![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
The disadvantage of authors adding to a series
I was trying to read Mirror Dance the other day and failing—I can only read it from after Miles' death and even then it's hard going except for my favourite scenes (Gregor and Mark, Ivan crying in the garden, Miles going manic when he gets his memory back). Similarly I can't read the first few chapters of Memory, I have to start just after the scene in Illyan's office. Anyway, I was slogging away towards Aral's heart attack, and I started to wonder if the announced next Vorkosigan book is going to be the one in which LMB finally kills him off. Because on the scale of 'worst possible things' the only thing above Aral's death I can think of is Ekaterin or the twins being killed (or Miles, again, I suppose). Um. There's always Gregor being assassinated, I suppose, which would be almost as bad as Miles but would have worse consequences for Barrayar as a whole.
After that I couldn't read any of the books, not even the happier ones. The downside of an open canon. I mean, I like the thought of a Vorkosiverse story, but is it worth all the anxiety beforehand? Best case for me I suppose would be for the focus not to be on the Vorkosigans. Shame she finds Ivan so slippery to write, he's getting rather interesting of late. And I'd like to know what the rest of the Dendarii are getting up to.
After that I couldn't read any of the books, not even the happier ones. The downside of an open canon. I mean, I like the thought of a Vorkosiverse story, but is it worth all the anxiety beforehand? Best case for me I suppose would be for the focus not to be on the Vorkosigans. Shame she finds Ivan so slippery to write, he's getting rather interesting of late. And I'd like to know what the rest of the Dendarii are getting up to.
no subject
Fx
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I'm kind of sorry there's going to be a new book, actually, I really feel as if the story has ended, with them all alive and happy.
Yeah, I feel kind of the same. I don't think we'll be seeing Ivan Vorpatril's Divorce, though.
no subject
It's the thing most likely to press all his buttons, isn't it? "Can anyone tell me why Nikki thought he was being kidnapped against his mother's will?" Gregor is usually so hands-off, but if anything is going to make him throw the whole weight of the Imperium around, it's going to be that. I hope it exorcised any lingering demons. God, LMB really is clever!
I have nothing to base this on, but I have a feeling the publishers want a new Vorkosigan book when the author would rather be doing other things.
no subject
I have nothing to base this on, but I have a feeling the publishers want a new Vorkosigan book when the author would rather be doing other things.
I got that feeling about DI.
no subject
Ooh, good point. Now there's a vignette begging to be written.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I can do dialogue all day long, it's just plot I'm not so good at. Do you think I put in enough emotions and faces and stuff in the dialogue bits? I see where the characters are and what they look like very clearly, but them they just talk and talk and don't do anything else while they're talking. BTW, was it you that said s/he didn't like the Cordelia + Gregor part as well as Aral + Gregor?
no subject
Hmm, I'm probably not the best person to ask as I tend to write the same way: lots of dialogue, less in the way of description. I definitely had a strong sense of people's emotions and so on; anyway, I tend to supply that myself and find too much description intrudes on how I'm imagining the scene.
BTW, was it you that said s/he didn't like the Cordelia + Gregor part as well as Aral + Gregor?
Not me, I adored them both.
no subject
The plot bunny about Gregor reacting to Nikki's com call....Gregor is being very communicative about what he thinks about Richars and Byerly's inept plot and his opinions of half the Council of Counts, and cheering on Ekaterin (whom he likes very much even before she becomes his cousin-in-law), but I'm having a little difficulty in getting his 35-year-old voice.
no subject
Well, I definitely got proper Christmas, turkey and all the trimmings, and great satisfaction and contentment at the end :-)
I'm having a little difficulty in getting his 35-year-old voice
Well, speaking as a 35 year old...(!) I think being this age is all about still feeling young, while starting to enjoy the perspective that comes from experience. In terms that might be significant for Gregor: perhaps the pleasure of realizing that he has stopped performing or faking being "the Emperor" and has finally become it? And in a way that hasn't, in the end, cost him himself.
no subject
I think it's interesting the change in Gregor between Vor Game and Mirror Dance. Miles says that when VG!Gregor is't being Emperor, he 'hardly seems anyone at all'. By the time of MD, the Emperor persona has far more blood in it—and intelligence and compassion—than in VG, and the bits that you can see of Gregor behind it are much stronger too. So Gregor/Emperor seem to feed off each other, instead of competing like Lord Vorkosigan/Admiral Naismith. Hmm. Perhaps Mark isn't the only person who can identify with Miles' two personalities. I wonder how what Gregor does with 'the Emperor' affects his opinion on Admiral Naismith?
no subject
I do dread Aral's death. But I would like to see more of Sergyar and him and Cordelia there, and I am hoping that (as has happened before) Bujold thinks of something else entirely to do to people. If there is more Mark and Ivan I will also be pretty happy. But I was surprised when she said there'd be another one as I thought she'd fairly much finished with Miles.
no subject
I d think that Miles has about reached the end o his story. Ekaterin might be good for a bit more (I really missed her PoV in DI), but focusing on someone else in the extened family would be nice.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject