Re-view of the Vorkosigan Saga
Sep. 1st, 2005 03:20 pmI've been rereading the Vorkosigan series. I *do* love them, but had a variety of extra impressions:
* In Shards of Honor it's strange to have commanding officers called "Naismith" and "Vorkosigan" who are different :) And lovely to see all the Mayhews and Talas and Hovises and wonder if they're the same ones as later.
* She is very good at showing both sides of something, which many authors mess up. You feel equally exasperated with Barrayarans and Betans without ever getting the "and now from the other point of view just for the sake of it" feeling so many authors cause. Bothari, Vorrutyer, Vordarian, Piotr all do awful things, two and a half are definitely villains, but Cordelia still empathises.
* And later on Tien and Ekaterine. Tien was an ass, but was entirely human; you can see yourself being him. And certainly being her. And the relationship obviously evolved naturally to that point from flaws, mainly in him, but also a lot of "it just happened". It's so much more subtle to show bullying where the victim's self-perception is warped and rationalised than when the victim is beat up a lot.
* The technology is mostly done with craft too, though you could still poke holes at a lot of things. Cf. Genre Killing Ideas. Fast penta is a great tool, it cleans up a plot of all the "but what if they're lying" red herrings, whilst still allowing plenty of mystery because the important people are immune.
* But some things niggle me. In Mountains of Mourning, Miles gives his word to limit his interrogation of $charcter, avoiding his inplicating $othercharacter, and allowing Miles to solve the murder elegantly logically. Wouldn't it be more elegant/safer to ask the questions *before* fast penta, and then just repeat them?
* For crying out loud, it's a good point that everyone has Vorsomething, but for the ease of the readers I wish it could have been Vor Something instead. I appreciate this was probably partly deliberate and partly established in the first book and locked in.
* At one point they list the heir to the heir to the heir to the heir to the heir to the heir of the emporer. But surely inheritance doesn't work like that: your second in line isn't necessarily your heir's heir. I guess you could try to kill everyone in the right order like dominos :)
* Miles has an idiosyncratic reaction to fast penta. But it does seem to have a pronounced effect; it would still seem worth trying it if trying to interrogate him. Though I think it barely came up.
* Finally, it's funny. I was so pleased Miles found Ekaterine. They seemed right, and it seemed inevitable Eli and Miles couldn't last. Sharpe and Teresa/his final wife should seem parallel, but there I found it disappointing he couldn't have kept Teresa. Is there a difference in the characters or a difference in me?
* In Shards of Honor it's strange to have commanding officers called "Naismith" and "Vorkosigan" who are different :) And lovely to see all the Mayhews and Talas and Hovises and wonder if they're the same ones as later.
* She is very good at showing both sides of something, which many authors mess up. You feel equally exasperated with Barrayarans and Betans without ever getting the "and now from the other point of view just for the sake of it" feeling so many authors cause. Bothari, Vorrutyer, Vordarian, Piotr all do awful things, two and a half are definitely villains, but Cordelia still empathises.
* And later on Tien and Ekaterine. Tien was an ass, but was entirely human; you can see yourself being him. And certainly being her. And the relationship obviously evolved naturally to that point from flaws, mainly in him, but also a lot of "it just happened". It's so much more subtle to show bullying where the victim's self-perception is warped and rationalised than when the victim is beat up a lot.
* The technology is mostly done with craft too, though you could still poke holes at a lot of things. Cf. Genre Killing Ideas. Fast penta is a great tool, it cleans up a plot of all the "but what if they're lying" red herrings, whilst still allowing plenty of mystery because the important people are immune.
* But some things niggle me. In Mountains of Mourning, Miles gives his word to limit his interrogation of $charcter, avoiding his inplicating $othercharacter, and allowing Miles to solve the murder elegantly logically. Wouldn't it be more elegant/safer to ask the questions *before* fast penta, and then just repeat them?
* For crying out loud, it's a good point that everyone has Vorsomething, but for the ease of the readers I wish it could have been Vor Something instead. I appreciate this was probably partly deliberate and partly established in the first book and locked in.
* At one point they list the heir to the heir to the heir to the heir to the heir to the heir of the emporer. But surely inheritance doesn't work like that: your second in line isn't necessarily your heir's heir. I guess you could try to kill everyone in the right order like dominos :)
* Miles has an idiosyncratic reaction to fast penta. But it does seem to have a pronounced effect; it would still seem worth trying it if trying to interrogate him. Though I think it barely came up.
* Finally, it's funny. I was so pleased Miles found Ekaterine. They seemed right, and it seemed inevitable Eli and Miles couldn't last. Sharpe and Teresa/his final wife should seem parallel, but there I found it disappointing he couldn't have kept Teresa. Is there a difference in the characters or a difference in me?