfiction. No, really. And I don't just say this because it's an uncorrected manuscript. I say this because I've read the story.
Basically, this is a novel pretty much giving the fans something they've wanted for ages, which is a book for Ivan, in which he gets a love interest, and ends up nicely tidied up and settled down. Just like his mother (and a lot of readers) wanted. It's a very cosy love story, set in space, with a section on Komarr that has no Komarrans (as per usual. Komarrans aren't really cool and if you look at them too closely raise some awkward questions about the benign Barryan Imperium, and dear old Emperor Gregor) and in which nothing really bad happens to anyone.
The heroine is, I think, possibly the ultimate Vorkosigan Mary Sue. She's nothing very special in and of herself and her personal qualities, and slightly self conscious of this (and I can sort of forgive this, as I suspect that's what Ivan wants in a woman) but goodness, is she a snowflake girl for all that. She's the daughter of the head of a Jacksonian Baron (but the fluffiest one ever) and she's part haut Cetagandan as well! She's pretty and sweet and everyone loves her, although she largely just bimbles around being useless and actually relatively thoughtless at times.
Her family are a bizarrely nice bunch, it seems. They run a major House on Jackson's Whole, but are lovely really and their various shenanigans on Barryar don't really hurt anyone. When Tej (the love interest) first turns up, she thinks her family are all dead - slaughtered in a hostile House takeover on Jackson's Whole. I actually quite liked that back story. It was sad, it gave her real problems, and some depth in her sorrow. But no, they are all alive, because nothing very bad can happen ever. Man, I miss the days when Padma Vorpatril could get gunned down on a pavement and Princess Kareen slaughtered as she tried to save her baby.
Simon Illyan and Alys turn up to be coupley, which is nice, and I am happy that Ivan ended up settled down. In general, it was comfortable, it was readable, and I ploughed through it all in a single night so I must have enjoyed it. I just wish it wasn't quite so cosy and I wish there was a little more in the way of real character problems. That used to happen, I'm sure.
But then, I think maybe this is why the series is coming to a close. Komarr was the last novel which felt like the world was changing around the characters, to me. A Civil Campaign was really cute, but it was really Miles' retirement piece in which he said goodbye to being a space adventurer and settled down to being a Barryan politician and aristocrat. Hrm. Actually, Diplomatic Immunity was fun. Cryoburn felt entirely pointless until the last chapter and the drabbles. And this feels...
...like fan service.
The series, I think, is wrapped up now.
All the lead characters are grown up, and getting settled. There's nowhere hugely more for them to go and I kind of feel as if Miles has found the life he'll still be leading when he's 60. And I'm glad I was along for the ride, but I don't need anything more.
Unless Lois McMaster Bujold wants to write some prequels set during the Cetagandan occupation/civil war and show us poor dead Countess-and-Princess Vorkosigan dying horribly at the hands of Mad Yuri's troopers. That might reinvigorate me.