Cryoburn

[raven]

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 of the 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. I totally love that gambit, and I was actually saying it to Shim the other day - remember how during one of the Little Women books, I dunno which one, Meg wakes up Demi in the middle of the night and calls him "John", and he knows straightaway that his father is dead?

So. "Count Vorkosigan, sir?" - it kills me. It really does. And it's such a great throwback to The Warrior's Apprentice, when they wake Miles up and call him "Lord Vorkosigan", because his grandfather's dead.

And I really liked the very fannish thing of finishing up with five drabbles, named as such and everything. My suspicion, reading them, is that this is the last Vorkosigan book. Anyone know if that's actually the case? It read to me that way because of all the throwbacks to the beginning of the series: the one I just mentioned, and also, Cordelia mentions Ensign Dubauer, the man who gets shot at the very beginning of Shards of Honour and then we don't hear about again for twenty years. (I thought the random guy called Dubauer in Diplomatic Immunity was a relation, but that turns out to be a mistake or red herring.)

And then Gregor's last line: "This man has carried me since I was five years old." Oh, Gregor. He and Cordelia are my favourites.

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.

Comments

[wildestranger]

She is writing another Vorkosigan book - I can link you to somewhere with two snippets Bujold read out in an event last year? It looks very promising and delightful.

And yes, I would very much like to read about Cordelia and Alys saving the world in a civilised fashion. I would even say I would rather read about that than about Miles because, well, there's nobody cooler in the world than Cordelia.

[raven]

Links would be lovely, thank you!

I wish someone would write the Cordelia-and-Alys-are-awesome story for me, I have no time to write it myself...

[wildestranger]

There you go: http://lmbujold.livejournal.com/136808.html

[raven]

Thank you!

[simonejester]

That would be awesome.

Or-or-or! Cordelia taking Alys to Beta Colony. XD

Or more (a lot more) on Mark and Kareen. They're the couple I identify most with, and I have a fascination with mental illness that comes from my own experience so I'd love to see not just Mark's coping/thriving but also Kareen and how she helps him and how she deals with it all.

(here via a link from a friend)

[apis_mellifera]

Here via my network page.

Bujold's current WIP is an Ivan book--she's been reading from it at cons. No idea when it will be finished and published, I haven't heard anything about it being sold to a publisher (Baen or otherwise). I think she's sick to death of writing about Miles--and I can't say I blame her.

[raven]

Thanks! An Ivan book sounds like it would be a total blast. Yay, Ivan!

[eruthros]

I ... still haven't read Cryoburn? But I appreciated your review all the same.

[raven]

Hee! If you want to borrow it I'll bring it along the next time we hang out.

[eruthros]

To be honest, I'm sort of enjoying the fanfiction more right now :) I have the free edition of Cryoburn open in a tab, but I just keep not getting around to it.

[fyrdrakken]

During my most recent reread of the Vorkosigan books last year, I noticed how much of my mental fanon for Time Lord society was in fact based on Cetagandan haut society, consciously or not. So I have a certain fondness for them. (Also, thanks for the fic link! Along those lines, if you haven't wandered through Philomytha's Vorkosigan stories yet, you really should.)

I have no idea if Cryoburn is meant to be the last -- I was just so astonished and delighted that the series was being revisited at all after however many years. I won't expect anything further in that series, but hope to be delighted if anything else is written.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

You know, I've read Electric Blue (http://archiveofourown.org/works/109457), an actual Doctor Who/Vorkosigan crossover, about half a dozen times and it never occurred to me to look at her/his other fics. Thanks for the rec, even though I wasn't the recipient!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Philomytha is great! This (http://archiveofourown.org/works/148905) is my favourite of her short snips.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

oh them! oh identity! *hearts*

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

also, I only realised around lunchtime that I read that fic this morning just before wearing my Pride necklace out and about for the first time. :) :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

many hearts! isn't it lovely.

[fyrdrakken]

Oh, always glad to spread the word on the good stuff!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Further comments seem to indicate that it's the last in chronological order for the moment, but that there's an Ivan book in the offing!

[fyrdrakken]

One of the things I loved about A Civil Campaign was the way the viewpoint expanded -- not just Cordelia, or just Miles, or even just Miles and Mark, but so many different people. Ivan turns out to have a lot of potential he's been carefully hiding, so I'd be pleased to see him having an entire adventure instead of just surfacing occasionally in the turbulence of Miles' wake.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I totally agree about the viewpoint expansion! The scene where Ivan discovers his mother is sleeping with Simon Ilyan remains one of my favourite scenes in any novel ever. Oh Ivan.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Yay Ivan! He could be like a not-evil Flashman: offshoot books with him getting up to japes and always in trouble because of ill-advised dalliances with ladies.

[rose71.livejournal.com]

Cryoburn has the same basic plot as nearly every episode of Doctor Who.
Hee! That makes total sense, and I think it also applies to Diplomatic Immunity, in the sense of Miles as a superior Time Lord Force of Nature whirling in to solve other people's mysteries. I do adore Doctor Who as well as the Vorkosigan series, but I prefer Vorkosigan books where the protagonist has more personally at stake, as Miles and Cordelia and Ekaterin and Mark do in the earlier books. (I haven't even read Cryoburn, for just that reason--because reviews have made it sound lacking in character development.)

Bujold is supposedly writing another book... focused on Ivan! In a major act of fanservice, it begins with banter between Ivan and Byerly. The first scene, transcribed from a Bujold reading event, is available on philomytha's journal: http://philomytha.livejournal.com/37207.html#cutid1. I also second the rec for philomytha's own fics.

And thanks for linking to the awesome Ceta poetry!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, I entirely agree. My favourite book is Memory, for just that reason: it's all about what Miles has on the line. Cryoburn is worth reading just for the last chapter, I think. :)

Thank you for the link!

[jmkg.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's the last Vorkosigan book or not, but I know she has the future paths of the characters roughly sketched out. Not that that'll automatically lead to a book, of course!

Here are some selected remarks made by Lois herself on the lois-bujold mailing list, about the characters' futures. Thought you might find it interesting:

[...]

"Cordelia, taking the good Betan advice to make no major decisions or changes in one's life for at least a year after such profound bereavement, returns to Sergyar as its sole Vicereine, ably assisted by her old friend Admiral Jole to ride shotgun on the military/wormhole defense issues. Since she's been doing this job for over a decade, she can pretty much do it in her sleep, which is fortunate. At the end of, she finds, about two years, she finally gets her brain back and begins to find her own center and balance, at which point she is able to figure out what *she* really wants to do, and does it. (And it's not more Barrayaran politics, although there would be a period of transition, to hand things over in optimum order to her successor.)

"I do find it interesting that after the recovery period Miles's life choices narrow, but Cordelia's widen out. But then, she has a lot more years ahead of her than he does."

[...]

"... Aral Alexander, at age 18, deeply influenced by his Great-uncle Vorthys, with whom he is close, decides he wants to go to engineering school. Miles... gets over it. But that's another story."

[...]

"(There will be two more kids eventually, a boy and a girl. Don't ask me to name them.)"

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these! I always thought Cordelia would return to Beta Colony after Aral's death. It just seems to make sense.

[jmkg.livejournal.com]

True, her returning to Beta Colony does make sense. Lois is rather cryptic in that first quote so I'd love another Cordelia-centred book at this point to find out where her life goes after this.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I would LOVE that! I love Cordelia so much. It's interesting, I always think, that she's about the age Miles is in Diplomatic Immunity at the very beginning of her story - but of course she lives so much longer, she really could have a life going on to many other things.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

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.

It drives me nuts that Bujold has written such kick-ass women throughout the series, and then...written the Miles Show. The bits where the women rock are invariably my favorites!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I totally agree! Cordelia, Elli, Elena (both of them), Ekaterin, Alys, Drou - there are so many! I would happily have read books about all of them.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

KAREEEEEEEN

sorry you were saying

[tau_sigma]

If I wanted to start reading this series, where on earth should I start? They seem to suffer the perennial problem of a mismatch between internal chronology and publishing order. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I would definitely start with Cordelia's Honour. It's usually published as one book, but sometimes you do see it as Shards of Honour and Barrayar, two separate books - if you do, then my advice is to stick with SoH even if it doesn't grab you; it was her first novel and it shows. Barrayar, which picks up the story straight after but was written ten years later, is just amazing.

After that, The Warrior's Apprentice and The Vor Game, and then come back and tell me how you liked them and I'll figure out the reading order of the rest. :P

[fyrdrakken]

Chronological order is good. Start with Shards of Honor and Barrayar (published together as Cordelia's Honor).

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

As someone who has just steamed through this series in the last three weeks, I would recommend planning in advance for how much time you might lose from everything else in your life while you frantically race through every book in it. Also, they are all available to download free here: http://baencd.freedoors.org/Discs/Baen%2024/index.htm

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that ending. There I was, bumbling through the book, enjoying it well enough but not so much I couldn't put it down if something came up. Then, without warning, it punched a hole in me, ripped all my internal organs out, threw them on the floor, and wandered off all unconcerned.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

YES THIS. Oh Aral.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

MILES FOR THE NEXT DOCTOR! Just a wee guest spot, maybe. Who would play him?

The friendship he makes with the kid in Cryoburn is very Doctor-ish. And you're right - the capriciousness, the mental agility, the dancing around at the edge of massive stakes...it's common to both of them, isn't it?

livredor recommended these books to me a couple of months ago and since I downloaded them they've formed about 60% of the non-fiction I've been reading. It makes me quite sad that there's only a couple left for me to read. I couldn't get 'Miles, Microbes and Thingy' to download properly, though, so if anyone hs a link to that that works, I'd be very grateful. Same for the first books - I haven't been able to download Cordelia's Honor and I'd really like to.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I don't know! Off the top of my head, I can't think of a short-and-very-charismatic actor who'd do the trick.

M'boy and I got the Cryoburn CD to upload off of - will this download (http://www.sendspace.com/file/yu26h9) work for you? And, oh, Cordelia's Honor, you're lucky to have that one left to read! Cordelia is just the most fabulous protagonist.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

Hello I am rereaading this many after the fact and thought I would leave a helpful comment in case anyone else comes back here again also.

Cordelia's Honour (http://baencd.freedoors.org/Books/Cordelias%20Honor/index.htm) works for me ifyou just get rid of the apostropher from the URL. Miles, Mutants and Microbes does download for me straight off so can't help there. I'm using Firefox 3.6 under Windows.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I got hold of it eventually.