(no subject)

[owl]

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?)

Comments

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

I think Elli is more interesting than Ekaterin.

[owl]

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.

[coughingbear]

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.

[owl]

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.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

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.

[owl]

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!