The disadvantage of authors adding to a series

[owl]

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.

Comments

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I bet he was sitting there quietly freaked out waiting for them to turn up.

Ooh, good point. Now there's a vignette begging to be written.

[owl]

Go on, you know you want to!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Gah, and there was I hoping you'd get nibbled by the plot-bunny! NaNo for me, right now!

[owl]

Well...I'll see :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I was reading your two ficathon stories again last week: I reread them very often and love them every time. Your dialogue is exceptionally good.

[owl]

Really? *blushes* I was tweaking them a little bit this week, thinking of fnally getting wround to putting them up on ff.net.

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?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Do you think I put in enough emotions and faces and stuff in the dialogue bits?

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.

[owl]

Well, that's a good thing seeing as it was your ficathon request. Sometimes ficathons are like Christmas, all you end up with is a pair of socks.

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.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Sometimes ficathons are like Christmas, all you end up with is a pair of socks.

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.

[owl]

Yes, and 25 is about 'Ooops, I'm meant to be an adult now? Oh, help...'

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?