Something I can say about the Vorkosigan books that's not a spoiler!

[sholio]

One of the things I love about these books is that it feels like the characters really live in this world, this universe. A lot of sci-fi, especially the more space-operatic sort, focuses on the big-picture stuff -- it's all about starship captains and space marines. Bujold's cast of characters includes starship captains and space marines, but also includes space accountants and supply clerks, and the starship captains spend most of their time worrying about things like where the money to operate the big space fleet comes from, or what happens to the family members of space marines killed in action. I was thinking about this reading "Cryoburn"; I just hit a scene in which the main character, who's hiding out on an unfamiliar-to-him planet, has wandered into one of the areas where low-income people go:

The scattering of tables was divided from the cooking area by a long serving counter, with metal cupboards above. He made his way around it to find a sort of large electric samovar promising tea. Next to the dispenser was a mismatched collection of mugs, with a hand-lettered sign over it, Wash your cup! He couldn't quite tell if these were personally owned or up for grabs, which gave him a perfect opening for conversation with the woman who was stirring a ten-liter pot of soup.

He addressed her, "May I use one of these?"

She shrugged. "Go ahead. Wash it after, though." She tapped her spoon on the pot rim and laid it aside. "You new here?"

"Very new."

"Rules are, cook what you want, clean up after yourself, replace what you use, contribute money to the pantry when you can. Sign up on the cleaning duty roster on the front of the fridge."

It really has that communal-kitchen feel ... and how many sci-fi authors actually think about where people eat or how they live, let alone note all those little details that evoke a sense of "shared hostel kitchen", anyway? A lot of sci-fi novels go for "gritty", but I haven't read too many that capture a lived-in, everyday feeling the way these do.

Comments

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Ooh, never thought of that as a worldbuilding detail, but it really does add something to how they live there.

[sholio]

Yeah; the books are just so rich in the everyday details of how the characters live, and I love how there is also a lot of attention paid to the bottom-of-the-food-chain people who make things work -- the supply clerks, the cooks and so forth.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite parts in Warrior's Apprentice (which I just finished last night) was when he's first "recruiting" the opposing army to his (non-existent XDXDXD) mercenary troops, and some of the first questions he gets are about benefits and whether his group offers paid vacation. It made me literally LOL for the prosaic realism - hey, even mercenaries need dental! it's hard to focus on boarding an enemy spaceship when a cavity is distracting you!

[sholio]

haha! Yes! THIS! She's really wonderful about that. It makes her universe feel so lived-in and real -- and it's also the source of a lot of the humor in the series as well (there's one whole book where one of the main plot threads is Miles's comedy-of-errors efforts to fund his bankrupt mercenaries, with every new attempt leaving him worse off than he was before ^^).

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

I really liked that too and noticed the same thing about the kitchen scene!

[sholio]

Yes! I think it was the mismatched cups and the "wash your own cup" sign that really did neat things to my brain in that scene, because so much sci-fi is all about the edgy, gritty ~futureness~ of it, and will tell you in depth how things like the spaceship's FTL drive works, but those ordinary, homely, how-people-really-live details tend to be missing. Food comes fully prepared out of a nice, clean, sterile box in the wall, and that's all the detail you ever get. It's similar to the way that a lot of fantasy writers never think about the means of production, or factor in things like space for farmland or what sort of industry the village's economy is actually based on, so that when you do get a fantasy writer who puts a lot of thought into things like that, it's a delightful bonus.

[naye]

You guys are making me so curious to read the books - but they're books we don't have at the library, and there's so many many other books I also want to read...! Aaaah, what a terrible problem to have. XD (I do own the first book, though, so maybe I should just read that one...)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

They are, fortunately, available for free in ebook form off of the publisher's website. :D http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/24-CryoburnCD/CryoburnCD/

(It says Cryoburn, but they're all on there.)

Not that that's helped me to read them yet, because like most book-lovers I have a Giant List Of Books To Read At Some Point, but they're there!

[sholio]

Oh man, Baen is so generous with their ebooks! Cryoburn (the hard-copy version) is coming to me from Amazon, but I read it today in the free ebook version ... no waiting! And there are some of the books in the series that I know I have around the house somewhere ... at least, I think I do ... but I don't have to go look for them because they're right there online. :D

... but yeah, like I just wrote in my response to naye, I totally understand about the Giant List of Books To Read. I have SHELVES full of books I haven't read yet, and whole series at the library that I keep meaning to read (or, in the case of those I've started, to finish). The world is so delightfully full of books, books, books!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I tore through the entire Honor Harrington series thanks to Baen's free e-library at one point (and have since purchased the books) when I was on a pilot project at a call centre that didn't have any calls. Seriously. I went the entire month of July with no work to do. We weren't allowed to have physical books or crossword puzzles or anything of that ilk ("Read the work manual!"), so I downloaded the .doc format at home, e-mailed them to myself at my work address, and looked like I was Doing Work. Brilliant. I felt vaguely dishonest, but as I had asked them to give me work to do and they'd declined, I didn't feel too bad about getting paid per hour to read in a sterile, bland environment with no windows.

Fortunately after four months in which I took all of twelve calls (two of which were test calls to make sure our number was working) I wound up on another project as well.

[sholio]

Like framlingem said, they are all online! Well, most of them. But I totally understand about having a much-too-long list of books to read! Actually, I stopped in the middle of another series I was tearing through when my flist started reading these books and made me go back to them. (ha. Made me. Look at me deferring responsibility. ^^) TOO MANY BOOKS, NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY.

[gnine.livejournal.com]

YES, she does have so many of these moments, as you say, both character and world building!

HOMG, I am just loving these books! She writes the most amazingly loveable characters! And hilarious scenarios! ^___^

Have been sorta whipping my way through, considering, in omnibus form, I only started Cordelia's Honor on Sat. and finished Young Miles last night...so, four books and a novella. Mmm, looking forward to reading more today hopefully...after some job hunting that is :-p

[sholio]

I'm delighted that you're enjoying them! Someone else to talk to about them, yay! :D (Though at this rate, you're going to beat me; I've only managed three books and a couple of short stories on my re-read so far, though I'm not going in order ...)

I really do love her characters a lot. I'm being reminded on the re-read just how much I always did love them; it's like revisiting old friends, and I love how Miles' roster of friends and relatives and old girlfriends just keeps growing and growing. I am hugely fond of books that do that -- the Dresden Files series is like that too, where the cast grows and grows, and minor characters from previous books come back to do more in later books.