Reading roundup: Cordelia book, Witcher + Jurassic World

[hamsterwoman]

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,

Comments

[philomytha]

A Christmas letter is a really good way of putting it! Look at all these characters you love, look what they've done this year, isn't it great. And it is. And there are enough people like us out there who love them who will happily read Christmas letters. But as you say, it's not the same thing as a novel.

And I have to say, Dira did a lot better job of putting Aral/Jole together without it feeling like such a violation of trust all around. I'll take it on faith that it wasn't, but the situation is such that it's hard to see how it can be anything else without a lot more detail.

[hamsterwoman]

putting Aral/Jole together without it feeling like such a violation of trust all around. I'll take it on faith that it wasn't, but the situation is such that it's hard to see how it can be anything else without a lot more detail.

Yes, exactly. I respect Aral and at this point also like Oliver enough to believe that it wasn't, but it's hard to see how it could've been anything else (and besides, I don't feel like it's my job as a reader to come up with scenarios where that could've been the case).

I'm definitely curious to read Dira's fic now and see how it meshes with the new canon. (And still impressed like hell that she'd picked up on all those things from the six lines of Jole we got in canon till this book!)

Look at all these characters you love, look what they've done this year, isn't it great.

It really felt like that :P And I was happy enough with the Christmas letter, but it does make me very leery of recommending the book...

[jaelle_n_gilla]

I was all "oooooh, new Vorkosigan book!!!!" when I saw this but really - FIFTEEN dollars for an ebook? What the...!?!? I wasn't trying to buy the exclusive copyright, yaknow.

I'll wait for it to go down to something like 5$ :)

[hamsterwoman]

Heh, the eARCs are steep, but I think they know their audience. The book comes out in February for real, but I only see a hardback option on Amazon so far (which is even more expensive than the eARC). Presumably there will be a cheaper Kindle version at some point.

I enjoyed reading it, but I definitely think one can easily wait to read it an not be missing a ton.

[jaelle_n_gilla]

That's the thing with a new book from a series. When you've waited for years, it doesn't really matter if you wait another month or not. I find myself not so keen on the next Dresden or Verus or GoT because after a while I've forgotten most of the previous ones anyway.

Thanks for letting me know though, so I can put it on the Baen wishlist and wait for the price to drop :)

[hamsterwoman]

That's true! Mostly the fun of reading a new book right away for me is discovering the new canon along with the rest of the fandom, so I only care to do it when I have some fannish friends (or larger fandom) who will be doing so at the same time. But if I'm not fannish about a series, then I'm often perfectly happy to wait, since I've got plenty of other stuff to be reading meanwhile.

Well, Butcher used to be very good at reliably putting out a new Dresden book on schedule, but Codex Alera slowed him down some, and now he's taking on a new series, so I'm definitely expecting his frequency to decrease.

[ikel89]

Hah, Anechka vs Russian-language fantasy, take q0495 :D I'm glad you liked the parts I liked this Geralt for (training montages, whee!), but if you remember, I told you that the first book read was omnibus for this and the next novel, and I guess events pick up there, with more sorcerers in the picture etc. But also with training. Re: the lingo and all this краснолюды, it is a Sapkowski things. I mean, Russian authors also get inventive with the race names sometimes, but his terminology is not something defaulted to a traditional Russian one.

Triss, though - I think she just majorly got the short end of the stick in this book. Yennifer appears later, and she's pretty ruthless as one of her key traits, and I think the narrative sort of tests that feature to some gigantic extend but erm. I can't remember what conclusions it arrives to XD

Question is, do you want me to send you further volumes, or we're scrapping that series off your reading agenda :'D

[hamsterwoman]

Anechka vs Russian-language fantasy,

Yes, apparently XD I'm just amused by how out-of-touch I am with some conventions while considering myself steeped in others. It's some sort of cognitive dissonance!

You did warn me this was a setup book, but I didn't realize you meant to this degree, when I was getting to the 75% mark and we were still doing (entertaining) training montages.

I definitely want to read the second book, at least! I do really like the world, and absolutely want to see some payoff for all that setup! I forget what your warning was about the ones after that? I remember it boiled down to them being less necessary to read, but not any of the specifics.

I do agree Triss gets the short end of the stick. I gather she'll be back in the narrative at some point.

Also, please reassure me that Geralt/Ciri is not a future thing?

[ikel89]

I might have not realized the set-up degree myself, sorry! As I said, it was the omnibus in my case, and reads pretty much like one book. Gotcha re: book 2, though

[hamsterwoman]

It seems to me like omnibus is the way to go with this one, yeah!

And middle stories + nice ending sounds like a good fallback if I find the tail end of the saga not working for me (Wikipedia seems to suggest there's Arthuriana there? I have a complicated relationship with random Arthuriana...)

And nope, Geralt/Ciri is not a thing.

I'm very happy to hear that! (It didn't feel like anything that would logically follow from this book, but there was some mentioned-in-passing stuff between Ciri and Yennefer that I thought could be later turned in that direction, so I wanted to be sure. Especially after Lyutik walks in (climbs in) on Geralt in bed with the healer girl -- I basically wanted to be sure Geralt would not be working his way through sleeping with every female in the cast culminating with Ciri. So, yeah.)

[a_phoenixdragon]

I REALLY need to read Bujold!

[hamsterwoman]

I do think you would enjoy it!

[asthenie_vd]

Oooh, exciting! I don't think I know anyone who read the novels before the short stories. This could be interesting. I mean, the short stories are a mixed bag, I tend to like the novels a lot more, but there's one I'd have recommended to read before the novels - or at least before the final novel - but if I explained why and how and which it is that'd be a hefty spoiler. But I can't deny that I'm curious what effect that bit in the last novel would have on a reader who hasn't read the short story

[hamsterwoman]

Thank you for weighing in -- I knew you were a fan, though I wasn't sure what language you'd read them in :D

Google translate tells me Jaskier = buttercup, so I guess the Russian translation was faithful and English had just decided to go with a manlier flower :P

And I think you're right about the English translation still being in progress -- I saw something about 2017 for the last book. (I always want to read different translations and compare, because the couple of times I've done it (well, reading translation and original, I don't think I've ever compared two translations in different languages), there's always interesting stuff lurking in there, but I'm just not enough of a re-reader to ever follow through just for the sake of curiosity.)

I guess part of why I like this choice is because it implies a relation between the different languages that's more visible to the reader this way as if they'd all been fantasy languages. I actually prefer that to fantasy languages that are completely made up. That is interesting, and I can

[asthenie_vd]

I actually read them all in German. I'd started learning Polish to eventually be able to read in the original language but in three semesters we never got around to learning a single past tense form of a verb. Ah, perhaps later I'll get around to learn the language all over again. It'd be nice to be able to be fluent enough to compare things (and also for being all touristy in Polish cities of course *g*)

Well, it's not "wandered through a portal"-kind of fantasy, but there's going to be elements later that are not of this world, so to speak. But it's all going to get explained. If you read on it'll all be satisfying and make sense in the end. ^^

[hamsterwoman]

Ah, I see, re: the not-of-this-world elements.

And I totally get the desire to learn a language to read something one loves in the original -- and the frustration of getting to a level of fluency where that's actually possible! :P