Reading roundup: Cordelia book, Witcher + Jurassic World
67. Lois McMaster Bujold, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen -- so, Cordelia book. I bought the ARC the day it became available, and then it took me like a month to finish it, pausing for several other books in-between, which is totally unprecedented for me and Vorkosigan (or any other LMB, though Hallowed Hunt did drag on a bit for me, IIRC). Like, as a novel this is not a great book, or even a good one, I'm afraid. People complained CVA was fanficcy, but at least it was the fun kind of fanficcy. This book is a novel-sized curtainfic basically. BUT. This is apparently a canon where I will happily read a novel-length curtainfic. So, I enjoyed it, whatever its literary merits, but I don't think I enjoyed it as a novel -- rather as a sort of extended Christmas letter from characters I love and care about. I was just happy to hear and/or see how everyone was doing! (and I wish there'd been more of that, actually), to see how the kids had grown (more of that, too, actually, would've been nice), to hear some stories from the past I hadn't heard before. And the prose is still a lot of fun, although... smudgier than I remember it from other books. So I'm sort of in an awkward place with this book. I think the series, from a literary perspective, is stronger without it, but personally, I'm very happy to have gotten some post-CryoBurn closure, and I would welcome a bunch more Vorkosiverse books full of curtainfic vs the alternative of no more Vorkosiverse books at all. Bring on the Christmas letters!
More specifically: spoilers, I guess? such as they are?
- It was... odd to be inside Cordelia's head again. I found it a lot harder to identify with her than in Shards/Barrayar. The six daughters thing is kind of baffling to me, I confess. I understand wanting to have another child, posthumously. I understand wanting to give up the Vicereigne position. I understand wanting to stay on Sergyar, although as much as family has always mattered to Cordelia, and as tied as Miles and Gregor are to Barrayar, it does seem a bit strange to me how thoroughly she dismisses Barrayar from consideration.
- I liked Jole, and could see why others found him likeable. His POV was actually more fun than Cordelia's for me, partly because of what and who he was dealing with (the university researchers were a lot of fun, and I liked Fyodor, too, and Kaya Vorinnis), and his view of Cordelia was also more entertaining than hers of him. But...
- OK, so, it feels like a copout not to have the story of how he and Aral got together in the first place. It seems very odd for Cordelia not to know the full story, for Jole not to want to tell her, even now, and what we do hear about it, Aral and Jole striking up their relationship while Cordelia was off-planet, to Simon's panic, is just so odd, I really feel like we should've gotten the story. Like, I assume that (as lunasariel has previously suggested) Cordelia did the Betan thing and was like, "by the way, given that you're bi, if you're interested in having sex with a man at some point, you know you have my approval" and Aral being a) too besotted (and relieved, probably) to consider any such thing, b) horrified to consider the scandal it would bring if it ever came out (if this was while he was Regent or Prime Minister), c) possibly still too traumatized by the whole Ges thing. So, like, I can only assume that he had her blanket, a priori approval, but it's still a very weird setup. I mean, what? Either we have a VERY senior officer with a lot of other power coming onto his aide, who is barely older than his son, or we have Jole coming onto his very married superior while the man's wife is out of town, and either way it doesn't look good for anybody. And doesn't seem in character for either of them... Which leaves what? Sex pollen as Cetagandan plot? Aral and Jole both get so drunk, in the wake of some successfully resolved crisis, that they act out on the mutual crush in a state of lowered inhibitions? Has somebody written fic fitting with this new canon? (I've already seen at least one Yuletide request to this effect...)
- I don't know how I feel about the three-way-marriage that they were apparently all aware they were in on Sergyar, and with Cordelia considering Jole a serious partner of Aral's even before that, as demonstrated by her taking the time to keep him updated on Aral's health during Mirror Dance. On the one hand, I don't think it necessarily detracts from the wonderfulness of Aral/Cordelia (one of my few for-real OTPs), although I do have to sort of suppress jealousy on Cordelia's behalf. And I liked Cordelia's surmise that it was Jole's knack for happiness that some of the attraction for Aral there. On the other hand, that's... 20 years of shutting Miles out of a fairly big part of Aral's life. It's sad for Miles, and especially sad for Aral that he didn't feel that he could share something like that with his son...
- It is becoming increasingly weird how all of LMB's bi characters seem to only ever end up in straight relationships on-page. When it was Aral ending up with Cordelia after Ges, that was great. Bel and Nicol? Meh, I wasn't really paying attention. (ETA: a_t_rain correctly points out that Bel/Nicol is not actually a straight relationship, but it does feel heteronormative to me.) Byerly getting involved with Rish, totally randomly in CVA? That's where it started to bother me. And now we get to Oliver and Cordelia, and, like, I think their relationship is actually quite sweet, and I'm actually a sucker for people who have each individually loved and lost the same person finding comfort in each other, so I totally like the trope this is playing out... But four for four... it's kind of glaring at this point, and it just seems so weird, given the way sexual diversity is explicitly written into the books and constantly highlighted. Is it just the baby-having imperative? (And LMB has already done the baby-having imperative in not-straight relationships abundantly in Ethan of Athos?)
- But anyway, back to Jole. I was rather touched by his recalled reaction to his medal for actions during the space accident (which was how he had first come to Aral's attention): "That always felt strange, to be cited for a set of actions I could barely remember. [...] I could only think -- but what if I had to do it again, and I couldn't remember how?"
- I also was very amused by Jole's visit to the rep center and his thoughts throughout everything, from being shown the technology to the sperm collection. A couple of quotes from that bit: "In fifteen years, all those disturbing biological blobs would be out on Kareenburg's streets, wearing strange fashions, listening to annoying music, and disagreeing politically with their beleagured parents." And: "He tried to come up with a few more suitably technical questions that would redeem his Barrayaran IQ in the man's eyes. [...] He managed not to blurt out his own history as a natural, un-gene-cleaned body birth, in attempted proof of what, he could not say." And Cordelia asking him about his experience with Dr Tan afterwards, to which Jole's answer is: "He was very civil. And enthusiastic. And appallingly Betan." XD
- The way Oliver and Cordelia do eventually get together is pretty cute, and actually I could buy Cordelia being that dense for once, because first she is thinking of Jole as being primarily attracted to men, and second, his ~hint to her is that he's interested in Vorkosigans, apparently, and I find it entirely believable that she doesn't think of herself as one. And the kiss, and "Ah, so this is how Aral diverted all those Betan data-spates." :) Also, I'm impressed that one of the very first new relationship questions between them is about sex toys (though I am surprised that it's Oliver who brings it up, of the two.) I also liked that their age is felt quite keenly in this, Jole realizing that acrobatics or carrying Cordelia up the stairs are beyond him, at fifty, people pointedly reminding him that his personal combat training is out of date so he doesn't qualify to be Cordelia's bodyguards when the armsmen are dismissed, and Cordelia being annoyed that the possibility of her and Jole having an affair doesn't even come up in the Lake Serena rumours, because nobody thinks people over fifty ever have sex.
- Also, interesting revelation about Oliver and Bel. I wouldn't mind reading that fic, either. Including Bel pumping him for information about Barrayar. I'm sure hanging around with Miles gives one an interesting impression of the place, but probably not a very accurate one.
- Oh, and I liked that Jole never for a moment wonders if he is up to the promotion into Desplains' seat: "he did not underestimate the task, but he didn't underestimate himself, either." That's one of the nice things about having a mature protagonist, I guess, rather than a farmboy discovering the galaxy for the first time or yet another coming-of-age story.
- Another thing that struck me: how few Vor seem to be in high positions of military command anymore... Jole is prole, as is Bobrik, his seccond in command. General Haines is prole. So is Desplains. Thibault is head of Komarr Fleet and Kuprin is head of Home Fleet, both proles also. I'm assuming this is something that Aral and the other progressives worked hard to accomplish? (Miles, of course, is oblivious to those sorts of considerations, with unconscious Vor privilege, but I can only assume that a generation or two back, it would've been a rather different list of names...)
- Aral ♥ This was why I needed this book, for some Aral closure, some more happy memories (tinged with sadness, of course, but something). I was really happy to learn that he had taken up painting again (including apparently nudes ;), that he channeled his homesickness for Barrayar into drawings of Vorkosigan House. And it was good to see flashbacks from earlier years, too, from perspetives we hadn't seen before, like Jole's of the Hegen Hub battle, or Aral sending post-lavatory letters back to the Cetagandans.
- Speaking of Cetagandans, that was an interesting revelation about both the junta's plans for Barrayar and the truth behind the Cetagandans' withdrawal. It does seem plausible given the disparity in technology between the two countries, but also... ugh, Cetagandans are too overpowered for me to be interested in them; I didn't need more along the same lines. But it does form an interesting hook... into a book that I can only guess will never get written, about the events coming to light, or maybe a Cetagandan Invasion prequel... I was also intrigued by the revelation about Time of Isolation Sweet Polly Olivers: "Some of the stories were even true, uncovered in the hospital or morgue tents of the day. The end of the Time of Isolation and the introduction of galactic-style induction physicals had put paid to that era." That should be in the prequel, too.
- It was really interesting to see Miles as a father really for the first time. He's quite a bit more hands on than it had seemed in CryoBurn and maybe even CVA -- possibly because the kids are older now, and thus actually fun. It still seems to me that child-minding, even with helpers, is disproportionately Ekaterin's job, and Miles is just kind of fun outings dad. Also, god, the six children under 12 thing is just crazy. I can understand the "throw a couple more embryos in the replicator" impulse post Aral's funeral, but really, another set of twins?
- I might as well talk about the Vorkosiglets here as anywhere. I do wish we'd gotten to see more of them individually, not as a troupe. Only Alex's personality really came through, and aww, Alex (wasn't he Sasha before, btw?). It's nice to see that somebody took after Ekaterin, at least. Hellen seems the most Vorkosigan-like of the lot, and I liked that Lizzie seems to be the scientist of the family. I do hope Cordelia is right and she'll end up doing the Barrayaran equivalent of Betan Survey. (I confess, I think one of the reasons I liked Lizzie so much is that she was almost completely like the Miles/River Tam daughter I envisioned here. (And Alex is not too unlike the Syoma I imagined, either, when you swap psychics for aesthetics due to the difference in mothers.)
- Also, Vorkosiglets names. Aral Alexander is a given, of course, and Helen is named after the Professora, I guess, and Lizzie after Cordelia's mother. Taurie is named after Taura, but I can't remember if that was to honor a departed friend, or if she was named after Taura while Taura was still alive... Simone after Simon, but I'm stumped by Selig. Just a family name, like the historical count? Seems sad to be the only kid not named after a relative or friend of significance... Or maybe a weight off one's back. (And surely there is no shortage of people Miles and Ekaterin could name a kid after....)
- And speaking of naming, Jole and Aral's son will be Everard Xav. He's not a Vor, so Vor naming conventions don't apply to his sons, but that's interesting. When Cordelia first broaches the idea to him, he tries out "Everard Piotr Jole", but I guess he ultimately decided on something less blatantly indicative of the other half of their parentage but still an homage to Aral's ancestors. And Cordelia's Kosigan Naismith as the middle-last name combo is nice, actually, though I confess I'm unsold on Aurelia as a first name. I'm not sure about Nile as a girl's name, either, but at least I do think it's a nice touch to have the second daughter named after Ekaterin, with whom Cordelia is clearly very close.
- Another bit I was wondering about was what everybody thinks of each other as. Like,
I found it quite adorable that Alex refers to them as "Uncle Ivan. And Uncle Gregor, and Uncle Duv Galeni, who isn't even Vor". A little surprised that Miles refers to his grandfather as "old Piotr" in his conversation with Oliver, which seems a little distant. And towards the end Oliver thinks of Miles as "Cordelia's son" (as opposed to Aral's, which would've been what I expected), which gave me pause -- is that supposed to show that Cordelia is a more immediate point of reference for him now?
- It was even more interesting to see Miles through Cordelia's eyes. Like, usually we see Miles through his own POV, which is a very, very busy place. And then occasionally we've seen him through people who are either exasperatedly fond of him (Roic, Ivan, Mark -- OK, possibly more exasperated than fond in some cases) or outsiders being whammed with Miles for the first time (like the folks in CryoBurn or Ekaterin in Komarr), and he tends to just be overwhelming and carry you off. Cordelia has a very unique view on him, and I found it very amusing to see her still relating to him maternally here -- like wanting to hold his hand as the kiddies' hands are being held while they're touring the ship, to keep him from touching stuff. On a related note, it was really sort of startling to see how decrepit he is, at 43. That doesn't come across in Miles's POV, because he tends to gloss over his limitations and just forge ahead -- he's so used to doing just that all his life, it's just the limitations have changed slightly. And other people don't seem to notice behind the manic fiddling and incadescnece, but Cordelia does... and her realization that she may well outlive him (which seems to be what LMB thinks is likely to happen), that she can't even bear to contemplate when it first hits her, and the farewell, thought "Take delight in one another. While you can, take delight." oh... :(
- Oh, and speaking of perceptions of Miles in various roles, I found it interesting how aware Cordelia is of times when Ekaterin is quietly exasperated with Miles or disagreeing with him without saying anything -- which I'm pretty sure Miles is happily oblivious too. That was an interesting touch.
- I'm really wondering what Miles's "three stupidest things" are that he comes up with. I mean, there are lots of things he could choose from, but what specifically does he pick as those top three? (two of which he says Cordelia knows and the third she doesn't and no longer matters) I'm pretty sure falsifying the report in Memory is on that list. But what else? The suicide attempt on Beta? (which I was thinking might be the one Miles thinks Cordelia doesn't know about and doesn't matter anymore) And something about not opening up with people he loves in time? ("whatever you want to say, don't leave it for too late. [...] That was one of my top three, actually.") I confess I'm puzzled by that one, because it's not much like Miles (or any Vorkosigan, frankly) to hold back on that sort of thing... I thought about Elena, maybe, but surely he doesn't regret that any longer? Or at least not to that degree. Or simply not telling something about his feelings to people he's lost unexpectedly, which is everyone he's lost, but who specifically? His father seems unlikely, but... Piotr? Bothari?
- Oliver's conversation with Miles feels like it went a bit *too* well -- I wasn't expecting Miles to reconcile with everything so quickly. But I suppose Jole was aided by the fact at having just risked his life for Miles's children and being in a lot of pain from the inuries sustained therein, so, really, he couldn't have caught Miles in a more charitable mood. I did like how quickly Miles figured out exactly what promotion Jole had been offered, and was quick to tell Jole that Cordelia hadn't told him -- and then asked for permission to tell Ekaterin: ""Can I tell Ekaterin? Because if I can't, my head is going to explode." It's all very Miles, that part. And I did like that Miles basically accosts Jole to ask him if his intentions are honorable, and then offers to Cordelia to "trip him up" when he learns about the choice he is facing -- but manages to butt out.
- I did get a feeling that (before the conversation) Oliver was sort of jealous of Miles, in his reactions to him. Like, he seems almost perversely cheered that Helen has reached the "Oh, Da" preteen stage. He doesn't dwell on it, but I do wonder how Jole felt about Miles when they were both rising through the ranks... There's an interesting fic in that, too, I bet (though that one may have already been written? I haven't read dsudis's Aral/Jole -- wanted to read the canon first :)
- I really enjoyed Cordelia's thoughts on motherhood, because I've always liked her approach to motherhood and just the fact that a mother still gets a story of her own (in Barrayar) instead of a bland happily ever after -- I mean, I have that icon for a reason. I got a kick out of Cordelia thinking that having only one child did not adequately prepare her for dealing with internecine bickering as the Vicereigne, and wondering if, conversely, the role would serve as good training for raising her daughters. And very unexpected but totally understandable, I liked the the last scene, with Jole reflecting on Aurelia's first year and a half, showed that Cordelia had been deeply affected by Miles's unusual childhood and had to get past that as a new mother -- not letting the nanny near her and being generally overprotective, finding wonder in the simplest physical accomplishments of the able-bodied child, worried that she isn't speaking in complete sentences yet.
- But I still don't get the six barely staggered daughters thing... Though I suppose it makes some sense with the strict child-control on Beta, Cordelia even admits it when talking to Jole about her secret plan to have six children with Aral, back before the solotoxin attack.
- I also really enjoyed Cordelia's exasperation with Kayburg citizenry not wanting to move and bringing her petitions ("The future of Kareenburg is a lava flow! [...] There is no political solution to this, because it's not a political problem. [...] I suggest you take your petition up to the lip of the old caldera and present it to the mountain.""). I'm not sure I totally buy Jole's new scientific interests, but it seems like a pleasant second career for him, and his visit to the university was hilarious, one of my favorite scenes in the book. Actually, I really enjoyed all of the scenes from Chaos Colony, Blaise the hyperactive PR guy Cordelia is saddled with, the nebbishy Cetagandan plumber and Bean Plant #3, Freddie and the Haineses. I especially enjoyed Haines's advice on babies: "any man who can learn to field-strip a weapon can learn to change a damn nappie. Just handle the kid gently but firmly, like an unexploded bomb." His (temporarily)-single-father-of-teenage-girl troubles were also pretty funny, in his recounting. I would've welcomed more secondary characters and crowd scenes in the book, actually. Oh, and deliberate worm scarification as the latest in body modification on Sergyar was amusingly very plausible, and a nice touch.
- Oh, and I was touched by Mount Rosemont and the scene atop it (and grimly amused by Cordelia's "I sure as hell wasn't going to let them name anything else after Prince Serg.")
- On a totally random note, so Cordelia doesn't know enough about Alice in Wonderland, or how chess works (unless chess works differently at this point, which it might) to fully get the reference to the Red Queen ("Wasn't she the chess piece who went around yelling 'Off with their heads'?"), but does know enough of Jane Austen to come up with phrases like "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a high rank must be in want of a partner."
Things I would have really, really loved to see:
- In a book so concerned with parenthood, I would have really loved to see not just Miles as a father, but also Gregor and Duv. (Or even Ivan as a father, since Cordelia says he and Tej had acquired "a start on Alys's long-desired grandchildren", which I suppose means they at least have some embryos at this point?) I mean, surely Gregor could've been more present than just a one-way tightbeam message and sending Miles forth to Sergyar. And while Duv is of course not in the same class as her son and foster-son, as far as Cordelia is concerned, he is married to Delia, and I'd have expected Cordelia to have kept in touch with all of Kou and Drou's daughters... (Actually, the fact that Kou and Drou don't rate some kind of message from her is also a bit weird in retrospect... she's known them even longer than Simon and Alys, and they're practically her in-laws! Unless that relationship never fully recovered from the "damn Betan pimp" accusations in ACC, which would be sad...)
- Alys and Simon reacting to Cordelia and Jole's news. Ivan reacting to Cordelia's news would also be highly entertaining.
- Some actual Mark! I mean, really, we don't even get a scene with him? And a single remote conversation with Kareen? Which was really sweet, and I liked that Cordelia's message to them included an admonition to sequester gametes but not outright nagging about grandchildren -- that feels like a very Cordelia balance to strike -- but it would have been really nice to see some actual interaction. And also Mark pwning Plas-Dan with his new factory; that would've been nice, too.
Quotes:
"Vorinnis tried to stand on tiptoe and to attention simultaneously, which didn't quite work" [IDK why, I always get a kick out of zeugmas!]
"She considered seventy-six It... made no sense. Except that sometime in the past three years, she had switched from counting her years not up from birth, but back from death -- a grab-bag of time not growing, but shrinking, use it or lose it." Ouch.
"'You always did have that little sadistic streak, Cordelia.'
'Now, Oliver. Assertive, perhaps. As you may recall.'
From the way he choked on his next swallow of wine, he did."
Jole on female soldiers: "Komarr command always gets first pick, on the theory that they'll be the hot seat if there is one, and Home Fleet is a close second. They arm-wrestle all the time over the best men. We get what's left. What's left, it turns out, are a lot of the best women. Send us more, I'd say."
"Sergyar Command's B&L [Budget and Logistics] departmental needs and those of the Emperor were normally fairly congruent, but not always, and Jole had to remind himself now and then, as voices rose and the highlighted numbers were presented again in brighter colors, which side he was on." [I crack up, as usual, over the way LMB writes about organizations.]
Jole thinking about the plans for his birthday picnic: "It was like the inverse of a mutiny."
Cordelia re: Freddie Haines: "She considered the familiar conundrum inherent in complimenting a child for doing something well in the course of what ought not to have been done at all."
"it was time to gather up the agendas and move on to the next materials-procurement meeting. Jole [...] wondered how all his youthful dreams of military glory had come down to this. On the other hand, these current mundane labors might silently serve some future smoking sod who'd had glory dumped on him."
"He'd almost wished for some clever evil plot, which they could then engage to out-clever. It could be surprisingly hard to counter Plain Stupid. Even by heroic measures."
This whole conversation:
"If the word you are groping for is dating, Oliver, it's not illegal, immoral, or fatterning." [...]
"Dating sounds... a bit adolescent, somehow."
"Seeing each other?"
"Vague. Invites... unrestrained speculation."
"Courting?"
"Too Time-of-Isolation."
"Fucking?"
"Don't you dare!"
"Well, screwing, if you want a politer utterance."
Which Cordelia follows up on with Miles:
"Actually, Oliver and I are dating."
Miles stared. The silence stretched just a little too long, though Ekaterin raised her eyebrows, looked back and forth between Cordelia and Jole, and ventured, "Congratulations!" Miles closed his mouth.
In another moment, he opened it again. "Er... what exactly do you mean by dating? In this context."
"Screwing, dear," Cordelia replied, in her flattest Betan tones.
"...Ah." He added after a moment, "Thank you for the clarification."
Kaya and her date with the Cetagandan attache:
"And my mother always told me not to beat the boys at games and things because then they wouldn't ask you out. So I took him out to the range and trounced him. [...] Except then he turned around and found some place outside Kareenburg that rents horses and asked me to go with him again."
Jole: "Mm... More of a backfiring-range date, then?"
"Well, time would tell, though as usual it could benefit from a dose of fast-penta."
Miles and Cordelia, talking about her plans for sisters for him.
"But you already have six grandchildren. Isn't that, like, enough?" And in a somewhat smaller voice -- getting down to it, she recognized the style, "Don't you like my work"
[...]
"I adore your work. Consider it my inspiration, if you like."
"Taurie was busy being five"
Cordelia on Miles's reaction to the sisters revelation: "so far he seems to be less processing than, than storing it all up in his cheeks. Like a hamster."
"Jole was reminded that Cordelia's ImpSec commander, Kosko, had annoyed him more than once, recently. And that if anyone had the resources to examine weird-ass Cetagandan art for hidden toxic properties, ImpSec did. [...] He probably could rely on Kosko to defent them all against Cetagandan art education."
Cordelia on city planning: "And parking. And a bubble-car system. With adequate plumbing. Because wherever people are, they always want to get somewhere else, and generally hit the lav on the way."
Miles with his sprogs: "A muffled paternal bellow was either quelling the disorder of romenting it."
My favorite bits from Jole's encounter with the U of K scientists:
"Oliver Jole. Admiral, Sergyar Fleet."
"Ah." Gamelin's spine straightened, for whatever atavistic reason -- Jole didn't think he was an old service man -- and he switched the plunger over and offered an egalitarian handshake, as if between priests of two dissimilar faiths. "and what can the Department of Biology do for Sergyar Fleet today?" [...]
"Admiral Jole, may I present our bilaterals expert, Dr Dobryni."
The woman looked Jole up and down with rising eyeborws and a growing smile, and nodded. "You're very bilateral, aren't you? So pleased! Can't stay."
Sandals slapping, she continued her gallop up the corridor and swung in at a doorway, calling back, "Welcome to the U! Don't come in!" The door slammed behind her.
[...]
"Ionnas! Julie stole my gene scanner for her damned students again! Make her give it back before they break it -- again."
Gamelin sighed. "If we're ever to teach them not to break our equipment, they need some equipment to practice on. You know that."
"Then give her your scanner."
"Not a chance." Gamelin met the man's glower without embarrassment, then seemed to relent. "But you can use mine this afternoon. I haven't a prayer of getting to it myself. Meetings. Put it back when you've finished. [...] Defend it from Julie!" Gamelin called after, which won a snigger as the man turned out of sight.
"Equipment wars," sighed Gamelin, turning back to Jole. "Do you have them in your line?"
"Pretty much the same thing, yes," allowed Jole, smiling.
"It will be worse next week, when the Escobaran invasion arrives."
Jole blinked. "That sounds more like my pathc. Shouldn't I have have had a memo?"
Gemelin was nonplussed for only a moment. "Oh!" he laughed. "Not in force. The City University of Nuovo Valencia sends a party of grad studnets and related riffraff each year to do some work here. Which would be fine, but in order to save freight charges, they try as much as possible to equipe themselves on this end. Makes for more-than-scientific-competiton."
"And scientific jealousy?"
"O hardly that!" said Gamelin fervently. "I'd welcome anyone." He added after a moment of judicious thought, "Well, maybe not Cetagandans. Unless they brought their own equipment." Another contemplative moment. "And left it. Like after their pullout from the Occupation. That could be all right."
And later:
"As he passed a half-open doorway, a heartbroken female voice howled in high anguish, 'What have you done to my worms?'"
Cordelia: "My old Betan Survey science training didn't really fit me for Vorbarr Sultana politics, I admit. I'd always thought the very worst thing one could do was say or repeat anything that one hadn't made sure was true. People's lives could depend on one's accuracy. To me, the rumor mill seemed not just cruel, but deranged."
Miles, on the slanders against his parents that he heard in school: "Ivan had it easier. He could just slug them. I couldn't get him to slug them for me very often, except for the one time some twit accused Aunt Alys of sleeping with you. That... went off well. In a sense."
Cordelia: "Alys came in for a lot of criticism in her own right for not remarrying. Still, at least that one credited me with good taste. I was flattered."
And Piotr's advice on dealing with it: "We're Vorkosigans. If the charge isn't at least murder or treason, it's not worth rolling over in bed for. Treason, anyway. And sometimes not even then."
Cordelia: "Try this. Think of the trhee most boneheaded, regrettable things you ever did."
Miles: "Only three? I can think of more."
Cordelia: "Overachievement is not needed for this exercise."
"He [Miles] doesn't flinch anymore when someone calls him Count. Or look around for the real count." She paused, and lifted her hand to brush [Oliver's] face. "Or the real admiral."
"The older three [kids] who came along, plus Freddie, were seriously outnumbered and surrounded by the adults. As long as Miles stayed on the grownups' side, Cordelia figured they were safe."
and
"At a few points Cordelia looked as if she half wanted to pass off her charge to Jole and hold Miles's hand instead, but he did manage to restrain himself and set a good example. His disturbingly expert lecture on the several ways one might go about hijacking the ship right from here was limited to a strictly verbal version, though he looked back wistfully over his shoulder as they left."
"I had never seen Aral so mutely terrified as when we thought we'd lost Gregor. [...] he feared he might be looking down the throat of the third civil war on Barrayar in his lifetime, and it almost broke his heart. Finding himself facing Cetagandans instead was practically a joy, by contrast."
And Jole's recollection: "But when they'd received the confirmation that Gregor was at last coming aboard, Aral had smiled, snapped out the necessary orders, walked to his cabin, locked the door, sat down on his bunk with his face buried in his hands, and wept for the relief of it. Not for long; there'd been a wormhole to defend, coming right up. The maniacally cheerful edge with which the aging admiral had approached this task had been a big morale boost to the men"
"Miles's mobile young face ahd revealed all his urgent soul, usually; this had spoiled her as a parent, Cordelia suspected." (I love this line, because I know just what she means; L was always such a talker, it took us a really long time to figure out how to find out what O was feeling.)
"the old parental curse -- May you have six children just like you. Except that this curse seemed to have gone awry. Miles would have reveled at six children just like himself; he'd have known exactly what to do. Instead, he seemed to have received six children, none in the least like himself, and furthermore, each one different from all the others."
Jole on Miles climbing on the sacks of building materials: "He seemed to have the same curiosity and instinct for the high ground as a cat, without a cat's supple ability to land on its feet."
"The blue shirts [the women's team] won today, to the applause of their dates, spouses, and kids, who carried them off in triumph to, probably, fix dinner."
"She had to give the Service credit: however weak they were on, say, gynecology, they were right on top of trauma."
Miles, to Oliver, after he shielded the kids from the flaming radials: "I owe you big, Oliver. If not for you, those burns would be all over Alex and Helen."
Oliver shrugged. "you'd have done the same."
"No," Miles said simply, "I couldn't have. I'm too short. I'd damn well have tried, certainly."
(Kind of impressive, though, that he's actually learned about some measure of his physical limitations in that regard.)
Miles to Cordelia, re: Oliver: "'Just don't abuse the poor sucker. You have him totally under your thumb, I trust you realize.' In the balance of his tone between being offended for his gender and smug for his mother, she fancied the smug was winning."
And probably my favorite line in the book, delivered by Cordelia: "Are you the man who laid hands on Aral Vorkosigan's granddaughter?"
68. Andrzej Sapkowski, Krov' El'fov (Krew elfow / Blood of Elves) -- I'd been wanting to read the Witcher books for quite a while, because everything I'd heard about them sounded relevant to my interests. I'd even seen a few volumes in the library, in English, but had been trying to decide what language I should read the books in: I figure Russian is probably easier to translate into faithfully from Polish (except for the names, where you have to switch alphabets), but English is what I'm much more used to reading in, and Russian translations aren't always the most faithful ones. Anyway, while I was dithering, ikel89 decided for me by giving me a copy of the first book of the Witcher saga in Russian when she visited.
I liked it! But mostly for the promise of the setting, so far, and not so much the characters or such plot as there is in this book, which is very much a setup sort of book. And it was also different from what I had apparently been subconsciously expecting it to be like, though I had not been aware I had any such expectations. I think probably the first thing I hadn't expected was how much of this book was just setup for the rest of the saga -- lots of training montages (which I enjoyed), lots of setting- and history-establishing talk (ditto), quite a lot in the way of flashbacks (which I enjoyed less), and not nearly as much action, either small-scale (there's a little bit, but really widely dispersed) or large-scale (only in flashback and in passing). For some reason -- possibly the existence of a videogame? -- I'd been expecting a lot more swashbuckling.
It took me quite a while to get used to the setting. I've gotten very unused to seeing fantasy place names in Cyrillic, and there are so many of them! and no map included with the book, which did not help. Even more confusing were the names of the races. Like, I'm pretty sure "krasnolyudy" are Dwarves? I mean, they act like fantasy Dwarves with their axes and battle hammers, and they look like fantasy dwarves in terms of height and beardness, but why "krasnolyudy"? Is that what they're called in Polish? Something the Russian translator made up? (There are also "gnomy" in the Russian translation, which is the typical Russian word for "dwarf", but Russian doesn't make a distinction between "dwarf" and "gnome", so I'm guessing "gnomy" was reserved for gnomes, which also seem to be present in the world, according to Wikipedia.) Also, there's something called "nizushki", which nearest I can tell might be halflings? (Are these common Russian fantasy terms? Would this make more sense to me if I'd read more epic fantasy in Russian, not including LotR, which uses "gnomy" for dwarves and something like "polovinchiki" for halfings?)
Oh, and speaking of translations that puzzled me: In the Russian version, the bard fellow is named Lyutik, which means "buttercup". Looks like the English translation calls him Dandelion. What's it for real, in Polish? (I could see why an English translation would try to find something different than Buttercup, given that a fantasy reader would likely associate that name with The Princess Bride and thus encounter cognitive dissonance possibly.)
The Elder Speech also came across as really odd, because I was expecting, you know, a made up language along the lines of Tolkien's, but instead it was a language in which bits were clearly based on English, Latin, Gaelic (according to Wikipediam "based on English, French, Welsh, Irish, Latin and other languages"), which made it very, very weird. Folks more familiar with the setting, is there a point to that from a world-building perspective? Like, it is mentioned that both the Elves and the humans have come to the Continent from Somewhere Else, although it has not been made clear so far where that Something Else is. Is the smorgasbord that is Elder Speech justified by wherever it is they came from? Or was it just chosen so that the language would look weird and naggingly familiar at once? (I did like the way a lot of the place names and in some case's people names are based on Elven precursors (which makes sense, because mostly the cities are built on abandoned Elven cities, or ruins thereof).
As always, Russian is a really great language for funny, grousing dialogue. Thus, I really enjoyed the bits like Ciri's training montages in Kaer Morhen, the time spent traveling with Yarpen Zigrin, the opening scene where people listening to the bard are arguing about what really happened in the battle with Nilfgaard and what it all means, and especially the scene on the boat, with Geralt, the customs agents, the annoying kid very proud of his daddy, the natural scientist, and the river monster -- that one actually made me laugh out loud. The dramatic scenes worked less well for me -- they always feel more of a stretch in Russian, to me anyway.
Oh, right, and one other thing I liked in terms of the writing -- the way a lot of the action is transmitted via dialogue alone, just words, without even any "he said, she said" or other descriptions. This is a very Brustian thing. (I actually wonder if Sapkowski has read Brust, because the other thing that reminded me of the Vlad books is the scene where Yennefer tells Ciri she is sure Ciri can be a sorceress because they've been conversing telepathically for the entirety of the scene -- the way it's set up, it felt quite similar to the scene of Vlad and Noish-Pa speaking telephatically for the first time in Taltos. Not that a scene like that couldn't come up by coincidence -- it definitely could, but the similarity did strike me.)
An aspect I hadn't expected but that I like a lot is how much politics there is in this series apparently. The kings are pretty much all scheming assholes, but OK, that's more or less a given, but the way the conflict between the different races is portrayed is a lot more nuanced that I had been expecting. These Elves are a bit too pacifist for what I'm used to, but maybe that's just human propaganda -- but the way they had conquered the other races just to be subjugated themselves by the humans when they arrived is actually a dynamic I don't think I've seen before, and an interesting one -- especially for the position it puts the other races into. The different philosophies we hear from various non-human (and not-entirely-human, like Geralt and the sorcerers) characters were also interesting, and I didn't feel like there was a single right answer possible, which I like.
I haven't talked about the characters yet, but that's mostly because I don't have very much to say. I confess I haven't gotten much of a feel for Geralt himself, beyond "not as heartless as he pretends to be"; possibly if I'd read the short stories published earlier, I would have that already, but, yeah, nothing. Lyutik feels like just a stock character so far. Ciri is... a kid, mostly; I don't feel like I've gotten much of a feel for her personality, either, beyond the various things people are trying to mold her into, and the trauma of her past. (Also, her habit of using "uzhasnen'ko" as an intensifier really bugged me.) I'm definitely curious to see what she's growing into, but I don't really feel like she's interesting yet. I'm a bit apprehensive, though, because I'm unsold on the women in this series. I'm not sure if it's the age of the book showing itself, or the tradition it's coming from, or even the translator's fault (because Russian translators do tend to add flavor to the work in ways that sometimes negatively color my impressions thereof; like the LotR translation I read made Aragorn into kind of a jerk, and it took a very long time for me to be able to not think of Aragorn that way even after I read the book in the original). But, like, Triss is mostly pathetically pining, and Yennefer is just kind of a bitch (does she "say coldly" every other uttering in the original, too?)
I feel like I should also say something about the magic, but I feel like I don't know what yet. It's a pretty high-magic world (telepathy, teleportation, frying people, life extension for the sorcerers), but so far I haven't really gotten a feel for what the limitations of magic are. But I was amused that testing for sorcerous ability (or at least for eligibility to learn sorcery) apparently involves IQ tests, and that Ciri thinks they're stupid. This is actually a really good idea, though.
Oh, and a final note on the cover, which looks like this. I kept trying to figure out who the woman was -- Triss? for whom this seems to be the wrong color hair -- Yennefer? with whom Geralt is never seen in a single present-time scene in this book, and isn't her hair supposed to be curly? Geralt was looking vaguely familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint it, until L took one look at the book, lying around in my office, and said, "He looks like Lucius Malfoy." XD
bingo: author I haven't read before, author whose first language isn't English, book that was a gift, book where main male and female characters don't fall in love (counting Geralt and Ciri as mains)
*
We also watched Jurassic World over the weekend. OMG, WTF was that. Like, OK, the setup was INCREDIBLY stupid SPOILERS for everything -- breeding a super-dinosaur, and said super-dinosaur's level of intelligence (even if they did cross it with a velociraptor and a cuttlefish), going into the Indominus enclosure just because the IR sensors were showing it was empty (I think that was the logic?) without verifying via tracker (because, even if they didn't realize the dinosaur could mess with their IR sensors, it's not like sensors never fail, so of course you want to risk your lives without double-checking), the military program training the raptors, the dumbass teenager who thinks it's a good idea to go offroad in a dinosaur park when there's an evacuation in progress, the notion that the Indominus would recognize and be able to communicate with the raptors, and, like, suborn them -- having been raised in captivity and eaten the only other one of its kind in existence, the way the park is constructed (no secondary containment for the aviary? no way to evacuate the visitors all at once? no business continuity plan, for fuck's sake, in the event of Masrani's death, so any random dude can just walk in and announce himself in charge?), the part where releasing a T-Rex to fight the other dino is actually a good idea (who does that HELP?), and let's not even talk about Claire apparently being able to outrun a T-Rex in high heels -- but, OK, you need a certain degree of stupidity so as to have a movie at all.
But, like, narratively, what the hell was that? What happened to the velociraptors? The velociraptors were the best part, and had a hell of a lot more emotional connection than any of the people. What happened to them at the end? I was sure we were headed for a heart-warming moment where, like, there's a skip-forward and we see Blue's babies hatching from a clutch of eggs, with Owen there to look on as a proud grandpa or something. I mean, we'd been rooting for the raptors pretty much all along! (L and me, at least) When the movie ended, I complained to B, who had already watched it (or, rather, "watched" it, fast-forwarding through the human-interest bits and looking away during the scarier parts):
me: But what about the raptors?
B: Who cares!
me and L: We do!
O: Anahnu! [<-- we, in Hebrew]
B: They stayed on the island.
me: But what about Owen? He's their alpha! They should be with him.
B: They write each other.
But, OK. The movie did not make any sense, but there was tons of dinosaur action. I enjoyed the way the park really functioned like a zoo or regular animal attraction park, with a petting zoo, the "Sea World" show complete with splash zone and clear-sided tank, safety announcements on the ride and a bored teenager operating it, etc. And the escaped pterodactyls were just like seagulls, down to taking food away from each other. The "hamster balls" were neat and we all agreed that we would've liked one to ride around in. And, OK, the final fight, Indominus vs T-Rex, aided by raptors and finished off by by the Mossasaurus was fairly impressive.
There were a couple of funny lines/scenes, like Owen's "I was with the navy, not the Navajo!" when Claire asked if he could track the boys by scent, the scene where the boys are like, "Can we stay with you?" and Claire says, "I will never leave you again!" and they chorus, "We meant him!", and Lowery was pretty funny throughout, but especially in the averted kiss for the hero staying behind thing with the girl from the control room, who it turns out already has a boyfriend. I was happy he survived, because it seemed like he could've easily been a sympathetic victim.
So, all in all, even with my expectations very low, the film was a disappointed, though not really for reasons I'd expected. Ah well, it was fun to heckle it, at least.
More specifically: spoilers, I guess? such as they are?
- It was... odd to be inside Cordelia's head again. I found it a lot harder to identify with her than in Shards/Barrayar. The six daughters thing is kind of baffling to me, I confess. I understand wanting to have another child, posthumously. I understand wanting to give up the Vicereigne position. I understand wanting to stay on Sergyar, although as much as family has always mattered to Cordelia, and as tied as Miles and Gregor are to Barrayar, it does seem a bit strange to me how thoroughly she dismisses Barrayar from consideration.
- I liked Jole, and could see why others found him likeable. His POV was actually more fun than Cordelia's for me, partly because of what and who he was dealing with (the university researchers were a lot of fun, and I liked Fyodor, too, and Kaya Vorinnis), and his view of Cordelia was also more entertaining than hers of him. But...
- OK, so, it feels like a copout not to have the story of how he and Aral got together in the first place. It seems very odd for Cordelia not to know the full story, for Jole not to want to tell her, even now, and what we do hear about it, Aral and Jole striking up their relationship while Cordelia was off-planet, to Simon's panic, is just so odd, I really feel like we should've gotten the story. Like, I assume that (as lunasariel has previously suggested) Cordelia did the Betan thing and was like, "by the way, given that you're bi, if you're interested in having sex with a man at some point, you know you have my approval" and Aral being a) too besotted (and relieved, probably) to consider any such thing, b) horrified to consider the scandal it would bring if it ever came out (if this was while he was Regent or Prime Minister), c) possibly still too traumatized by the whole Ges thing. So, like, I can only assume that he had her blanket, a priori approval, but it's still a very weird setup. I mean, what? Either we have a VERY senior officer with a lot of other power coming onto his aide, who is barely older than his son, or we have Jole coming onto his very married superior while the man's wife is out of town, and either way it doesn't look good for anybody. And doesn't seem in character for either of them... Which leaves what? Sex pollen as Cetagandan plot? Aral and Jole both get so drunk, in the wake of some successfully resolved crisis, that they act out on the mutual crush in a state of lowered inhibitions? Has somebody written fic fitting with this new canon? (I've already seen at least one Yuletide request to this effect...)
- I don't know how I feel about the three-way-marriage that they were apparently all aware they were in on Sergyar, and with Cordelia considering Jole a serious partner of Aral's even before that, as demonstrated by her taking the time to keep him updated on Aral's health during Mirror Dance. On the one hand, I don't think it necessarily detracts from the wonderfulness of Aral/Cordelia (one of my few for-real OTPs), although I do have to sort of suppress jealousy on Cordelia's behalf. And I liked Cordelia's surmise that it was Jole's knack for happiness that some of the attraction for Aral there. On the other hand, that's... 20 years of shutting Miles out of a fairly big part of Aral's life. It's sad for Miles, and especially sad for Aral that he didn't feel that he could share something like that with his son...
- It is becoming increasingly weird how all of LMB's bi characters seem to only ever end up in straight relationships on-page. When it was Aral ending up with Cordelia after Ges, that was great. Bel and Nicol? Meh, I wasn't really paying attention. (ETA: a_t_rain correctly points out that Bel/Nicol is not actually a straight relationship, but it does feel heteronormative to me.) Byerly getting involved with Rish, totally randomly in CVA? That's where it started to bother me. And now we get to Oliver and Cordelia, and, like, I think their relationship is actually quite sweet, and I'm actually a sucker for people who have each individually loved and lost the same person finding comfort in each other, so I totally like the trope this is playing out... But four for four... it's kind of glaring at this point, and it just seems so weird, given the way sexual diversity is explicitly written into the books and constantly highlighted. Is it just the baby-having imperative? (And LMB has already done the baby-having imperative in not-straight relationships abundantly in Ethan of Athos?)
- But anyway, back to Jole. I was rather touched by his recalled reaction to his medal for actions during the space accident (which was how he had first come to Aral's attention): "That always felt strange, to be cited for a set of actions I could barely remember. [...] I could only think -- but what if I had to do it again, and I couldn't remember how?"
- I also was very amused by Jole's visit to the rep center and his thoughts throughout everything, from being shown the technology to the sperm collection. A couple of quotes from that bit: "In fifteen years, all those disturbing biological blobs would be out on Kareenburg's streets, wearing strange fashions, listening to annoying music, and disagreeing politically with their beleagured parents." And: "He tried to come up with a few more suitably technical questions that would redeem his Barrayaran IQ in the man's eyes. [...] He managed not to blurt out his own history as a natural, un-gene-cleaned body birth, in attempted proof of what, he could not say." And Cordelia asking him about his experience with Dr Tan afterwards, to which Jole's answer is: "He was very civil. And enthusiastic. And appallingly Betan." XD
- The way Oliver and Cordelia do eventually get together is pretty cute, and actually I could buy Cordelia being that dense for once, because first she is thinking of Jole as being primarily attracted to men, and second, his ~hint to her is that he's interested in Vorkosigans, apparently, and I find it entirely believable that she doesn't think of herself as one. And the kiss, and "Ah, so this is how Aral diverted all those Betan data-spates." :) Also, I'm impressed that one of the very first new relationship questions between them is about sex toys (though I am surprised that it's Oliver who brings it up, of the two.) I also liked that their age is felt quite keenly in this, Jole realizing that acrobatics or carrying Cordelia up the stairs are beyond him, at fifty, people pointedly reminding him that his personal combat training is out of date so he doesn't qualify to be Cordelia's bodyguards when the armsmen are dismissed, and Cordelia being annoyed that the possibility of her and Jole having an affair doesn't even come up in the Lake Serena rumours, because nobody thinks people over fifty ever have sex.
- Also, interesting revelation about Oliver and Bel. I wouldn't mind reading that fic, either. Including Bel pumping him for information about Barrayar. I'm sure hanging around with Miles gives one an interesting impression of the place, but probably not a very accurate one.
- Oh, and I liked that Jole never for a moment wonders if he is up to the promotion into Desplains' seat: "he did not underestimate the task, but he didn't underestimate himself, either." That's one of the nice things about having a mature protagonist, I guess, rather than a farmboy discovering the galaxy for the first time or yet another coming-of-age story.
- Another thing that struck me: how few Vor seem to be in high positions of military command anymore... Jole is prole, as is Bobrik, his seccond in command. General Haines is prole. So is Desplains. Thibault is head of Komarr Fleet and Kuprin is head of Home Fleet, both proles also. I'm assuming this is something that Aral and the other progressives worked hard to accomplish? (Miles, of course, is oblivious to those sorts of considerations, with unconscious Vor privilege, but I can only assume that a generation or two back, it would've been a rather different list of names...)
- Aral ♥ This was why I needed this book, for some Aral closure, some more happy memories (tinged with sadness, of course, but something). I was really happy to learn that he had taken up painting again (including apparently nudes ;), that he channeled his homesickness for Barrayar into drawings of Vorkosigan House. And it was good to see flashbacks from earlier years, too, from perspetives we hadn't seen before, like Jole's of the Hegen Hub battle, or Aral sending post-lavatory letters back to the Cetagandans.
- Speaking of Cetagandans, that was an interesting revelation about both the junta's plans for Barrayar and the truth behind the Cetagandans' withdrawal. It does seem plausible given the disparity in technology between the two countries, but also... ugh, Cetagandans are too overpowered for me to be interested in them; I didn't need more along the same lines. But it does form an interesting hook... into a book that I can only guess will never get written, about the events coming to light, or maybe a Cetagandan Invasion prequel... I was also intrigued by the revelation about Time of Isolation Sweet Polly Olivers: "Some of the stories were even true, uncovered in the hospital or morgue tents of the day. The end of the Time of Isolation and the introduction of galactic-style induction physicals had put paid to that era." That should be in the prequel, too.
- It was really interesting to see Miles as a father really for the first time. He's quite a bit more hands on than it had seemed in CryoBurn and maybe even CVA -- possibly because the kids are older now, and thus actually fun. It still seems to me that child-minding, even with helpers, is disproportionately Ekaterin's job, and Miles is just kind of fun outings dad. Also, god, the six children under 12 thing is just crazy. I can understand the "throw a couple more embryos in the replicator" impulse post Aral's funeral, but really, another set of twins?
- I might as well talk about the Vorkosiglets here as anywhere. I do wish we'd gotten to see more of them individually, not as a troupe. Only Alex's personality really came through, and aww, Alex (wasn't he Sasha before, btw?). It's nice to see that somebody took after Ekaterin, at least. Hellen seems the most Vorkosigan-like of the lot, and I liked that Lizzie seems to be the scientist of the family. I do hope Cordelia is right and she'll end up doing the Barrayaran equivalent of Betan Survey. (I confess, I think one of the reasons I liked Lizzie so much is that she was almost completely like the Miles/River Tam daughter I envisioned here. (And Alex is not too unlike the Syoma I imagined, either, when you swap psychics for aesthetics due to the difference in mothers.)
- Also, Vorkosiglets names. Aral Alexander is a given, of course, and Helen is named after the Professora, I guess, and Lizzie after Cordelia's mother. Taurie is named after Taura, but I can't remember if that was to honor a departed friend, or if she was named after Taura while Taura was still alive... Simone after Simon, but I'm stumped by Selig. Just a family name, like the historical count? Seems sad to be the only kid not named after a relative or friend of significance... Or maybe a weight off one's back. (And surely there is no shortage of people Miles and Ekaterin could name a kid after....)
- And speaking of naming, Jole and Aral's son will be Everard Xav. He's not a Vor, so Vor naming conventions don't apply to his sons, but that's interesting. When Cordelia first broaches the idea to him, he tries out "Everard Piotr Jole", but I guess he ultimately decided on something less blatantly indicative of the other half of their parentage but still an homage to Aral's ancestors. And Cordelia's Kosigan Naismith as the middle-last name combo is nice, actually, though I confess I'm unsold on Aurelia as a first name. I'm not sure about Nile as a girl's name, either, but at least I do think it's a nice touch to have the second daughter named after Ekaterin, with whom Cordelia is clearly very close.
- Another bit I was wondering about was what everybody thinks of each other as. Like,
I found it quite adorable that Alex refers to them as "Uncle Ivan. And Uncle Gregor, and Uncle Duv Galeni, who isn't even Vor". A little surprised that Miles refers to his grandfather as "old Piotr" in his conversation with Oliver, which seems a little distant. And towards the end Oliver thinks of Miles as "Cordelia's son" (as opposed to Aral's, which would've been what I expected), which gave me pause -- is that supposed to show that Cordelia is a more immediate point of reference for him now?
- It was even more interesting to see Miles through Cordelia's eyes. Like, usually we see Miles through his own POV, which is a very, very busy place. And then occasionally we've seen him through people who are either exasperatedly fond of him (Roic, Ivan, Mark -- OK, possibly more exasperated than fond in some cases) or outsiders being whammed with Miles for the first time (like the folks in CryoBurn or Ekaterin in Komarr), and he tends to just be overwhelming and carry you off. Cordelia has a very unique view on him, and I found it very amusing to see her still relating to him maternally here -- like wanting to hold his hand as the kiddies' hands are being held while they're touring the ship, to keep him from touching stuff. On a related note, it was really sort of startling to see how decrepit he is, at 43. That doesn't come across in Miles's POV, because he tends to gloss over his limitations and just forge ahead -- he's so used to doing just that all his life, it's just the limitations have changed slightly. And other people don't seem to notice behind the manic fiddling and incadescnece, but Cordelia does... and her realization that she may well outlive him (which seems to be what LMB thinks is likely to happen), that she can't even bear to contemplate when it first hits her, and the farewell, thought "Take delight in one another. While you can, take delight." oh... :(
- Oh, and speaking of perceptions of Miles in various roles, I found it interesting how aware Cordelia is of times when Ekaterin is quietly exasperated with Miles or disagreeing with him without saying anything -- which I'm pretty sure Miles is happily oblivious too. That was an interesting touch.
- I'm really wondering what Miles's "three stupidest things" are that he comes up with. I mean, there are lots of things he could choose from, but what specifically does he pick as those top three? (two of which he says Cordelia knows and the third she doesn't and no longer matters) I'm pretty sure falsifying the report in Memory is on that list. But what else? The suicide attempt on Beta? (which I was thinking might be the one Miles thinks Cordelia doesn't know about and doesn't matter anymore) And something about not opening up with people he loves in time? ("whatever you want to say, don't leave it for too late. [...] That was one of my top three, actually.") I confess I'm puzzled by that one, because it's not much like Miles (or any Vorkosigan, frankly) to hold back on that sort of thing... I thought about Elena, maybe, but surely he doesn't regret that any longer? Or at least not to that degree. Or simply not telling something about his feelings to people he's lost unexpectedly, which is everyone he's lost, but who specifically? His father seems unlikely, but... Piotr? Bothari?
- Oliver's conversation with Miles feels like it went a bit *too* well -- I wasn't expecting Miles to reconcile with everything so quickly. But I suppose Jole was aided by the fact at having just risked his life for Miles's children and being in a lot of pain from the inuries sustained therein, so, really, he couldn't have caught Miles in a more charitable mood. I did like how quickly Miles figured out exactly what promotion Jole had been offered, and was quick to tell Jole that Cordelia hadn't told him -- and then asked for permission to tell Ekaterin: ""Can I tell Ekaterin? Because if I can't, my head is going to explode." It's all very Miles, that part. And I did like that Miles basically accosts Jole to ask him if his intentions are honorable, and then offers to Cordelia to "trip him up" when he learns about the choice he is facing -- but manages to butt out.
- I did get a feeling that (before the conversation) Oliver was sort of jealous of Miles, in his reactions to him. Like, he seems almost perversely cheered that Helen has reached the "Oh, Da" preteen stage. He doesn't dwell on it, but I do wonder how Jole felt about Miles when they were both rising through the ranks... There's an interesting fic in that, too, I bet (though that one may have already been written? I haven't read dsudis's Aral/Jole -- wanted to read the canon first :)
- I really enjoyed Cordelia's thoughts on motherhood, because I've always liked her approach to motherhood and just the fact that a mother still gets a story of her own (in Barrayar) instead of a bland happily ever after -- I mean, I have that icon for a reason. I got a kick out of Cordelia thinking that having only one child did not adequately prepare her for dealing with internecine bickering as the Vicereigne, and wondering if, conversely, the role would serve as good training for raising her daughters. And very unexpected but totally understandable, I liked the the last scene, with Jole reflecting on Aurelia's first year and a half, showed that Cordelia had been deeply affected by Miles's unusual childhood and had to get past that as a new mother -- not letting the nanny near her and being generally overprotective, finding wonder in the simplest physical accomplishments of the able-bodied child, worried that she isn't speaking in complete sentences yet.
- But I still don't get the six barely staggered daughters thing... Though I suppose it makes some sense with the strict child-control on Beta, Cordelia even admits it when talking to Jole about her secret plan to have six children with Aral, back before the solotoxin attack.
- I also really enjoyed Cordelia's exasperation with Kayburg citizenry not wanting to move and bringing her petitions ("The future of Kareenburg is a lava flow! [...] There is no political solution to this, because it's not a political problem. [...] I suggest you take your petition up to the lip of the old caldera and present it to the mountain.""). I'm not sure I totally buy Jole's new scientific interests, but it seems like a pleasant second career for him, and his visit to the university was hilarious, one of my favorite scenes in the book. Actually, I really enjoyed all of the scenes from Chaos Colony, Blaise the hyperactive PR guy Cordelia is saddled with, the nebbishy Cetagandan plumber and Bean Plant #3, Freddie and the Haineses. I especially enjoyed Haines's advice on babies: "any man who can learn to field-strip a weapon can learn to change a damn nappie. Just handle the kid gently but firmly, like an unexploded bomb." His (temporarily)-single-father-of-teenage-girl troubles were also pretty funny, in his recounting. I would've welcomed more secondary characters and crowd scenes in the book, actually. Oh, and deliberate worm scarification as the latest in body modification on Sergyar was amusingly very plausible, and a nice touch.
- Oh, and I was touched by Mount Rosemont and the scene atop it (and grimly amused by Cordelia's "I sure as hell wasn't going to let them name anything else after Prince Serg.")
- On a totally random note, so Cordelia doesn't know enough about Alice in Wonderland, or how chess works (unless chess works differently at this point, which it might) to fully get the reference to the Red Queen ("Wasn't she the chess piece who went around yelling 'Off with their heads'?"), but does know enough of Jane Austen to come up with phrases like "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a high rank must be in want of a partner."
Things I would have really, really loved to see:
- In a book so concerned with parenthood, I would have really loved to see not just Miles as a father, but also Gregor and Duv. (Or even Ivan as a father, since Cordelia says he and Tej had acquired "a start on Alys's long-desired grandchildren", which I suppose means they at least have some embryos at this point?) I mean, surely Gregor could've been more present than just a one-way tightbeam message and sending Miles forth to Sergyar. And while Duv is of course not in the same class as her son and foster-son, as far as Cordelia is concerned, he is married to Delia, and I'd have expected Cordelia to have kept in touch with all of Kou and Drou's daughters... (Actually, the fact that Kou and Drou don't rate some kind of message from her is also a bit weird in retrospect... she's known them even longer than Simon and Alys, and they're practically her in-laws! Unless that relationship never fully recovered from the "damn Betan pimp" accusations in ACC, which would be sad...)
- Alys and Simon reacting to Cordelia and Jole's news. Ivan reacting to Cordelia's news would also be highly entertaining.
- Some actual Mark! I mean, really, we don't even get a scene with him? And a single remote conversation with Kareen? Which was really sweet, and I liked that Cordelia's message to them included an admonition to sequester gametes but not outright nagging about grandchildren -- that feels like a very Cordelia balance to strike -- but it would have been really nice to see some actual interaction. And also Mark pwning Plas-Dan with his new factory; that would've been nice, too.
Quotes:
"Vorinnis tried to stand on tiptoe and to attention simultaneously, which didn't quite work" [IDK why, I always get a kick out of zeugmas!]
"She considered seventy-six It... made no sense. Except that sometime in the past three years, she had switched from counting her years not up from birth, but back from death -- a grab-bag of time not growing, but shrinking, use it or lose it." Ouch.
"'You always did have that little sadistic streak, Cordelia.'
'Now, Oliver. Assertive, perhaps. As you may recall.'
From the way he choked on his next swallow of wine, he did."
Jole on female soldiers: "Komarr command always gets first pick, on the theory that they'll be the hot seat if there is one, and Home Fleet is a close second. They arm-wrestle all the time over the best men. We get what's left. What's left, it turns out, are a lot of the best women. Send us more, I'd say."
"Sergyar Command's B&L [Budget and Logistics] departmental needs and those of the Emperor were normally fairly congruent, but not always, and Jole had to remind himself now and then, as voices rose and the highlighted numbers were presented again in brighter colors, which side he was on." [I crack up, as usual, over the way LMB writes about organizations.]
Jole thinking about the plans for his birthday picnic: "It was like the inverse of a mutiny."
Cordelia re: Freddie Haines: "She considered the familiar conundrum inherent in complimenting a child for doing something well in the course of what ought not to have been done at all."
"it was time to gather up the agendas and move on to the next materials-procurement meeting. Jole [...] wondered how all his youthful dreams of military glory had come down to this. On the other hand, these current mundane labors might silently serve some future smoking sod who'd had glory dumped on him."
"He'd almost wished for some clever evil plot, which they could then engage to out-clever. It could be surprisingly hard to counter Plain Stupid. Even by heroic measures."
This whole conversation:
"If the word you are groping for is dating, Oliver, it's not illegal, immoral, or fatterning." [...]
"Dating sounds... a bit adolescent, somehow."
"Seeing each other?"
"Vague. Invites... unrestrained speculation."
"Courting?"
"Too Time-of-Isolation."
"Fucking?"
"Don't you dare!"
"Well, screwing, if you want a politer utterance."
Which Cordelia follows up on with Miles:
"Actually, Oliver and I are dating."
Miles stared. The silence stretched just a little too long, though Ekaterin raised her eyebrows, looked back and forth between Cordelia and Jole, and ventured, "Congratulations!" Miles closed his mouth.
In another moment, he opened it again. "Er... what exactly do you mean by dating? In this context."
"Screwing, dear," Cordelia replied, in her flattest Betan tones.
"...Ah." He added after a moment, "Thank you for the clarification."
Kaya and her date with the Cetagandan attache:
"And my mother always told me not to beat the boys at games and things because then they wouldn't ask you out. So I took him out to the range and trounced him. [...] Except then he turned around and found some place outside Kareenburg that rents horses and asked me to go with him again."
Jole: "Mm... More of a backfiring-range date, then?"
"Well, time would tell, though as usual it could benefit from a dose of fast-penta."
Miles and Cordelia, talking about her plans for sisters for him.
"But you already have six grandchildren. Isn't that, like, enough?" And in a somewhat smaller voice -- getting down to it, she recognized the style, "Don't you like my work"
[...]
"I adore your work. Consider it my inspiration, if you like."
"Taurie was busy being five"
Cordelia on Miles's reaction to the sisters revelation: "so far he seems to be less processing than, than storing it all up in his cheeks. Like a hamster."
"Jole was reminded that Cordelia's ImpSec commander, Kosko, had annoyed him more than once, recently. And that if anyone had the resources to examine weird-ass Cetagandan art for hidden toxic properties, ImpSec did. [...] He probably could rely on Kosko to defent them all against Cetagandan art education."
Cordelia on city planning: "And parking. And a bubble-car system. With adequate plumbing. Because wherever people are, they always want to get somewhere else, and generally hit the lav on the way."
Miles with his sprogs: "A muffled paternal bellow was either quelling the disorder of romenting it."
My favorite bits from Jole's encounter with the U of K scientists:
"Oliver Jole. Admiral, Sergyar Fleet."
"Ah." Gamelin's spine straightened, for whatever atavistic reason -- Jole didn't think he was an old service man -- and he switched the plunger over and offered an egalitarian handshake, as if between priests of two dissimilar faiths. "and what can the Department of Biology do for Sergyar Fleet today?" [...]
"Admiral Jole, may I present our bilaterals expert, Dr Dobryni."
The woman looked Jole up and down with rising eyeborws and a growing smile, and nodded. "You're very bilateral, aren't you? So pleased! Can't stay."
Sandals slapping, she continued her gallop up the corridor and swung in at a doorway, calling back, "Welcome to the U! Don't come in!" The door slammed behind her.
[...]
"Ionnas! Julie stole my gene scanner for her damned students again! Make her give it back before they break it -- again."
Gamelin sighed. "If we're ever to teach them not to break our equipment, they need some equipment to practice on. You know that."
"Then give her your scanner."
"Not a chance." Gamelin met the man's glower without embarrassment, then seemed to relent. "But you can use mine this afternoon. I haven't a prayer of getting to it myself. Meetings. Put it back when you've finished. [...] Defend it from Julie!" Gamelin called after, which won a snigger as the man turned out of sight.
"Equipment wars," sighed Gamelin, turning back to Jole. "Do you have them in your line?"
"Pretty much the same thing, yes," allowed Jole, smiling.
"It will be worse next week, when the Escobaran invasion arrives."
Jole blinked. "That sounds more like my pathc. Shouldn't I have have had a memo?"
Gemelin was nonplussed for only a moment. "Oh!" he laughed. "Not in force. The City University of Nuovo Valencia sends a party of grad studnets and related riffraff each year to do some work here. Which would be fine, but in order to save freight charges, they try as much as possible to equipe themselves on this end. Makes for more-than-scientific-competiton."
"And scientific jealousy?"
"O hardly that!" said Gamelin fervently. "I'd welcome anyone." He added after a moment of judicious thought, "Well, maybe not Cetagandans. Unless they brought their own equipment." Another contemplative moment. "And left it. Like after their pullout from the Occupation. That could be all right."
And later:
"As he passed a half-open doorway, a heartbroken female voice howled in high anguish, 'What have you done to my worms?'"
Cordelia: "My old Betan Survey science training didn't really fit me for Vorbarr Sultana politics, I admit. I'd always thought the very worst thing one could do was say or repeat anything that one hadn't made sure was true. People's lives could depend on one's accuracy. To me, the rumor mill seemed not just cruel, but deranged."
Miles, on the slanders against his parents that he heard in school: "Ivan had it easier. He could just slug them. I couldn't get him to slug them for me very often, except for the one time some twit accused Aunt Alys of sleeping with you. That... went off well. In a sense."
Cordelia: "Alys came in for a lot of criticism in her own right for not remarrying. Still, at least that one credited me with good taste. I was flattered."
And Piotr's advice on dealing with it: "We're Vorkosigans. If the charge isn't at least murder or treason, it's not worth rolling over in bed for. Treason, anyway. And sometimes not even then."
Cordelia: "Try this. Think of the trhee most boneheaded, regrettable things you ever did."
Miles: "Only three? I can think of more."
Cordelia: "Overachievement is not needed for this exercise."
"He [Miles] doesn't flinch anymore when someone calls him Count. Or look around for the real count." She paused, and lifted her hand to brush [Oliver's] face. "Or the real admiral."
"The older three [kids] who came along, plus Freddie, were seriously outnumbered and surrounded by the adults. As long as Miles stayed on the grownups' side, Cordelia figured they were safe."
and
"At a few points Cordelia looked as if she half wanted to pass off her charge to Jole and hold Miles's hand instead, but he did manage to restrain himself and set a good example. His disturbingly expert lecture on the several ways one might go about hijacking the ship right from here was limited to a strictly verbal version, though he looked back wistfully over his shoulder as they left."
"I had never seen Aral so mutely terrified as when we thought we'd lost Gregor. [...] he feared he might be looking down the throat of the third civil war on Barrayar in his lifetime, and it almost broke his heart. Finding himself facing Cetagandans instead was practically a joy, by contrast."
And Jole's recollection: "But when they'd received the confirmation that Gregor was at last coming aboard, Aral had smiled, snapped out the necessary orders, walked to his cabin, locked the door, sat down on his bunk with his face buried in his hands, and wept for the relief of it. Not for long; there'd been a wormhole to defend, coming right up. The maniacally cheerful edge with which the aging admiral had approached this task had been a big morale boost to the men"
"Miles's mobile young face ahd revealed all his urgent soul, usually; this had spoiled her as a parent, Cordelia suspected." (I love this line, because I know just what she means; L was always such a talker, it took us a really long time to figure out how to find out what O was feeling.)
"the old parental curse -- May you have six children just like you. Except that this curse seemed to have gone awry. Miles would have reveled at six children just like himself; he'd have known exactly what to do. Instead, he seemed to have received six children, none in the least like himself, and furthermore, each one different from all the others."
Jole on Miles climbing on the sacks of building materials: "He seemed to have the same curiosity and instinct for the high ground as a cat, without a cat's supple ability to land on its feet."
"The blue shirts [the women's team] won today, to the applause of their dates, spouses, and kids, who carried them off in triumph to, probably, fix dinner."
"She had to give the Service credit: however weak they were on, say, gynecology, they were right on top of trauma."
Miles, to Oliver, after he shielded the kids from the flaming radials: "I owe you big, Oliver. If not for you, those burns would be all over Alex and Helen."
Oliver shrugged. "you'd have done the same."
"No," Miles said simply, "I couldn't have. I'm too short. I'd damn well have tried, certainly."
(Kind of impressive, though, that he's actually learned about some measure of his physical limitations in that regard.)
Miles to Cordelia, re: Oliver: "'Just don't abuse the poor sucker. You have him totally under your thumb, I trust you realize.' In the balance of his tone between being offended for his gender and smug for his mother, she fancied the smug was winning."
And probably my favorite line in the book, delivered by Cordelia: "Are you the man who laid hands on Aral Vorkosigan's granddaughter?"
68. Andrzej Sapkowski, Krov' El'fov (Krew elfow / Blood of Elves) -- I'd been wanting to read the Witcher books for quite a while, because everything I'd heard about them sounded relevant to my interests. I'd even seen a few volumes in the library, in English, but had been trying to decide what language I should read the books in: I figure Russian is probably easier to translate into faithfully from Polish (except for the names, where you have to switch alphabets), but English is what I'm much more used to reading in, and Russian translations aren't always the most faithful ones. Anyway, while I was dithering, ikel89 decided for me by giving me a copy of the first book of the Witcher saga in Russian when she visited.
I liked it! But mostly for the promise of the setting, so far, and not so much the characters or such plot as there is in this book, which is very much a setup sort of book. And it was also different from what I had apparently been subconsciously expecting it to be like, though I had not been aware I had any such expectations. I think probably the first thing I hadn't expected was how much of this book was just setup for the rest of the saga -- lots of training montages (which I enjoyed), lots of setting- and history-establishing talk (ditto), quite a lot in the way of flashbacks (which I enjoyed less), and not nearly as much action, either small-scale (there's a little bit, but really widely dispersed) or large-scale (only in flashback and in passing). For some reason -- possibly the existence of a videogame? -- I'd been expecting a lot more swashbuckling.
It took me quite a while to get used to the setting. I've gotten very unused to seeing fantasy place names in Cyrillic, and there are so many of them! and no map included with the book, which did not help. Even more confusing were the names of the races. Like, I'm pretty sure "krasnolyudy" are Dwarves? I mean, they act like fantasy Dwarves with their axes and battle hammers, and they look like fantasy dwarves in terms of height and beardness, but why "krasnolyudy"? Is that what they're called in Polish? Something the Russian translator made up? (There are also "gnomy" in the Russian translation, which is the typical Russian word for "dwarf", but Russian doesn't make a distinction between "dwarf" and "gnome", so I'm guessing "gnomy" was reserved for gnomes, which also seem to be present in the world, according to Wikipedia.) Also, there's something called "nizushki", which nearest I can tell might be halflings? (Are these common Russian fantasy terms? Would this make more sense to me if I'd read more epic fantasy in Russian, not including LotR, which uses "gnomy" for dwarves and something like "polovinchiki" for halfings?)
Oh, and speaking of translations that puzzled me: In the Russian version, the bard fellow is named Lyutik, which means "buttercup". Looks like the English translation calls him Dandelion. What's it for real, in Polish? (I could see why an English translation would try to find something different than Buttercup, given that a fantasy reader would likely associate that name with The Princess Bride and thus encounter cognitive dissonance possibly.)
The Elder Speech also came across as really odd, because I was expecting, you know, a made up language along the lines of Tolkien's, but instead it was a language in which bits were clearly based on English, Latin, Gaelic (according to Wikipediam "based on English, French, Welsh, Irish, Latin and other languages"), which made it very, very weird. Folks more familiar with the setting, is there a point to that from a world-building perspective? Like, it is mentioned that both the Elves and the humans have come to the Continent from Somewhere Else, although it has not been made clear so far where that Something Else is. Is the smorgasbord that is Elder Speech justified by wherever it is they came from? Or was it just chosen so that the language would look weird and naggingly familiar at once? (I did like the way a lot of the place names and in some case's people names are based on Elven precursors (which makes sense, because mostly the cities are built on abandoned Elven cities, or ruins thereof).
As always, Russian is a really great language for funny, grousing dialogue. Thus, I really enjoyed the bits like Ciri's training montages in Kaer Morhen, the time spent traveling with Yarpen Zigrin, the opening scene where people listening to the bard are arguing about what really happened in the battle with Nilfgaard and what it all means, and especially the scene on the boat, with Geralt, the customs agents, the annoying kid very proud of his daddy, the natural scientist, and the river monster -- that one actually made me laugh out loud. The dramatic scenes worked less well for me -- they always feel more of a stretch in Russian, to me anyway.
Oh, right, and one other thing I liked in terms of the writing -- the way a lot of the action is transmitted via dialogue alone, just words, without even any "he said, she said" or other descriptions. This is a very Brustian thing. (I actually wonder if Sapkowski has read Brust, because the other thing that reminded me of the Vlad books is the scene where Yennefer tells Ciri she is sure Ciri can be a sorceress because they've been conversing telepathically for the entirety of the scene -- the way it's set up, it felt quite similar to the scene of Vlad and Noish-Pa speaking telephatically for the first time in Taltos. Not that a scene like that couldn't come up by coincidence -- it definitely could, but the similarity did strike me.)
An aspect I hadn't expected but that I like a lot is how much politics there is in this series apparently. The kings are pretty much all scheming assholes, but OK, that's more or less a given, but the way the conflict between the different races is portrayed is a lot more nuanced that I had been expecting. These Elves are a bit too pacifist for what I'm used to, but maybe that's just human propaganda -- but the way they had conquered the other races just to be subjugated themselves by the humans when they arrived is actually a dynamic I don't think I've seen before, and an interesting one -- especially for the position it puts the other races into. The different philosophies we hear from various non-human (and not-entirely-human, like Geralt and the sorcerers) characters were also interesting, and I didn't feel like there was a single right answer possible, which I like.
I haven't talked about the characters yet, but that's mostly because I don't have very much to say. I confess I haven't gotten much of a feel for Geralt himself, beyond "not as heartless as he pretends to be"; possibly if I'd read the short stories published earlier, I would have that already, but, yeah, nothing. Lyutik feels like just a stock character so far. Ciri is... a kid, mostly; I don't feel like I've gotten much of a feel for her personality, either, beyond the various things people are trying to mold her into, and the trauma of her past. (Also, her habit of using "uzhasnen'ko" as an intensifier really bugged me.) I'm definitely curious to see what she's growing into, but I don't really feel like she's interesting yet. I'm a bit apprehensive, though, because I'm unsold on the women in this series. I'm not sure if it's the age of the book showing itself, or the tradition it's coming from, or even the translator's fault (because Russian translators do tend to add flavor to the work in ways that sometimes negatively color my impressions thereof; like the LotR translation I read made Aragorn into kind of a jerk, and it took a very long time for me to be able to not think of Aragorn that way even after I read the book in the original). But, like, Triss is mostly pathetically pining, and Yennefer is just kind of a bitch (does she "say coldly" every other uttering in the original, too?)
I feel like I should also say something about the magic, but I feel like I don't know what yet. It's a pretty high-magic world (telepathy, teleportation, frying people, life extension for the sorcerers), but so far I haven't really gotten a feel for what the limitations of magic are. But I was amused that testing for sorcerous ability (or at least for eligibility to learn sorcery) apparently involves IQ tests, and that Ciri thinks they're stupid. This is actually a really good idea, though.
Oh, and a final note on the cover, which looks like this. I kept trying to figure out who the woman was -- Triss? for whom this seems to be the wrong color hair -- Yennefer? with whom Geralt is never seen in a single present-time scene in this book, and isn't her hair supposed to be curly? Geralt was looking vaguely familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint it, until L took one look at the book, lying around in my office, and said, "He looks like Lucius Malfoy." XD
bingo: author I haven't read before, author whose first language isn't English, book that was a gift, book where main male and female characters don't fall in love (counting Geralt and Ciri as mains)
*
We also watched Jurassic World over the weekend. OMG, WTF was that. Like, OK, the setup was INCREDIBLY stupid SPOILERS for everything -- breeding a super-dinosaur, and said super-dinosaur's level of intelligence (even if they did cross it with a velociraptor and a cuttlefish), going into the Indominus enclosure just because the IR sensors were showing it was empty (I think that was the logic?) without verifying via tracker (because, even if they didn't realize the dinosaur could mess with their IR sensors, it's not like sensors never fail, so of course you want to risk your lives without double-checking), the military program training the raptors, the dumbass teenager who thinks it's a good idea to go offroad in a dinosaur park when there's an evacuation in progress, the notion that the Indominus would recognize and be able to communicate with the raptors, and, like, suborn them -- having been raised in captivity and eaten the only other one of its kind in existence, the way the park is constructed (no secondary containment for the aviary? no way to evacuate the visitors all at once? no business continuity plan, for fuck's sake, in the event of Masrani's death, so any random dude can just walk in and announce himself in charge?), the part where releasing a T-Rex to fight the other dino is actually a good idea (who does that HELP?), and let's not even talk about Claire apparently being able to outrun a T-Rex in high heels -- but, OK, you need a certain degree of stupidity so as to have a movie at all.
But, like, narratively, what the hell was that? What happened to the velociraptors? The velociraptors were the best part, and had a hell of a lot more emotional connection than any of the people. What happened to them at the end? I was sure we were headed for a heart-warming moment where, like, there's a skip-forward and we see Blue's babies hatching from a clutch of eggs, with Owen there to look on as a proud grandpa or something. I mean, we'd been rooting for the raptors pretty much all along! (L and me, at least) When the movie ended, I complained to B, who had already watched it (or, rather, "watched" it, fast-forwarding through the human-interest bits and looking away during the scarier parts):
me: But what about the raptors?
B: Who cares!
me and L: We do!
O: Anahnu! [<-- we, in Hebrew]
B: They stayed on the island.
me: But what about Owen? He's their alpha! They should be with him.
B: They write each other.
But, OK. The movie did not make any sense, but there was tons of dinosaur action. I enjoyed the way the park really functioned like a zoo or regular animal attraction park, with a petting zoo, the "Sea World" show complete with splash zone and clear-sided tank, safety announcements on the ride and a bored teenager operating it, etc. And the escaped pterodactyls were just like seagulls, down to taking food away from each other. The "hamster balls" were neat and we all agreed that we would've liked one to ride around in. And, OK, the final fight, Indominus vs T-Rex, aided by raptors and finished off by by the Mossasaurus was fairly impressive.
There were a couple of funny lines/scenes, like Owen's "I was with the navy, not the Navajo!" when Claire asked if he could track the boys by scent, the scene where the boys are like, "Can we stay with you?" and Claire says, "I will never leave you again!" and they chorus, "We meant him!", and Lowery was pretty funny throughout, but especially in the averted kiss for the hero staying behind thing with the girl from the control room, who it turns out already has a boyfriend. I was happy he survived, because it seemed like he could've easily been a sympathetic victim.
So, all in all, even with my expectations very low, the film was a disappointed, though not really for reasons I'd expected. Ah well, it was fun to heckle it, at least.