sholio | Books!

It's been a while since I read it, but I'd love to ask what you thought about the Jackson Whole characters. Did they seem strangely less sophisticated than the Barrayarrans or was that me?

Hmmm, I didn't get that at all! Actually, I really loved seeing the Jacksonians and their intriguingly skewed (by our standards) morality treated sympathetically. It's possible that I'm just easy for the Jacksonians because for so many books they've been essentially The Bad Guys and even the book which humanized the other Designated Bad Guys (the Cetagandans) still presented them as fundamentally alien compared to the Barrayarans, so I really appreciated the handling of both the Jackson's Whole and Cetagandan characters in this book as human, flawed, and fundamentally relatable.

I'd actually be interested to know if you remember what it was about them that gave you that impression. I'm not trying to challenge your view of them; I'm just curious, because I really didn't react that way at all, so I'm wondering what you were pinging on and I'm (apparently) not!

Ah. I did not mean that I disliked them or didn't appreciate the insight into their (a)morality. That I liked. I simply found it curious that they seemed so uninformed about Barrayar. I would have thought that after the Dendarii and Miles (though it was under his Naismith persona) had got the better of a couple of the Houses, all the others would have put an effort into knowing everything there was to know. I can buy the arrogance of believing they could outwit and fool everyone from the younger characters, but found it less believable from characters that had experience in the wider galactic milieu.

It's not like it wrecked the book or story for me, more that I wondered about Bujold's choice to show them so, for want of better term, blindered. It did show them as completely human, though, so there is that. But I've never had a problem seeing genetically modified characters as human and I may have a skewed pov on how much work should go into propagating that message in a book.

Ah, I see! Hmm, I'd have to reread parts of the book to know for sure, but they really didn't come off that way to me. The younger characters' lack of knowledge made sense because they are young, and were having to learn a ton of political info, with Barrayar being just one of many different planets that they needed to know about. (And even there, it really wasn't knowledge they were lacking, but context. Tej knew about Ivan, Gregor, Miles, etc; she just had a completely inaccurate idea of what they'd actually be like.)

And the older characters actually didn't seem uninformed at all to me ... I mean, allowing for the fact that they wouldn't have known Barrayar as intimately as the viewpoint characters who grew up there. I also don't think I agree that Barrayar would have been THAT much of a required-reading subject for Jacksonians in general -- the broad strokes, yes, but I think Barrayar looms larger in the minds of the readers than it does on the galactic political scene in the books. However, for these particular Jacksonians, given what they were up to ... yes, I definitely agree they should have had a pretty solid knowledge of Barrayar -- but I guess I didn't feel that they were lacking it. The kids, yes, but Simon and the older Jacksonian characters seemed to be operating on a pretty level playing field -- he was playing them, they were playing him, and that he ended up getting the better of them (somewhat) is mostly a testament to Simon being Simon, and the Jacksonians radically underestimating the negotiating accumen of the Barrayarans. Again, it didn't seem to me that there was an real lack of knowledge/research, just a lack of on-the-ground experience with actual Barrayarans.

(Though obviously, insert YMMV disclaimer here ... I'm not saying you're wrong, just that my take on them wasn't the same ...)

But I've never had a problem seeing genetically modified characters as human and I may have a skewed pov on how much work should go into propagating that message in a book.

.... not sure if this is a reference to my earlier mention of the Cetagandans being hard to relate to? I may be epically missing your point, but I think this is basically a side effect of the amount of othering that goes on with Cetagandans in the books, though. There are some characters, like Mark and Taura, who are targets of heavy genetic modification and the books make no bones about these characters being 100% as human as the other characters. But the Cetagandans have always been treated somewhat differently, and this was the first book in which the Cetagandans (the ghem-lady grandmother and her daughter) felt as three-dimensional as the non-Cetagandans to me. (Though it's been a long while since I read Cetaganda and maybe I'd find it more nuanced now than I did then.)

Edited 2014-03-19 00:29 (UTC)

So this is why I wanted to ask about it, because I did wonder if that was just me and my reading (which I realized it could be). I might not get the same things from the book if I reread.

I do take your point that Barrayar looms larger to the reader than to the galactics in context. I think you have that right. Though, Barrayar with Gregor as Emperor and controlling Sergyar and Komarr and those jump points is more of a player than it was back when Cordelia encountered the 'Butcher of Komarr' -- it's still considered a backwater.

And, boy, did I not communicate what I meant, since I wasn't referring to the Cetagandans at all, but to Tej and the other products of Jacksonian labs.

And, boy, did I not communicate what I meant, since I wasn't referring to the Cetagandans at all, but to Tej and the other products of Jacksonian labs.

No no, I think this is probably me totally missing the point. XD Anyway, the way that LMB handled it worked for me, but I'm not saying you're wrong, just that my read on it wasn't quite the same.

In all honesty, Rish et al should be the norm in galactic society; you'd expect it would be a lot less unusual for people to encounter other people who had obvious (or not so obvious) genetic modifications. I mean, it makes sense for the Barrayarans to be surprised, their planet being what it is, but the books tend to imply that it's relatively rare, and I find that hard to believe on a worldbuilding level. (Not that LMB is the only sci-fi writer who tends to downplay this -- and I have been entirely guilty of it myself.)

I'm always up for talking about VK stuff, although it's been a while since I read CVA.

I have to say one of the things I found most interesting about CV is that it comes earlier in the continuity than the previous book or two, so it's really interesting to try to rearrange my mental map of where everyone is and what they're doing to accommodate Ivan being married and a diplomat while, say, Cryoburn was going on. (Not that I had a terribly elaborate mental map to begin with, and she's been writing the books out of order since the beginning, so this isn't a huge thing. It's just really interesting to go, "Oh wait, Ivan was over here then ...")

The thing about Cryoburn is that is really doesn't matter where everyone else is; they're not in the book at all. Even Aral being on Sergyar wasn't all that important. The only people who had to be in a certain place were Mark and Kareen. I have a lot of meh feelings about Cryoburn, I wish it had been the book I wish it were instead of what it actually is. Most of it is just utterly forgettable to me, and I wish it had pulled in the themes about aging and death and Aral by actually having Aral in it, or having Miles have more of a stake in it, or having Mark's sciency stuff more of a focus, or so many other things. I sort of feel like the VK books can be split into "space adventures!" and "social changes/effects" stuff, and while Cryoburn was actually a lot of social changes stuff, it felt very space adventures because it wasn't invested in what came before it, so it felt like Miles was off having an adventure that had nothing to do with Barrayar, even though it did tangentially have something to do with Barrayar.

So I feel like you could shoehorn just about anything in happening before Cryoburn and so long as Aral was on Sergyar (but, well, that's not really all that necessary to his death), it won't affect Cryoburn at all. Which in many ways is good, because there are a lot of stories that won't retcon Cryoburn. But, then again, the author does reserve the right to have a better idea, so. ;)

Ha, yeah. I think I have a soft spot for Cryoburn because it was SO nice to see Mark and Kareen again, in something other than a tiny cameo role. But probably 80% of the book was instantly forgettable; I don't even remember most of the main plot.

I love Mark/Kareen. I think they have the healthiest relationship of anyone in Vorkosiverse. I def like how in ACC, they're the extra-consensual and extra-communicative mirror to Miles not respecting a no.

Mark/Kareen is my favorite ship in the Vorkosiganverse, and yeah, what you said! I was really over the moon with delight that, when we finally got to see what they're up to in Cryoburn after no mention of them for some time, it's all I could have hoped for and more. I don't mind a character getting a romantic happy ending, but the constant emphasis on ALL LMB's characters settling down in heteronormative couples with kids is really getting a bit creepy at this point, and I love that Mark/Kareen is such an open foil to that -- they're not married, don't want children, and they globetrot all over the wormhole network ... and they're really happy, without even a hint of subtext that Kareen is wrong for choosing that life. You go, you kinky kids. :D

Also, I'd honestly never noticed, 'til spending so much time with the Jacksonians in CVA, that Mark is culturally Jacksonian through and through. It's clearly intentional and I probably should have picked up on it sooner, but I never had.

Edited 2014-03-19 02:15 (UTC)

I tend to wonder at times what the point is of Mark, like doylistically as a character, why is it necessary that he exists, and oh my god was there a massive missed opportunity with CVA because NO WE NEED MARK TO SHOW THE JACKSONIANS AROUND BARRYAR. WHAT'S THE POINT OF HAVING A JACKSONIAN VORKOSIGAN IF NOT TO GIVE THEM THE TOUR. It would be this hilarious callback to Ivan taking Mark around, and it would be like YES, THIS IS MARK, HE IS JACKSONIAN AND BARRAYARAN, HE CAN EXPLAIN IT ALL. Goddamn am I disappointed we did not get this. I need Mark for this.

Well, I'm deeply fond of Mark so I admit that I don't really need a reason for Mark to exist other than BECAUSE HE'S MARK *g* ... but, that said, I spent a lot of this book thinking that it was the most perfect setup ever for a Mark cameo (especially since there was even a plot connection to the Duronas!) and being vaguely disappointed/baffled that he never appeared. Because really, he should have; all the thematic stuff would have worked so well with Mark having at least a small presence in the book, and they even had a fairly large plot callback to Ivan being locked in the pumping station. It would've given us a lot of closure with Ivan and Mark that we never got, and I'm a little puzzled that she passed up such a huge opportunity.

Hi, I read it and enjoyed it pretty uncritically. Although I did think that LMB must have been shown at least the stats of Vorverse fanfic somewhere--my impression of the fanfic was that Ivan looms large as a heroic figure, as if the fans are saying, "enough with Miles; we know plenty about Mikes. What about Ivan?" And so she gave the Ivan fans their story.

I liked the treatment of Ivan, too. Despite the "Ivan, you idiot," typical comments, and a certain amount of obliviousness necessary to move the romance along, Ivan is shown to be resourceful, brave, generous, heroic, self-less, and kind--and damned good at his job.

I liked the Jackson Whole folks a lot, and enjoyed seeing them, and their POV, portrayed sympathetically.

I also liked the way Ivan and Simon's relationship was portrayed, with Simon hungry for connection--not just with Ivan as his lover's son, but as his step-son, for a relationship of his own with Ivan. Ivan's realization of that was an important subplot, I think. That Ivan wasn't chained to the past--to that pathetic little ceremony at the site of his father's death--but that he could change and grow and be his own person and build his own relationships. Get out of the holding pattern that had been his life so far and make his own life.

I also enjoyed the pun in the title--we're set up for a military adventure, what with Barrayar and the military title in the book title--and then we get a romcom instead. And realize it's not a military alliance but a marriage alliance that she's referring to.

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CVA