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I have been browsing the LMBujold list.

Have discovered that some readers think

Gregor doesn't care all that about Miles (or that it's all tell-not-show in the books) because he doesn't haul him out of his woe-I-have-been-booted-from-the-military funks in WA and Memory

Ges and Serg weren't, well, I suppose 'lovers' is kind of inappropriate, but anyway

Donna/Dono isn't bi (and was all along)

Elli is more interesting a character and more worthy of Miles than Ekaterin is

I don't think there's anyone going with e) All of the above, but you never know.

(My responses in order: take a closer look at the plot of those two books, no-brainer, Countess Vormuir springs to my mind, and ok, did you get the Beijing editions?)

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I think Elli is more interesting than Ekaterin.

Really, why?

I think Ekaterin is interesting because she starts in a hole and gets to get out of it. While Elli is promoted, but she doesn't change that much. I mean, she's all right, but I don't love her the way I do Ekaterin.

Me too. Ekaterin gets to change much more than Elli, and I love the way she grows in Komarr. Though I am frustrated by the way she disappears in Diplomatic Immunity and we don't see her dealing with the Cetagandans and everyone else and with Miles being so ill.

I am also frustrated with DI. I got to the end and went 'But...but..where's the rest of it?'
I'm not sure which potential book I'd rather be able to read, the expanded DI or Warrior's Apprentice:The Home Front.

Okay, I know this is controversial.

coughingbear and I argue about this a lot.

I think Ekaterin is interesting-ish in Komarr. Nice woman, abusive situation. Probably what is most interesting is Miles's reaction to her and how it affects his investigating process, and believe me I Do Not Like saying that about a female character.

Even in that book, though, I don't find her character changes convincing. They're too sudden and dramatic.

IMO in ACC she has become the Mary Sue to end all Mary Sues. Everything she does is perfect. She redesigns the bugs, she solves the dowry problem. I want so much to love that book, because it's <>inter alia a hommage to Georgette Heyer, whom I adore. But the only way I can do it is by concentrating very hard on Mark and Kareen, and on the set pieces. (I do like her proposal. But even then, I'm not convinced.)

Elli is intrinsically more interesting to me because she's a much more difficult character. She's a mercenary. She behaves like a mercenary. (Sometimes that's horrifying - I can't stand her in EoA - but for me it's ultimately much more realistic.) She chooses her own life over being Miles's partner, which is always good in my world. She's not the most interesting character in the series, and I'm not always sure I like her, but she does a lot more for me than Ekaterin.

Hmmm, I find the bug designing a natural enough variation on the garden designing. She can do colours and shapes, it's not like she was redoing the genetics. And the dowries seem like part of her being on the woman's side of the Vor thing—she's got a vested interest in parental rights under Barrayar's legal system.

I'm basically saying that she's a real character and not a MS to me—not as much as Miles, certainly!

They're talking about the books onlist now?

Apparently, according to

commodorified they banned discussion of politics on list, so deprived of their regular fodder of discussing the merits of the Second Amendment and the Evils of Socialised Healthcare they had to cast around for new topics of discussion, and I suppose by the law of averages "the novels of Lois McMaster Bujold" would have to come up sooner or later.

*snurk* I know the NHS is the bureaucratic equivalent of a black hole, but shurly 'evil' is a bit strong?

Anyway, I was picking out the occasional on-topic discussion by Googling the names of the characters within the list archive, pausing every five seconds to go 'Why on earth can't they make an off-topic list?'

Well, not really. I was Googling the archives for anything I happened to find interesting.

Donna/Dono isn't bi (and was all along)

Is anyone arguing that s/he started out fancying men, but ended up considering the merits of women after sleeping with Ivan?

I actually like both Elli and Ekaterin, though I do think Elli's behaviour with regard to wedding presents was staggeringly tasteless. I think my slight preference for Ekaterin may be that I haven't actually met anyone who's had total facial reconstruction surgery, but I have met people who've been in relationships with the likes of Tien Vorsoisson.

Re Gregor and Miles, does it not occur to people that apart from when he's suddenly being caught on the exposed 'kidnapping small boys is not a good idea' nerve, Gregor is generally busy being an Emperor?

Re: Gregor and Miles, absolutely. Also, in Memory, as soon as a way becomes clear for Gregor to give Miles something useful and constructive (for both M & the Empire) to do, he takes it.

Yes, Miles should really have been court-martialled. Instead of which, he gets promoted :-P
But I can't see Gregor throwing Miles into a bath of ice-cubes. If G. had appeared at that both, iles would probably have died out of sheer avoidance. And after the dressing-down Gregor does do a sort of older-brotherly 'okay, you're tacitly forgiven; come and meet my girlfriend?' which is rather sweet.

Why do I not have a Gregor icon?

I'm trying to think now whether any of the covers have Gregor on.

None of mine do. That probably is why.

Is anyone arguing that s/he started out fancying men, but ended up considering the merits of women after sleeping with Ivan?

That was one of the few theories that I didn't see. I was just reading along about 3 years after the fact going, "Occam's Razor?"

Yeah, it would take quite a lot of cultural context to make the cat blanket acceptable (although, did they actually get round to doing it on the blanket or did Miles just think about it a lot?)

Re Gregor and Miles, does it not occur to people that apart from when he's suddenly being caught on the exposed 'kidnapping small boys is not a good idea' nerve, Gregor is generally busy being an Emperor?

Yeah, that's what he keeps Ivan for. Plus, by the time Miles fails the Academy entrance, Vordrozda has been working over Gregor for months according to Cordelia, which you can bet included detaching him from the Vorkosigans, and in Memory he's just given Miles the sack and is pretty cross with him. And he did ask him or lunch.

So were they seriously arguing that that line about Dono having an unfair advantage with women was just because he used to be one? Because I can't say that was how I read it, though my brain may have been unduly tuned to the Smut Channel by the naked-Roic-and-bug-butter scene.

I do hope the cat blankets were hypoallergenic. I threatened to make one out of Jellica this morning when I discovered she'd thrown up in my shoe. Fortunately it was a Croc and they're washable.

Some people were arguing that s/he got her sexuality rewired on Beta as well, or that s/he fancied whichever sex s/he wasn't at the time, or that Olivia's gay and it was a political marriage....

Bad Jellica! Last week Murphy got shut into the utility room and did the other on my shoes, sadly non-washable.

Even given that the Betans could rewire someone's sexuality, which I don't suppose is any more improbable than the existence of FTL drives, I'm not convinced that Donna would have passed the barrage of counselling and psychological tests that you probably have to go through beforehand.

Bad Murphy. Wasn't there a patch of utility room floor available?

I suspect he may have wanted to hide it under the shoe.

Actually, re the Elli v. Ekaterin thing, I was always waving a small sad torch for Miles / Taura.

Oh yes! I love Taura.

I can't help thinking that having a female mutant who could kick your arse from here to Vorkosigan Vashnoi without breaking a sweat as Lady Vorkosigan would have been very good for Barrayaran society in general, though I do see that it might have been a bit of a strain on Taura having to put up with Old Vor attitudes all the time.

Also, the prospect of hyperactive genius super-soldier babies might have made the Cetagandans worry that their breeding programme was being somehow sent up, and cause them to invade out of offended cultural pride.

*snerk*

Well, at least his _kids_ would be tall...

ROFLASC! Vote Taura for Lady Vorkosigan...Aral Alexander and Natalia Helen just don't enter the running against the possibility of hyperactive genius super-soldier babies (TM) ;D

Though their names do have more of a ring to them than Aral Test-Tube and Natalia We-Don't-Talk-About-That. ;)

*chokes, dies*

A.A. and H.N. have the genes of Miles and Ekaterin. They are bound to find joy in large explosions, novel devices bouncing off floors, innocent bystanders fleeing in all directions, and the Conservative Counts keeling over in horror :)

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