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I have just finished Cryoburn a mere several months after everyone else. This was mostly because I hadn't read Diplomatic Immunity - I read it in a few days, and enjoyed it fine, but I can see how it might be a comedown after A Civil Campaign. Anyway, it had one of those dense space opera plots that I'm never really on board with (and, also, a Cetagandan-themed one, which just bothers me, because, hi, they're boring, they require tonnes of backstory none of which is interesting and then they don't go forwards to anything interesting (although - and I'm aware this is getting multi-parenthetical - I read this amazing short fic the other day, in which a Cetagandan haut-poet writes RPF poetry about Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan, and was completely charmed)). I did like that it had lots of Bel Thorne, who is amazing and I love how snarkly it is, and how the novel also acts as a very clever, hundreds-of-years-later sequel to Falling Free, showing how the earlier events become part of mythology and culture over generations.
Anyway! I read it, and then I moved on to Cryoburn, and, well, so I was about a hundred pages in and kept thinking to myself, this reminds me of something, this reminds me of something, and then finally I figured it out. Cryoburn has the same basic plot as nearly every episode of Doctor Who. No, bear with me. So, there are these two guys, who, for sins unspecified, have been assigned to the Barryaran consulate on Khibou-Daini, a planet very far from anywhere else, and they potter along, occasionally countersigning passports and investigating very small cases of fraud. Johannes stands around looking stoic; Vorlynkin broods over his divorce.
Then an unstoppable force of nature arrives in the shape ofthe Eleventh Doctor the Tenth Doctor Miles Vorkosigan, and they have to step up to the plate or else be trampled by aforementioned unstoppable force. (Hello, mixed metaphors!) And they do - and I especially love Vorlynkin, who gets snarkier and snarkier with each successive appearance. ("My case budget allows for a lot of discretion, you know." / "Then I wish you'd buy some.")
It's good fun, mostly. Nothing deep and profound, but a lot more good-natured and charming than a lot of the others. And then the ending, oh my. ( much more concrete spoilers )
I still think there needs to be a book, set while Miles is off doing the galactic mercenary thing, where Cordelia and Alys save the world around diplomatic functions and balls. They totally could, and be awesomely-dressed and very snarky doing it.
Anyway! I read it, and then I moved on to Cryoburn, and, well, so I was about a hundred pages in and kept thinking to myself, this reminds me of something, this reminds me of something, and then finally I figured it out. Cryoburn has the same basic plot as nearly every episode of Doctor Who. No, bear with me. So, there are these two guys, who, for sins unspecified, have been assigned to the Barryaran consulate on Khibou-Daini, a planet very far from anywhere else, and they potter along, occasionally countersigning passports and investigating very small cases of fraud. Johannes stands around looking stoic; Vorlynkin broods over his divorce.
Then an unstoppable force of nature arrives in the shape of
It's good fun, mostly. Nothing deep and profound, but a lot more good-natured and charming than a lot of the others. And then the ending, oh my. ( much more concrete spoilers )
I still think there needs to be a book, set while Miles is off doing the galactic mercenary thing, where Cordelia and Alys save the world around diplomatic functions and balls. They totally could, and be awesomely-dressed and very snarky doing it.
